What this is

Uncovering.Us makes tee shirts out of sentences.

Eight of them, so far. Each one is set in type, printed small, and placed where it will be read at the distance of a conversation rather than across a room. No graphics, no logos, nothing on the back. The restraint is the design: a shirt legible from fifty feet is making a statement, and a shirt you have to step closer to read is making an offer.

Two registers

Close Enough to Read is what one person says to another. Set in lowercase Archivo, two and a half to five inches wide, high on the chest.

  • I see you
  • You're adorable
  • You belong here
  • I hope you're having a good time

Things Worth Keeping is addressed to a way of living rather than to a person. Set in EB Garamond small capitals between two rules, eight inches wide and centered — an inscription rather than a slogan.

  • Stop fighting
  • Be kind, tell the truth, have fun
  • Your story can change lives
  • Be uncomfortable

There is no third register in all capitals, and there won't be. We are not yelling at anyone. The hope is that somebody reads one of these and thinks is that for me? — not don't tell me what to do.

How they are made

  • Crew necks. AS Colour 5001T, 100% combed cotton, 5.3 oz/yd² (180 gsm) — midweight, neither sheer nor heavy. Pre-shrunk, regular fit, side-seamed. Bone, Natural, Black and Navy, XS–3XL.
  • V-necks. Bella+Canvas 3005, 100% combed and ring-spun cotton, 4.2 oz/yd² (142 gsm) — lighter, with more drape. Athletic Heather, White, Black and Navy, S–2XL, plus XS in Navy.
  • Printed direct-to-garment, one shirt at a time, in the United States. Pale shirts take a near-black ink; the dark ones take bone.

What we decided early

One price in every size. $36, XS through 3XL. The conventional move is to upcharge extended sizes to protect margin. A shirt that says you belong here cannot in good conscience charge more for a bigger body, so the price absorbs the difference instead. Any two shirts are $66.

Nothing printed in advance. Every shirt is made after you order it. Nothing sits in a warehouse waiting to be marked down or thrown away.

Shipping is in the price. Free within the United States, which is the only place we ship at the moment.

Where the phrases come from

Most started as something somebody needed to hear on a hard day. A few come out of rooms where people practice telling each other the truth — stop fighting in particular, which is not surrender as defeat but surrender as the way through. You stop wrestling what is already true and find there was never anything holding you but the grip.

New phrases get added when they earn it. If you have one, tell us.

Questions

Write to hello@uncovering.us. A person answers.