New week, new shirts at Design By Humans. This is Still Life by ste7en, my favorite of the bunch. It's a lot of fun and the celebrity likenesses are dead-on, especially cherry Che, which cracks me up. The bright pop-art colors help make this one a must-have.
Chariots Retired by ianleino is a really clever concept. It definitely sparks the imagination to picture a distant parking lot where all the outdated eighties entertainment vehicles are housed. The vintage water-based print completes the concept nicely.
dwgagner's The Adventure is a cool vintage look. It inspired some controversy in the comments due to some borrowing from some materials exhibited at the Air and Space Museum. I have no real opinion in either direction- I don't think it's necessarily wrong to expand on the work of others in this way, but I do think I probably would have been more interested if it was less faithful to the original. As is, it doesn't catch my interest much.
keithmore's There's Nowhere to Hide is a well-drawn expression of paranoia that takes full advantage of the shirt's length. In the final product, though, it's not quite my cup of tea- I preferred the front and back placement, which I think leaves some mystery about the surveillance (it might seem at first that the satellite is benign or that the man is paranoid, but once you see both sides you have a fuller experience of the theme). It's quality either way I guess, but I'm much less likely to actually purchase this version.
Chaos Came From the Ocean by steven is really amazing- I love all the creatures spouting from the two hands. I also love that the robot is dressed in a pimpish manner for no apparent reason and that his speech bubbles leave no doubt about his intentions. It's a really great shirt, is what I'm saying. Definitely click on the original submission link while you're there, because the design improves when you see it close up (I wish close up views were available for all the shirts).
Overall, a pretty good week. Three of the five are shirts that I'd consider buying, which is some very good odds. Also impressive: DBH's Shirt of the Week is Rapelling Gang, my favorite shirt of last week. Excellent choice!
A poster at the always-helpful T-ShirtForums.com has posted a huge list of helpful t-shirt design links. It includes places to find fonts, free vector imagery, stock images and more.
As always, if you plan to use any of the linked materials in a commercial design, read the agreement very carefully- not all resources are legal for commercial use.
The Iron and Wine Loves Threadless competition ended recently, and I was really glad. For me, this was probably the weakest theme I've seen in a Threadless contest (shirts were supposed to be based on the song Boy With a Coin), and it was definitely reflected in the designs that were submitted. But there was still some good work to be found, so here are my top three:
Radiomode's Answer Is looks great- it's an attractive scene with some decorative flourishes and a kickin color palette. The various elements work to reard the viewer for taking a closer look- the cord of the phone loops through the skull and the bird tweets politely into the tin can.
Boy in the Weeds by stor is flat-out neat, and I fully expect it to be printed (whether as a contest winner or not I cannot say). The weeds are rendered in a way that is both organic and mechanical- despite their precision, they almost seem to sway in the breeze.
JoesephWilliamDesign's A Beard of Waves is gorgeous. The beardiness compliments the band that this contest is for, and the character work is excellent. There is also a neat intertwining of styles between the linework in the beard, the halftoning of the skin and the floral pattern in the background.
There were other great shirts as well, but those three were far and away my favorites. It was a tough competition for me as a voter- I somehow managed to avoid giving a five to any of the entries in this one. Ouch! In my limited defense, I did give out plenty of fours. But still, it was definitely not a favorite theme for me.
The Implied Form T-Shirt Competition is a joint venture between Chixink (a t-shirt store) and Pink Ghost (a store specializing in vinyl toys). The goal is for designers to create a two-color vector file for a shirt design that has the style of both companies.
The winner will get a copy of their winning shirt, $50 Pink Ghost gift certificate, 10 buttons/badges of the winning design, a matted print of the design and a whole mess of notoriety (including including website links from Chixink, Pink Ghost and Implied Form).
If you're interested in this contest, submit your work before October 20th, 2007.
Shirt.Woot's 9th Derby will begin tomorrow at noon, with the theme City Without Words. Woot has a couple of limitations for submissions: no words or letters of any kind can be used, and no previously entered designs can be used.
Here's how the Derby works: Participants can enter their designs any time from Friday at noon until Wednesday at noon. Early submitters have an advantage, because voting is continuous from Friday at noon until Thursday at noon.
Each week, the top three designs (according to Woot member voting) are printed and sold that weekend. There's been a substantial prize increase, so winners (and those who submit non-derby work directly to Woot) are now set to receive $250 if their shirt sells up to 500 units or a whopping $500 if their shirt sells 501 or more units. The sum of $2 per shirt remains for all shirts sold after the first day, as well, so designers could be looking at quite a windfall.
Design By Humans has redesigned their site, and it is awesome. In addition to a simplified voting system (there's now only the choice to vote for a print, rather than the previous yes-maybe-no options), the new site offers some cool rankings (you can see which designs have received the most votes that day, and which shirts are selling the most copies). You can also see exactly how many votes a design has received, which is very neat.
Design By Humans is an on-going t-shirt design competition, offering prizes for Shirt of the Day, Shirt of the Week and Shirt of the month. Designers can earn up to $3500 (plus residuals). If you enter, be sure to read up on DBH's selection of printing techniques- they can enhance your work with treatments like high density ink, gel, and embroidery.
Until September 30th, 2007, daily t-shirt site Uneetee will be offering free shipping on all the shirts in the Uneetee collection. There are definitely some gems to be had, such as Edno Jr.'s Dream of the Flying Geisha and Loy's Traffic Jam.
US and Canadian customers get free shipping, and international orders will only have to pay half the usual shipping charges. Either way, it's a pretty good deal- especially since shipping charges at Uneetee are typically pretty high.
While you're at Uneetee, you might want to vote on the September finalists for the $1500 design contest. Or, enter your own work in next month's competition.
Teetonic, the on-going Scottish t-shirt design competition, has a new contest. The UK band Wet Wet Wet is releasing their first new material in a decade, and they've turned to Teetonic to design them an official tour shirt.
The winner gets tickets to a show, a meeting with the band backstage, a framed t-shirt signed by the band, £100 in teetonic.com vouchers and 5 tees of your design. Even non-winners have a chance at taking home something for their efforts- all entrants are entered in a drawing for £100 of Teetonic shirts.
Submit your work before October 8th, 2007 for a chance to win.
Ferraby Lionheart Loves Threadless. And if you're like me, you have never heard of this dude. It turns out that he's a musician with a song titled Small Planet. That song is the theme of this contest, so design your shirts accordingly. I'm a little skeptical on this one- I think the recent Iron & Wine competition proved that a lot of people aren't actually taking the time to listen to the song, they're just reading the title. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Anyway, the prize is totally boss: the winner gets a custom Epiphone Les Paul Jr. guitar with their design on it! There's also a Ferraby Lionheart CD, poster and EP in the mix, plus the customary Threadless prize of $2000 cash and a $500 Threadless gift certificate.
Enter before October 24th, 2007 to be eligible for the prize.
This week's Select, A Tall Tale, is also my favorite of the new shirt batch at Threadless this week. Artist Chris Thornley (Raid71) has crafted a really charming scene that makes expert use of his drawing style. The dashed markings imply motion and transparency on the ghostly creature, volume and light on the cat, texture on the bird and shadow on the ground. Definitely a great piece.
Ping Pong Championships of '82 by Michael B. Myers, Jr. has a seriously sweet concept- a ping pong pro goes up against the video game Pong paddle. The bright pink and green colors give this one the feeling of a vivid dream, and the shadow work is really nicely done.
Ryan Lin's Northern Ice Pilot has some really nice line work, it expresses dimension and light perfectly. I especially love the way the clouds are rendered. According to the blogs, there may also be some Final Fantasy references in this one- I can't verify that, because while I am a huge video game dork I've only played Final Fantasy 10 (and... not well).
I usually hate shirts that call out the organs like this. They tend to strike me as obvious, and kind of gross. But Treasure Map by Noor Azman Mohd Zain (Jemae) is a huge exception to what I thought was an iron-clad rule. The organs are abstract enough to be visually pleasing and the treatment of the map feels completely authentic. Even a shirt color that I usually dislike is used here to great effect.
Matheus Lopes Castro's La Gran Reunion is another shirt that makes me like a shirt color that I never go for. The pinks and warm browns in this design actually manage to make a natural shirt look good. The concept is also a lot of fun: the image shows a reunion of gentlemen, with the stereotypes that they portray graffiti'd over their images.
Eric Pacenta's Life on Gi'raph Paper is the shirt this week that I'm just not so crazy about. It's well done, don't get me wrong, but the whole composition just feels so cutesy. Still, it's cool to see something that looks so different from the rest of the catalog being printed.
It has now been 273 days since Sink Yourself by Charley Schrader (fat pigeon) finished scoring. It is pretty rare to see a shirt printed after so much time, and I'm really glad that they took another look at this one. My second favorite of the week, there's a lot to like about this design- some great texture in the sweater and boat, nice character work on the storm cloud, and a touch of humor in the lightning-paddle and the storming speech bubble.
The reprints this week are fun, but my general wish for some color variation for reprints still stands. I just think it would be cool if each printing of a shirt had a distinct look to it. And for slogans the type treatment could easily vary from printing to printing- it might even be cool to assign reprint slogans to alumni and have them work out a new look for the slogan.
Overall, though, it's a nice bunch of shirts. Two of them are shirts that I'm highly likely to buy, and most of the rest are ones that I'd wear. There's also a nice variety in style and content.
The Allmightys Once Upon a Time competition has entered voting, which will continue until October 8th, 2007. There are some gems in the running, such as The King Is Dead by YONIL (which is a vintage shirt from an alternate fairy tale dimension) and Vile Stories by Puzon (a great composition of monsters with some nice half-toning).
As with all Allmightys contests, t-shirt designers earn commissions based on the sales of their shirts. Gold winners get 2 euros per shirt, silver gets 1.50 euros, and bronze and special selection designs get 1 euro.
This might be my favorite week of shirts so far at Design By Humans. I had three major contenders for my favorite of the week, but in the end I had to go with Rappelling Gang by hagithash. I love the style on these characters, and the addition of the frayed rope embroidery on the back is amazing. Completely charming and totally unique.
danr's Seed was another favorite of mine this week. It takes two common t-shirt elements (the hand and the tree) and combines them into an iconic image. It's beautiful, and the strong visuals have a lot of power to them- this shirt could easily be a message about environmental issues as well. Add in the off-kilter blue color palette, and this shirt is a must-buy for me.
Our World by LoftySofty is a cool concept: it depicts children drawing a chalk cityscape on the pavement. The contrast of the styles used on the children and the drawings is very expressive and fun. While I would have preferred a lighter grey shirt like the one this design was submitted with, this still looks pretty awesome.
RecycledWax's Music is bold and fun. The color palette of pink, blue and white is fresh and suits the artist's cartooning quite well. There's also some nice contrast between the drawing and the background, which I think helps to sell the theme even more.
Luchador Mask Rejects by eskimokiss is awesome. Just flat out awesome. Each mask is amusing on its own, and as a group they're incredible (favorites of mine include Che and the hockey mask). As if the shirt weren't cool enough already, this thing freaking glows in the dark. AWESOME. Do I even need to say that this was another contender for my favorite this week?
Overall this was a great group of shirts. There's not a single one that I dislike, which is quick a feat. Also, congratulations are in order for artist iotadial: his shirt Silk Moth Soliloquy was named Design By Humans Shirt of the Week!
Design By Humans is an on-going t-shirt design competition, printing a new shirt every weekday. Prizes are available for Shirt of the Day ($500 cash and $250 credit), Shirt of the Week ($1000 cash) and Shirt of the Month ($1500 cash and $250 credit). Additional bonuses are available to artists whose shirts sell a lot of copies. Designers should bear in mind that DBH offers a selection of printing options including foil, gel and discharge effects.
Slogan writers whose work is printed by Threadless will now earn $200 cash and $100 in store credit. Additionally, reprints will earn writers an extra $100.
Sloganeers have long campaigned for a prize increase, and it's definitely good to see that Threadless is listening.
Karmaloop has hopped on the t-shirt design competition bandwagon, and is currently offering $3000 for the best submitted design ($2000 cash and $1000 Karmaloop gift certificate). Five runners up will also have their work printed, with a prize of $200 cash and $300 Karmaloop gift certificate each.
Winners will be chosen on October 19th, 2007. To see what others have entered so far, click here.
(via Hide Your Arms)
The image above is not related to the Derby. It was today's designer-created shirt on Shirt.Woot, and I love it. Regular t-shirt design competition fans probably recognize the style- it was created by Nicolas Marcon (Monsieur Pimpant), one of the most original and unique artists in the t-shirt contest game. If you've seen Pimpant shirts for sale anywhere else, let me know. I love this guy's style!
Anyway, on to the Derby: The theme is Summer into Fall, and they're looking for designs that express the changing of the seasons. If you've got a shirt concept, submit it before Wednesday at noon. Community members will vote and the top three favorites will be printed next weekend. Winners get $200, plus an additional $2 per shirt ordered after the first day of sales.
As always, professional designers can submit any kind of t-shirt work to Shirt.Woot at any time and bypass the Derby entirely. If printed, they'll receive $200 and an extra $2 per shirt ordered after the first day.
Derby fans, take note: the Derby blog Best Losers has an interview up with Annie22, a two-time Derby winner. Check it out to learn more about her design process, and to hear the advice she has for Derby entrants.
Uneetee's monthly contest recently upped the prize to $1500, and several of September's top twenty contenders are more than worthy winning it. My favorites of this batch have got to be Dina Prasetyawan's Proof of Childhood and Budi Satria Kwan's Redux. They're both clever, well-realized designs that look fantastic on a shirt.
As always at Uneetee, the voting population is still kind of small. That means that some artists are able to swing the results in their favor by getting everyone they know to vote- and it also means that it's very important for everyone who wants the best shirts to win out to make their voice heard by voting.
Uneetee's contests are a monthly affair, so they are currently accepting designs for next month's competition. Submit now for your chance at the next $1500 prize.
The 33 1/3 Loves Threadless contest deadline has passed, so it's time to take a look at a few of the top contenders.
The Ash Grove We Come to Be by thepaul is one of the most expressive textural pieces I've seen on Threadless. The woman's face holds a lot of power, and as the eye is drawn in the viewer is rewarded with a cacophony of smooth tan and gold line. The well-chosen tee placement only enhances an already amazing work.
Zero BPM by ejay is dark and whimsical at the same time. Death listens to his favorite sound, while wearing bunny slippers of course. Every detail is perfectly imagined, with subtle touches like the texture on the scythe handle raising the bar even further.
nes-k's Natural Music is probably the most fun grey design I've ever seen. Playful and clean, a figure chooses the bird he'd like to hear by tugging a vine. The restraint of the artist increased the imaginative appeal of this piece.
While those are undoubtedly my top three, there were many excellent submissions to this competition. In scoring, I awarded seven designs with a 5 (four of which were $5). Another nine received a 4.
GorillaTank is a t-shirt design contest that has recently impressed me by printing work like Superfly and PB & Jelly Wrestling. But since they're a new company, they haven't had time to come up with a t-shirt label yet.
And that's where you come in: GorillaTank is currently holding a competition to create a label. Designs should be one-color and no larger than 2x4 inches.
Submit before October 17th, 2007 for a chance at the 692 pounds cash prize.
It's a nice, varied week at Threadless. First up is my favorite of this bunch, X-Ray by Michael Temim. It's true that there are a lot of shirts in this world with anatomical references, but the style exhibited here sets it apart from the pack. The contrast of the rib drawing and the silhouettes is really fantastic, and the little dog adds a punch of humor to the composition.
Jon Barthell's The Magical Zipper to Weiner Man Land is flat out weird. And I love it. The cartooning is well-done, and the use of the zipper (which a weiner man interacts with) creates a really intriguing (if somewhat terrifying) scene.
I'm not quite so positive about Teddy Band by Alexandra de Rosso. It's nicely drawn, but to me nothing differentiates this design from the hundreds of cutesy shirts that get submitted to Threadless every day. Even worse, I find the arrangement of characters pretty uninspiring- some of the animals seem as bored as I am with this broken drumstick drama.
International Translation by Tony Elmore is one that I wasn't overly keen on in scoring. While I still maintain that it wouldn't function very well in the wild (more generic international icons sould be more successful), the change to make the design more vertical increased its usefulness by quite a bit. Now that there's more space between concepts it is much more clear what the wearer is indicating. And while usefulness might be debated (by me, at great length), it's definitely a good looking shirt.
This week's slogan is Screw Vintage. This Shirt is From the Future. It's a neat sentiment, and I appreciate the color scheme. What else can I really say about a slogan tee?
Eric Fan's Helium Menagerie is a one=color masterpiece. The linework expertly expresses shadow and the bulging of air in rubber. I'm not so crazy about the color scheme (the blue from the original submission was more to my taste) but it's pretty damn attractive regardless.
Paisley Paramecium by Julian Glander is another cool design with a bit of a color issue. The original submission was green on green, which seemed perfectly suited to the subject matter. Blue on navy isn't ugly or anything, but it doesn't fit my preconceived notions about microscopes quite as well. At any rate, paisley is gorgeous. Microscopes are fascinating. This shirt is neat.
This week also brought back two reprints, Radios by Dan Terry and Damn Scientists by John Slabyk. They're both really solid, exactly the type of work that deserves another print. While I'd rather see some drastic changes in the color scheme when a reprint is done (dark red on light blue is the way of the future), I'm otherwise wholly in favor.
Fans of sports and comedy take note: The Comebacks Loves Threadless. What is The Comebacks? It's a sports movie spoof, starring David Koechner (who you probably recognize from about a thousand non-starring comedy roles, including a stint on The Office).
Submissions should use the theme "Keep Your Eye on the Ball." Submit your work before October 17th, 2007 for your chance to win a prize package including a Sony Portable DVD Player, Fox Atomic DVD's, Comebacks swag and the customary Threadless prize of a $500 Threadless Gift Certificate and $2,000 in cash.
Design By Humans is quickly becoming my favorite t-shirt site. This week's batch of shirts has a wide range of artistic style and an intriguing selection of printing techniques. Let's take a closer look:
My favorite shirt this week has got to be It's a Lovely Death by OutwardCreative. The textures are beautiful, as is the color scheme- it's an attractive look at a deeply unattractive subject, and that juxtaposition is very appealing. I love the way the colors loop around each other.
Silk Moth Soliloquy is totally original. The asian theme is a great fit to artist iotadial's style, and the strong vertical of the design expresses a lot of yearning. I can imagine that the gold foil accents in this piece give it a lot of pop.
tomburns' GOOD and EVIL has an amazing vintage illustrative style, perfectly suited to an oversize print. It's a one-color print done really well- the lines communicate shades of grey as well, which keeps things fresh.
Tales by DangerRuss was probably my second favorite this week. The subject matter, a grandfather regaling his grandchildren with exaggerated stories from his pasts, is both amusing and heart-warming. The style is expressive and unique (in particular, I love the way the speech bubble is treated). Silver foil highlights add even more pizazz to this awesome shirt.
fawnfruits' Underwaterdeer is the first shirt I can recall that has had an applique treatment. While I was skeptical of how that technique would look on a shirt, I have to admit that this looks really wicked. Placement is different on the men's and women's versions of this shirt, but the men's version is perfect- the horns curve around towards the collar.
Overall, a great week. I like the range of work shown. Also, I've added Design By Humans to the list of contest links on the right of this page. Thanks to Jamey of Sunsports for pointing out the oversight.
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