Tuesday, February 09, 2010 by Adrian

At first it sounded like the wishful thinking of an imaginative Sci-Fi writer, but Ouno delved deeper to find out about this amazing design development - a company producing wearable magazine covers has gone one step further and introduced a T-shirt that uses augmented reality to comment on the future of higher education.

First, to find out more about T-Post's concept of a wearable magazine we went to their site www.t-post.se/. Just like a magazine subscription, every six weeks, for 19 Euros a T-shirt, subscribers receive a new t-shirt in the post. An off-beat news story is printed on the inside back of the T-shirt, and an interpretation of the story by a graphic artist is printed on the front - the cover. According to T-Post it's an "All-around conversation piece".

There are currently subscribers from over 50 countries world-wide and each American Apparel supplied organic cotton T-shirt is a limited edition; one T-shirt per subscriber, with no extras made or sold in-store.

Started in 2004 as an underground phenomenon amongst friends, T-Post suggest their philosophy based on conversation and a movement "a communication experiment that typically begins with a compliment like "Nice t-shirt" and continues with the wearer explaining the interesting news story behind the design."

Up until now, the fifty issues had looked at news topics as varied as the Parisian Riots; the economic benefits of the death penalty and the dentist, all with related cover designs. As of last week, subscribers to T-post are now able to wear their latest t-shirt issue in front of any web camera and play a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors against a computer-generated arm that extends from the shirt itself.

It's the creation of Swedish designer Marc Stromberg whose interpretation of headlines about colleges offering courses in Underwater Basket Weaving and Marijuana Horticulture to name a few, inspired him to mix augmented reality with fashion - and the old school game of Rock, Paper, Scissors -  to give us a glimpse of future courses to come

"Who knows, perhaps a course in the game Rock, Paper, Scissors could come in handy when negotiating big business contracts" the site ponders. To see for yourself how it works, have a look at their video.

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