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CONTEMPL8 T-SHIRTS is an independent, consciencious, socially responsible and eco-friendly printer of t-shirts. CONTEMPL8 T-SHIRTS prints custom t-shirts and other clothing items for businesses, bands, schools, teams, activists, political candidates, student groups and others. CONTEMPL8 T-SHIRTS prints exclusively using water-based ink (an alternative to the carcinogenic PVC-based plastisol ink which is used by most screen printers).

Christopher, founder of CONTEMPL8 T-SHIRTS, began printing t-shirts with political ideas on them in 2001 just after graduating with an undergraduate degree in political science. He also began printing shirts for other activists and businesses at modest pricing almost immediately thereafter.

Christopher became a media activist in the year 2000 and worked with local alternative media outlets covering events and stories not being covered by mainstream publications. Volunteering with third party candidates helped open Christopher's eyes to problems with the mainstream media. Media bias against third party candidates who challenge the two party system goes a long way toward making such candidates "unelectable". Conveniently, after the mainstream media ignores or maligns these candidates to death, they then dub them unelectable.

Later in 2000, Christopher put on a film screening of the ground breaking documentary about the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization titled "This is What Democracy Looks Like" at the Bell Auditorium. The film deals with, among other things, the inaccurate and/or limited mainstream media coverage of the WTO protests. Most mainstream media went out of their way to justify the heavy handed, disproportionate actions of police at the WTO protests. Proceeds of the sold out screening were donated to the Twin Cities Independent Media Center (TC-IMC) to be used for starting an alternative newspaper. Christopher volunteered with the TC-IMC from 2000 to late 2003. He was also a cofounder of the Counter Propaganda Coalition (CPC), a media activism group which was spawned by a protest on October 30, 2002 at the offices of the Star Tribune. The paper was targeted for protest because of its horrible coverage, just days earlier, of the first big protest (over ten thousand protestors participated) in Minnesota against the then impending war in Iraq.

In September of 2001, Christopher began designing and screen printing original political t-shirts. He initiated this counter propaganda t-shirt project in response to the blitzkrieg of racist, pro-war propaganda that hit the United States just after the September 11th attacks. The collective psyche of America was throbbing with the pain of loss and plastered with propaganda. Flag manufacturers were in 24 hour production mode, attacks against Muslims were rampant, and nationalist blather was on everything from television screens, bumper stickers, bus shelters and billboards to gas station signs, church bulletins and urinal screens. Suddenly, it wasn't enough to just yell at the television in defiance of lies, distortion and misinformation. Christopher was compelled to find an outlet of expression to help counter the propaganda being spread so thick. He chose t-shirts.

Simply put, wearing your point of view on your chest may be the easiest, most practical and legal way to express your opinions to people outside of the choir who often shun activists handing out flyers. Christopher's controversial t-shirts such as "Will Kill for Oil" (featured in Milton Glaser's 2005 book titled "The Design of Dissent") are a radically different take on current events than what you get from the mainstream media. He created twenty-six different t-shirt designs which address issues like racism, war and peace, civil liberties, media reform, and more.

Christopher has sold his t-shirts at organized events like the Powderhorn Art Fair in Minneapolis (where he received the Spirit of the Powderhorn Community Award in 2005), and guerilla-style at many events such as street protests locally and nationally.