Mediocre Souvenir Co makes honest tourism merchandise for places that don’t get much of it.
The idea started with a t-shirt from a small town in western Ontario. It was a nice shirt — but the design was trying very hard, and the town, honestly, was not that exciting. The mismatch felt worth exploring. Most tourism merch behaves like it’s talking a great place up to a tourist who has never heard of it. What if a shirt could just… acknowledge the town?
So we started printing shirts that treated each city, each state, each province with the mild affection it probably deserves — no more, no less. “Greetings from Toledo, Ohio” is a factual claim. “I Heart Springfield, Illinois” is a decision the wearer is making. “Varsity Middle Tennessee” is not a school. None of these are ironic, exactly. They’re just honest.
Every shirt is printed to order on Comfort Colors 1717 blanks — garment-dyed, sturdy cotton in muted colors that are supposed to look faded. If your shirt looks like it’s been in a drawer for a year when it arrives, that is by design.
We’re based in Ontario. Our printer is elsewhere. Everyone we’ve hired so far is either family or a friend we owed one.
If you have thoughts, corrections, or a town you’d like to see added, our email address is at the bottom of every page.