About ColorMyMath

The story behind ColorMyMath

ColorMyMath was created by Ted Hughes — an engineer (B.S., University of Illinois, 1987) who went back to school to study mathematics and mathematics education, with graduate coursework in teaching. He has spent nearly 20 years on a single idea: children understand numbers far better when they can see and feel them, in color.

Instead of pushing abstract symbols on a young mind, ColorMyMath shows every number as a quantity you can actually see — colored dots and shapes, each number with its own color. Ted built and proved it with real students, from toddlers tapping counting apps to 8th-graders who learned every square from 1×1 all the way to 25×25. It works because it's simple and beautiful — in Einstein's words, “as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

From the classroom to your closet

Here's the fun part: in ColorMyMath, every number has a color — so every date does too. That's where these shirts come from. Your birthday, your anniversary, the day you met someone — it's a number, and it has a color. We put it on a shirt so you can wear your day.

Made just for you

Each item is printed to order through our trusted print partner, so your design is made fresh when you order — no warehouse of leftovers, just the shirt you actually wanted.

Real people

ColorMyMath is run by Ted Hughes (operated by Project Anywhere) in DeKalb, Illinois — an engineer and lifelong math educator. Questions, a custom request, or a problem with an order? Email ColorMyMath@gmail.com — a real person will answer.

Find your day. Wear your color. 🎨