Iowish t-shirts
Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 10:50PM 
Last year I made my first purchase from what was then SMASH when I picked up the "Kiss me I'm Iowish" t-shirt for my wife for our anniversary on March 12. I thought it was a fun gift since we were married in Ireland and all. The only problem was that she was too pregnant at the time to wear it (she did wear it home from the hospital after the baby was born in June).
I was excited to see that SMASH, now called Raygun, is selling the same shirts this year. However, they aren't the only ones. I was horrified tonight when I stopped into HyVee and saw this monstrosity:
Now, it's not so much that it's ugly (which is certainly is) or that it's Hawkeye (which actually makes me chuckle) but I was most disappointed in the fact that they blatantly copied the idea from SMASH/Raygun.
Or did they? I googled "Kiss me I'm Iowish" and found this lady in Southeast Iowa who claims to have invented (and trademarked) both the word "Iowish" and the phrase in question. Uh oh.
Geoff Wood
Apparently, the lady in Creston made a call to the Register recently.
Reader Comments (2)
what's up Geoff ..... it's mike from RAYGUN (SMASH) .... Lauri ("the lady") does have the trademark on the Kiss Me I'm Iowish, and we are actually the only store licensed through her to sell our own (probably because of our good looks).
the "iowish" idea came to us from someone else, so we didn't really know about Lauri when we started making them, but have since gotten street legal with her.
the same can't be said for the Walgreens/Hy-Vee iowish shirts, made out of Cedar Rapids. currently, Lauri's attorney has contacted them to discuss them not paying her for the idea. they say that the the "hawkeye" is an "a", so it's actually "iowaish".
anyhoo, that's the whole story to date, thanks a lot for posting about us.
mike
Hey Mike, thanks for the comment and for the back story/information. I was pretty bummed when I saw the HyVee shirt (running with your idea and all) but great to know that you and Lauri are working in concert.
As with most of your designs, I love the "Iowish" shirt. Speaking of your designs, I'll proudly where my new "Des Moines - Greatest City in the World" shirt in Austin at SXSW this weekend.