Our Story

BabbleTees began five years ago after our collective interests in Fine Art, Graphic Design, industrial processes, and computer technology came together into the overgrown arts & crafts project that is our t-shirt company - BabbleTees. Since then we’ve built a large collection of creative, quirky, witty and unique t-shirts that are designed, produced and managed by three friends (scroll down to check out our bios) in North-Central Illinois. Every design that we stock is produced by hand in our fully rehabbed former mid-20th Century bank building with love, copious amounts of caffeine and help from our magical woodland friends.

We started selling shirts on eBay five years ago, carving out our own niche amongst the vast sea of predictable t-shirt shops on eBay and the Internet. BabbleTees pioneered the ‘science-geek-chic’ look and has sold thousands (and counting!) of shirts to fellow t-shirt connoisseurs across the country and to every party of the world. We love our customers and want to provide them with an AWESOME customer service experience so that they go happily babbling to everyone about our idiosyncratic and addictive BabbleTees.

Design

Most of the graphic t-shirts on our site are designed by our sister company - Isotope Shirts. Maps, scientific illustrations, diagrams, vintage schematics, all things transit, foreign languages, geometric shapes and asymmetric forms inspire most of their designs. Isotope Shirts is constantly pushing the artistic limits of screen-print and amalgamating new forms into wearable art.

We have t-shirts for any taste! Along with elaborate multi-colored and large-format prints, BabbleTees balances our selection with simple graphic & minimal prints. These designs are an often-welcome break from the hyperactive and visually loud ‘bling-bling’ artwork designs coming from the mainstream. Less can be so much more when it comes to fashion! Stand out of the crowd by wearing some of our minimal designs. We’ve also resurrected a few defunct and esoteric pop-culture icons to add to our vast selection of shirt options.

Charity & the Environment

BabbleTees loves helping others and our environment. We proudly participate in eBay’s Giving Works Charity program, which donates $5 of the shirt cost to a great charitable cause. Not only will you get some good karma from purchasing a shirt from our Charity collection, you’ll get a beautiful t-shirt produced by caring people that showcase the cause. We only use soy-based chemicals in our shop and recycle 85% of all production waste and 100% of all office materials. We love our environment and practice sustainable practices whenever possible.

General

We’ve tried to make navigating our eBay store as easy as possible. Simply click on the BabbleTees logo to bring you back to our homepage where you can view every design by scrolling down, or search by size! All t-shirts are available in unisex Small, Medium, Large, XL, and XXL along with select designs in Ladies garments (a detailed sizing chart is available in all our listings as well as our Polices page). Please contact us if you cannot find what you’re looking for and we’ll gladly help you. A detailed sizing chart is available in all of our listings as well as our Polices page.

Check out our Polices page to get general information about order processing times, shipping & handling concerns, returns & exchanges, sizing information, bulk orders or any other questions you may have about our shirts. BabbleTees has amazing customer service and we will facilitate whatever it takes to give our customers a great experience. Feel free to contact us about anything. We love to babble!

Thanks for visiting BabbleTees!

Josh started out pursuing Fine Art, but the universe led him to Graphic Design as he found it the perfect way to mass-produce art for the masses. He returned to the Hinterlands of Illinois to start BabbleTees after being suffocated in Chicago-land’s claustrophobic vortex of hyper consumerism. He enjoys Science Fiction, hiking, SimCity 4, and designing t-shirts. Josh loves playing with visual texture, contrasting forms, and analogous color schemes in his quirky, yet minimal designs. His enigmatic dreams, fascination with infrastructure & industry, all things European, introverted daydream meanderings, and crafty childhood memories influence his signature garment graphics.

He is responsible for running the art department and corralling everyone into a cohesive, highly creative, and somewhat dysfunctional company. E-mail him at josh@babbletees.com with any questions/comments about our designs or to babble about politics, deep thoughts and tabby cats.

Josh’s favorite BabbleTees are Sparen Nederlands, Geometric Wave, Nuke-Nuke, and würfel baurenhof.

Josh

Crystal heard the calling to be our master-blaster screen-printing ninja after picking up her first squeegee a few years ago. Her natural Arts & Crafts ability and obsessive-compulsive tendencies for perfection assure that all BabbleTees come out looking fantabulous. When she isn’t mixing ink, getting over-caffeinated, debating with the art department, or checking shirt temperatures she enjoys taking pictures, canoeing, camping, and hording companion animals.

Crystal manages every aspect of BabbleTees’s in-house screen-print production department. E-mail her at crystal@babbletees.com any questions you may have about our production processes or just to have silly coffee talk about her many conspiracy theories.

Crystal’s favorite BabbleTees are Organs, Kill Robot, and our Wolf charity design.

Katie has always had a strong interest in Art, especially screen-print, and enjoys balancing her many operational duties with occasional jaunts into the art department to brainstorm witty sayings and choose ink colors. She loves anything to do with sci-fi and fantasy, World of Warcraft, and sinking into a good book with a cup of coffee.

Katie is responsible for managing our warehouse, order fulfillment, customer service, and general office operations. She will be your main contact when corresponding with us via e-mail, eBay messages, or telephone. E-mail her at katie@babbletees.com with any questions you may have about our business or to babble about Harry Potter.

Katie’s favorite BabbleTees are Milky Way – Russian Space Program and two of our Charity designs – Cat and Lemur.