When the furnace dies in January in an Ohio town of 40,000, the tenant has a problem that is both physical and procedural. The physical problem is obvious: no heat, pipes at risk, a landlord who may or may not answer the phone. The procedural problem is less obvious and more dangerous. In Ohio, a…

The shirt shows four letters and a period. That is the whole design: meh. in large, bold, white lowercase type on a dark ground. No illustration, no second line, no decorative frame. The word is dismissive; the lettering is not. That mismatch is the first thing to notice, and it is the argument the shirt…

The shirt reads LET’S ROOT FOR EACH OTHER AND WATCH EACH OTHER GROW, and the words wrap around four smiling root vegetables — a carrot, a radish, a beet, and an onion — each with its roots drawn down into visible soil. The pun is doing two jobs at once. Root for means to cheer…

The shirt says NOT FRIENDLY DO NOT TOUCH in the flat, capitalized lettering of a municipal warning sign. Above the words sits a yellow caution triangle. Inside the triangle, a hand is crossed out with a diagonal bar. The design is not subtle. It is not trying to be. It borrows the visual grammar of…

Two circles sit on the shirt, and only one of them is real. The other is a dashed outline, an empty ring at the upper left ledge of a curved white ramp. The solid ball rests at the bottom right, on the flat. Above both, in white capitals: I HAD POTENTIAL. That is the whole…