compete-tee-tion

La Fraise has announced a winner in their American Politics contest: U.Scream, by Conker. They've further upped the ante by using some special printing techniques- discharge and gold foil (both never before used at La Fraise). That's pretty cool, I love seeing companies experiment like that. Perhaps the industry is feeling the pressure to branch out due to the rising star of Design By Humans?

So far the design isn't available in the American La Fraise store (I have high hopes that it will be offered in the near future). Europeans can of course purchase the design right now from the La Fraise store, on both t-shirt and long sleeve.

Labels: american politics, la fraise

ConceptShare is a web-based design collaboration system, and it looks pretty cool (I'm actually working on a project right now that would be a good fit for this, if there was any budget for this sort of thing).

It's just... a little interesting to me that when an idea-sharing website decides to have a t-shirt contest, they'd provide so little information about how it's supposed to work. Share your ideas, guys. I'm not a mind-reader.

Here's the information I do have: 1) The winner will get an Ipod Touch, 2) the shirt design should have the ConceptShare logo, and... yep, that's the information I have.

Tragically, a free account at ConceptShare is not enough to let the user view other submitted entries, but if you have a full account you can check those out here: http://community.conceptshare.com/

Also, just a note for all of the world's contest organizers: It will help out your submitters greatly if you would kindly provide the time frame of the competition (an ending date would be nice). Also, when speaking of t-shirts you should inform users of any color and size limitations, as well as if the design can be on the front and back of the shirt.

Labels: conceptshare

In addition to a new crop of shirts, Threadless has also unveiled a new front page design. I'm really into it, as it does a nice job of promoting the community aspect of Threadless in addition to the shirts. Plus, the addition of the $10 Thriftee bargain is great- one shirt at a time will be offered for $10 until it sells out, then another shirt gets that billing. Pretty awesome!



BEarth by Steven Lefcourt (Ste7en) is totally gorgeous. It stands out from most Threadless shirts because there's no overt pun, nothing with a face on it, and there's no pop culture reference. Just beautiful art with some depth. I'm very excited that this is being offered in zip-up hoody form, because it's a great fit for that format. Definitely a worthy winner of the Mae competition.



My other favorite this week has got to be Halt! Who Goes There? by Steven E. Hughes (castle). It's a neat concept (and pretty accurate to the way children play with cardboard boxes), but the execution is what makes this design such a winner. From the fur on the dog to the folds of a shirt, textures enhance the mood of the piece. The shadowing is also done well and serves to anchor the art to the shirt. But my favorite part is the angle of the artwork- it really invites the eye into the cardboard box. So cool.



This week's Select is Preparing for the Goblin Fire by Chris Pottinger. I like the drawing, it does a nice job of being disgusting and cute at the same time. But, as I've said about past Select designs, I wish it took the t-shirt medium further. Why not use a puff or gloss ink on the boils? Why not use a less typical shirt placement? Design By Humans has shirts with interesting printing techniques almost every day of the week, and I think Select designs should be more up for that challenge. Why not take the opportunity to experiment?

Delivery by Jean-sébastien Deheeger (nes-k) is about the plight of a stork. This will probably sell out quickly, which does nothing to change the fact that I don't care for it. As a concept, this kind of thing just seems very overdone to me. I'm completely fed up with detail-free vector creatures and their constant single bead of sweat.



Children Under the Bed by Meg Park (MegP) is in the same category as Delivery for me. Even though it is being printed for the first time today, I feel like I've seen it a million times. It is well done, don't get me wrong. It's just hard for me to conceive that there wasn't something a little more innovative that might have been a better choice for a print.

More Reasons Not to Go Camping by Chris Thornley (Raid71) is completely amazing. The linework conveys a multitude of textures and the splashes of red add a nuance of aggression to the piece. The only thing that kept this from being my favorite of the week is the color scheme- I preferred the blue on brown color option, and I'm pretty tough to please when it comes to natural and cream colored shirts. Still, I'd love to see a third set of reasons not to go camping, because these shirts are solid gold.



Ambition Killed the Cat by Neil Gregory (NGee) is the first reprint of the week, and I'm not really a fan of it. It's just not my sense of humor, I guess- seems a bit obvious and (even worse) visually uninteresting.

On the other hand, I quite like Best Mime Ever by John Schwegel (fizzgig). My usual complaint about how I would prefer if they switched up the color scheme for each printing still applies, but the image itself is solid.

Overall, a pretty nice week for Threadless. I vastly prefer this week's selection to the past two weeks', so I'm hoping things are on the upswing.

Labels: loves threadless, mae, threadless

Use code EKMKME before October 31st to get a 15% discount on your Design By Humans order. And if you have your own discount code, feel free to post it in the comments.



My favorite shirt this week was The Ultimate Shirt by Moss, but it was a difficult choice since there were so many cool designs. Just about every t-shirt cliche is featured (I'm especially partial to the smoking unicorn, but it's all great). The style (reminiscent of the doodlings a high schooler might do in his notebook) kicks things up a notch. Totally solid.



Madre Tierra by Ninhol depicts a mother nature figure who is created from landscape patterns and homes. It has a great folk art feel to it, and the colors really pop on the brown shirt. The sheen accents (judging from the close up images, it looks like they're used on the pink areas of the shirt) probably add a lot to this one in person, as well.

Goodbye Old Friend by Sonmi is the story of the sun mourning his friend, a snowman. The style is amazing, as there is a real sense of sorrow and weariness in the sun's eyes. The color palette is another huge plus- it has an antique aura to it, which adds to the viewer's understanding of the sun's plight. He's probably said goodbye to many more snowmen since the image was created. And, you know they were totally tight because they have such similar taste in hats! Poor sun.



Migrate South by cpdesign is one of the better penguin/flight shirts I've seen. The characterization of the penguin is interesting, as he's full of grim determination (instead of hopeful, the direction most of these shirts seem to take). The attention paid to the background is also a selling point because I like the way simple bird outlines haunt the background and the angle of the clouds provides some additional visual interest.

Dead Pony by cbuchholz shows a Ford Mustang being ripped apart by vultures. It's a cool visual even if (like me) you aren't enough of a car person to get the car/horse pun. While some people in the comments are up in arms about the addition of splatters, I actually disagree- I think they add a grittier feel to the piece. It just looks like more of a finished product to me than it did previously. I'm considering purchasing this, and before it wasn't even on my radar.

Overall, this was a fantastic week- some really top-tier artists were printed, and there was a nice variety in style and technique. Also, congratulations are in order for akoelle, whose Squid Count was named Shirt of the Week.

Remember, Design By Humans is an on-going t-shirt design competition. If you've got a great shirt concept, submit it for your chance at up to $3500 (plus residuals).

Labels: design by humans

Scribtee is the new t-shirt design competition on the block... though it's not entirely new. Scribtee is an outgrowth of the contest that ShirtCity has been running, but now that they've got some great designs for sale, it's ready for prime time.

And that incubation stage at ShirtCity means that Scribtee won't have the same issues as a lot of other start ups. Their voting system is built to filter out people who score their own work highly and score everything else as low as possible. And experience has taught them to hide scores until after voting so that members won't be unduly influenced.

The prevailing style at Scribtee so far is cartoons with clean lines, much like some of the punnier offerings at Threadless. At least twice a month new shirts will be selected from the designs submitted from Scribtee members, with the winner taking away $500 and a $50 Scribtee gift certificate. If a non-winner is chosen to be printed, that designer will get $300 and a $50 Scribtee gift certificate.

Labels: scribtee, shirtcity

Now that the Loves Threadless contest for The Comebacks has passed the submission deadline, it is time to take a look at my top three picks for the winner:



Kolb's I'll Pass is easy to relate to, as I think even accomplished athletes have taken a minute here and there to just enjoy their surroundings. I love the sweetness of the image, and the drawing style just amplifies it. I think this is the front-runner in the competition, and I'd be more than happy to see a win for this one.



Katiecampbell's Intimidation is great for totally different reasons. I love the way two styles combine in this design- it reminds me of how animals arch their backs and raise their fur to threaten predators. Except, you know, hilarious. I think the sign of how great this concept works is that I can perfectly image what those football players actually look like- even though they're barely visible.



I'm pretty fond of Edword's The Visiting Team, as well. Perhaps, given the current climate in the sporting world, the next generation of athletes really will be robots and lizards the size of buildings (steroids have side effects, right?). There are some other cool elements at play, too, such as the strong diagonal of the image (very visually pleasing) and the fact that the monsters play on even in the face of a destroyed city. Quitters never win, and these dudes are winners.

While I think the top tier of the Comebacks Love Threadless contest are pretty solid, overall this wasn't a great competition. I think the combination of a terrible theme (Keep Your Eye On the Ball) and the sports focus didn't do much to inspire the designers this time. So, while I have high hopes for a cool winner on this one, at the same time I never want to see another eyeball playing sports, ever.

Labels: loves threadless, the comebacks, threadless

The theme for this week's Shirt.Woot Derby has been posted: Nutrition. There are a few restrictions this time, as Woot is specifically outlawing shirt designs that refer to beer, drugs or porn. Good call, Woot.

You can enter any time after Friday at noon, though early entries have a decided advantage in the voting process. The top three entries will be printed next weekend, and each winner will receive up to $500 for the first night of sales plus $2 per shirt sold after the first day. If this theme isn't to your liking and you can set up a print-ready design file, you can bypass the Derby by submitting a design of any theme directly to Woot (you'll get paid the same as Derby winners do).

The Derby fun never ends, thanks to Woot members who have set up websites for the Derby community. Best Losers is the place to go for interviews with winners, honorable mention awards, and links on where to buy past Derby designs directly from the artists. Meanwhile, dueling statistic sites ShirtDerbyStats (which features individual design comment forums) and Shirtstats (with personal stat tracking) provide up to date information on how all the entries are being scored.

Labels: derby, nutrition, shirt.woot

Any tennis fans in the house? Well, whether tennis is your sport or not, some lucky designer is going to walk away with $100 and tickets to the semi-finals and finals of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina.

They're looking for a shirt that incorporates the fact that this is the Cup's 35th anniversary. Other than that, anything goes. Submit your work before December 14th, 2007 for your chance to win.

Labels: family circle cup, sports

A Better Tomorrow, Germany's on-going streetwear design competition, has just announced that they will be offering water-based inks. This is in addition to the cleaner style of plastisol screenprinting that they already offer.

For more details, german-speakers can check out A Better Tomorrow's blog. English-speakers, check out this translation for all the pertinent information:

"Until today we produced all shirtdesigns using the plastisol screenprint process only. From now on, we offer you a further technique with water-based (glazing) printing inks to give your creativity even more space. Thus you now have the possibility to get your style produced in a more "dirty way" - next to the very clean look from vector graphics mostly used.

Water-based printing inks are taken so that the print will feel more soft. The result is a design, that looks and feels as if it is almost part of the fibres of the shirts - very unlike the normal plastisol color printing which gives a thicker change to the surface. Glazing water-based colors are often used to transport a vintage look or to realise more canvas-like designs. The four primary CMYK colors can be printed above each other wet which will let the colors blend and will give you complete new possibilities regarding your T-shirt design.

For all you designers that means: marginal restrictions apply, only the one that your design must be in at least 150 dpi of actual size.

We are veeeery curious about your designs! Please find further infos in the blog or on the contest infopage."

Sounds cool to me, I look forward to seeing artists take advantage of this technique.

Labels: a better tomorrow, german, water-based inks

I've been a fan of Ten Bills for awhile now because they have great shirts at prices that I can actually afford. Two of my favorites are This Is a Blackberry and Once Upon a Time, which are both fun and stylish pieces.

If your style is a good fit for the Ten Bills aesthetic, you're in luck: they're currently looking for new artists to design t-shirts for them. Fill out the Artist Application form at Ten Bills for a shot at the gig.

Labels: ten bills

My favorite shirt at Threadless this week is unquestionably New World Order by Tony Aguero. The robot conquering the city collage is really fresh and the color palette is on point. The design works at several distances, which makes it a great fit for the shirt medium (I like the text that's visible in closeup, and the overall form looks wicked from far away as well). It's overcoming the handicap of a cream colored shirt quite well, and I'd consider a buy on this one.



The Gmail Loves Threadless winner was also announced this week: Hello, Dave by Robert Gould. I'll be honest, this was not a favorite of mine. Since Google is such a computery thing, I would have preferred a winner that went in a less technological direction with the "Connect" theme. Still, the illustration is well done, the color scheme is nice, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better-looking shirt with a giant old school computer on it. So if that's your thing, have at it.



The Future Is Feeling by Neil Doshi is the Select for this week. There's a lot to like: the front and back of the head are on the front and back of the shirt (awesome!), there are neat textures in the hair (whee!), and it even comes with a free headband (hooray!). But as with some of the other recent Selects, I wish there was more to set it apart from other Threadless shirts. I wish they'd experiment more with printing techniques, stepping up to the new standard set by Design by Humans.

Where the Watermelons Grow by Brian Walline is based on the song Down By the Bay (lyrics are also printed on the shirt). In the interest of full disclosure, I have always hated that song. Perhaps because of that fact, this shirt is not a favorite of mine. The bright, cartoony style of the drawing echoes the theme nicely, though, and people who are fans of that song (everyone in the world except me, apparently) have a cute shirt to call their own.



Good Guys Don't Glow at Midnight by Ivan Leonardo Vera Pineros uses glow in the dark ink on a group of bad guys, and regular ink on the lone good guy, a fairy. If that sounds like a good concept to you, you are a fan of this shirt. I'm... kind of in the other camp on this one. I don't really get why only bad guys would glow- to me, a fairy is more prone to glowing than any of the other beings featured. And while I typically enjoy icons, the ones in this design don't speak to me. Horror fans probably feel differently.

Fall_ing by Christopher Garcia depicts leaves with grasping hands at the ends of their stems, letting go of the branch to fall to the ground. While I didn't dig this one in voting, seeing it on a shirt improved it for me. I think it works well as a nature shirt with a subtle twist- the hands are only visible up close, so most viewers aren't privy to the secret.



The first reprint of the week is Foxy by Lixin Wang, and I think it's a worthy reprint. My usual complaint on reprints is that the color scheme should at least change a bit, but since this design wouldn't work on any other color it escapes that criticism.

Ditto for Star Men in Moon's Milk by Christopher Buchholz. A fun concept that's not quite like any other shirt out there. Clever and gorgeous.

Overall, I'm not too keen on this crop of shirts. While I wouldn't call any of them poorly done, they're simply not unique enough to stand out from the t-shirt offerings of other companies. And while that might be fine for those other businesses, I expect more from Threadless because they have access to some of the best t-shirt design talent in the world. Given that fact, they should be able to put out an innovative and high-quality selection of shirts every week. For me, this week was simply not up to par.

Labels: gmail, loves threadless, threadless

Some people left comments on previous entries with coupon codes for Design By Humans, so I'll pass those along: XV8E16 is good for 15% off until October 22nd, and HWC036 is good for 15% off until October 29th. Enjoy!



Squid Count by akoelle is easily one of the more interesting shirts I've seen lately. The juxtaposition of the squids with numbers is fun (and a natural fit, given the numerous limbs squids boast) and the artwork itself is expressive and beautiful. This one is seriously testing my "no white shirts" rule.



Bow Master by skulldaggery is kind of a weird one for me. I like the idea of it, and ribbons swirling around other elements is something I tend to find visually appealing. But somehow, this one just leaves me cold. It's not a reflection on the artist at all- I liked his Rocket Scientist design, and would have preferred to see a print on that one.

statueMan by theunenthusiast stands out from the rest of the shirts offered by DBH, which is always neat. I like the intricacy of the patterns and the main character has a lot of personality. Since this artist's Robit was my early favorite for the $5000 competition, I'm glad to see him get a print.



tomburns's We Are All In This Alone was my other favorite this week. It looks great, and there's some meaning to be had as well. The cards that the characters hold in front of their faces are blank, but reaching. Their blind fumbles come close to the others in the scene, but never quite hit them. They'd have to drop the cards to finally make contact.

Futureshock by hogboy features an excellent use of both the front and back of the shirt. The front carries an image of the futuristic device assembled, and the back has the exploded diagram. The color scheme also raises the level of this design- those shades of blue are really attractive, and have a certain blueprint-y subtext.

Overall, a really nice week. I'm glad to see such artistic work being printed.

Labels: design by humans

Uneetee has announced their top twenty finalists for October's $1500 prize, and it's the best crop of contestants yet. Maybe they've finally got enough voters to balance out certain designers' friends and family.

Of the top twenty, my favorites have got to be I Want Summer by jimmytan and Living Room by kooky love. They're both gorgeous illustrations that look amazing on a shirt.

The winner of October's contest will be on sale from November 1st to November 5th, so cast your votes now for the shirts you'd like to buy. And remember, Uneetee is currently accepting submissions for November's competition.

Labels: top twenty, uneetee

Aussie magazine YEN has teamed up with MySpace to create Australia's first official MySpace t-shirts, and they need your help. They're relying on the internet community to come up with shirt ideas, both slogans and graphics (each of those categories will be judged against other entries in its own division). The top five will be printed and sold in General Pants stores.

What's in it for the winners? Well, exposure on MySpace and in YEN magazine is guaranteed, but the rest is a bit unclear. You'll get five shirts with your design. And there's also a mysteriously non-specific prize package from supporters (I guess they haven't assembled it yet?).

Interested parties should email YEN with their entries before the contest deadline of October 29th, 2007.

Labels: australia, myspace, yen magazine

Yes, I just posted about Shirt.Woot two entries ago. But there's a new community site for Shirt.Woot users that I think merits an immediate mention. Woot user JCBarry has set up a site to track Derby statistics, Shirtstats.com.

This site's benefits include personal logins and entry tracking, plus a really intuitive (and fast loading!) site design. It also benefits the community by hosting files such as t-shirt templates. More features, such as visitor polls, are planned for the future.

This is the second Derby tracker for the Derby, as Woot member cwarrington has a Derby tracker that has been in use for a few Derbies now. His tracker includes such benefits as entry comments, badges, and stored voting statistics from the last several Derbies.

If this isn't enough Derby-related fun for you, then head on over to thatrobert's site, Best Losers, where he takes a look at entries that didn't win and interviews some of the Derby's top artists.

Labels: best losers, derby, shirt.woot

Brazilian t-shirt competition Camiseteria has teamed up with Levi's Brazil to offer a new t-shirt design contest. The goal is to create a shirt that portrays Levi's corporate values of originality, tradition and authenticity without using any imagery that directly relates to the company.

Since this is a sponsored contest, the prizes have been stepped up accordingly. First place will nab R$2000 in Levi's products, $600 cash and $400 in Camiseteria products. Second place is R$1500 at Levi's, $600 cash and $400 in Camiseteria products. Third gets R$500 for Levi's, $600 cash and $400 at Camiseteria.

Enter before November 5th, 2007. Keep Babelfish handy for these links, if your Portuguese isn't that great).

Labels: brazil, camiseteria, levi's

Shirt.Woot has announced the theme for this week's derby and, to the surprise of no one, that theme is Halloween. Start working on your shirt ideas now, because submissions can be entered starting tomorrow at noon (and early shirts have more opportunities to get votes).

Shirt.Woot pays out $250 for any shirt they run that sells 500 copies or less. If you sell more than that, you'll get $500. And no matter which category your shirt is in, you will get $2 per shirt sold after the first day of sales. The top three voted shirts will be printed next weekend.

And remember, experienced artists and designers can submit shirts of any theme directly to Woot (they receive the same compensation as derby winners).

Labels: derby, halloween, shirt.woot

La Fraise's German site has a competition running right now to design the official shirt for photographers at Virtual Nights, a German (and soon to be international) party and photo community.

Anyone can enter (it isn't limited to Germans), they're just looking for a well-designed, two-sided shirt that features the Virtual Nights logo in some way.

Enter before November 5th, 2007 for your shot at the prize of 1000 euros and a Nikon S200 camera.

Labels: german, la fraise, virtual nights

Until October 31st, you'll be able to get Allmightys shirts for just 18 euros. They're got some nice work available, such as Hanging With the Crowd and Dream Monsters (pictured above).

And remember, Allmightys has a t-shirt competition underway. Check out their Mech Tech contest page for details.

Labels: allmightys, mech tech, sale

There's a new Loves Threadless competition underway, centered around the theme "Good to be Alive." Matthew Dear, some sort of electronic musician person, is the sponsor of this one (I have never heard of that dude, but he has good taste in t-shirt stores I guess).

The prize package is sweet: in addition to the usual Threadless prize of $2000 cash and a $500 gift certificate, the winner will be getting a Traktor Scratch professional DJ system, a signed cd and a collection of Ghostly International cds.

Designs should be entered before November 16th, 2007.

Labels: loves threadless, matthew dear, threadless

I'm a big fan of La Fraise. They're a t-shirt design competition based in France, so they have a different sensibility than most of the other contests. They're also huge enough to have versions of the site for different languages, including English, which makes it very accessible for Americans.

Except for the store. Americans can only buy La Fraise shirts from their Spreadshirt site, and unfortunately most designs aren't available there. Some of the designs that are available are very nice (I own Notre Planete), but it's frustrating to see how many awesome shirts don't make that leap (including the two pictured above). For instance, the recent Einstein and Chuck Norris shirts have a lot of appeal to Americans, but were never available to that audience.

I'm hoping that the American store evolves, and soon, because I know I'm not the only one disappointed by the current state of affairs.

Labels: france, la fraise

Note to all potential Threadless hoody purchasers: Threadless is having a 24 hour sale on all hoodies tomorrow (Tuesday), so you'll be able to get any hooded sweatshirt for just $25 (a much better deal than the typical $40 cost).

Now, on to the new shirts...



Justified and Amplified by Mike Harding centers around a great concept- a nun plugs in her acoustic guitar into a wall of amps. Hello, Vatican! The art is restrained, letting the nun take center stage, with bright orange cords to add interest. It's a great piece.



November Was a Good Month by Mike Sayre (mildish) is graphically well-done. It looks like what it is supposed to. This is the most positive I can be about this shirt, because I think conceptually it's pretty lame. I get that it's a play on how both people and books can get checked out, but it's just not very funny. Even worse, having a boring checkout card floating in the middle of a shirt is deeply unattractive. To me, this one is not even close to the Threadless standard.

The Greatest Connection by Melanie Hudson (melh696), on the other hand, is exactly what Threadless does best. It's a unique (and amusing) concept, drawn up with tons of style and personality. I like that, while similar, the girls aren't exactly identical. The intersecting of the hair also adds a lot to the design.



Playground Joust by Jillian Nickell is, to be frank, the kind of shirt that I wish Threadless would stop printing. While the illustration is very nicely done (and I've certainly appreciated other designs by this artist), the concept feels so played out to me that I can't really support it. It feels more like an old magazine illustration than a current t-shirt, which is not helped by the fact that I haven't seen one of those bouncy horses in over a decade.

Viking Bird by Graham Shepard (Tonteau) is totally sweet. I love the personality that the bird's lines imbue him with, from the tilt on his little hat to the grim determination depicted in his sharply angled wing. The spears overhead and the choppy waters beneath set the scene, and the large print adds to the drama. It's a slam dunk, easily my second favorite of the week.



My Rules by Christian Einshøj (splatkunst.dk) is a Rock, Paper, Scissors shirt. That's pretty much all that needs to be said. The joke is okay, but you have to be really close to even read it. It's just not a good fit for the t-shirt medium, in my opinion.

Royal Intrigued Series 1 by Chalermphol Harnchakkham (huebucket) is this week's Select. While I enjoy the artistry and concept, I expect more from Selects- where are the specialty inks? the mixed media? the unique printing techniques? It's a great drawing, but as I look at it all I can think is that at Design By Humans, there would have been actual pockets stitched in. Maybe Series 2 could go there instead?



Adultery by Jean-sébastien Deheeger (nes-k) was reprinted this week. It's a neat, easy to grasp concept drawn in an interesting style. While I'm not big on reprints in general, this is a solid shirt.

If You Can Read This Make Me a Sandwich by Anthony Mihovich was the reprinted slogan this week, and I'm not a fan. The slogan itself is alright, but it's been done better (I'm referring to Seibei's Sandwich Dinosaur). Beyond that, I don't understand the logic of reprinting slogans- the prize for a winning slogan is only $200, so to me it makes more sense to just print new slogans every time (given the high number of quality unprinted slogans).

Overall, I don't think this was a great week for Threadless. I disliked about half of the new shirts, which might be some kind of a record. Still, there were a few gems. Hopefully next week will be better.

Labels: threadless

Design By Humans had a bit of a theme going with their shirts this week, titled Halloweek. I'm a sucker for themes, so it definitely appealed to me- especially since these aren't shirts that are exclusively for Halloween. They've got that spooky element, but still wouldn't be out of place during the rest of the year.



My favorite this week was unquestionably Forbidden Platypus by Wandering BErt. It's a very neat combination of images- Robby the Robot carrying a platypus, the most ridiculous of all animals, instead of a beautiful woman. The concept grabbed me instantly and made me picture what could have happened to lead to this moment.



Guard Your Grill by eskimokiss is a great use of both an oversize print and gold foil. I wouldn't have guessed that overused skull imagery could look fresh to me, but it totally does here. The execution is top-notch, handily setting it apart from a sea of similarly-themed shirts.

Vintage Spirits by danr really sings with the vibrant ink they've used. While I liked the original submission, the newly vivid colors gave this one new life. It's a gorgeous illustration as well (I wish it were shown up close on the shop page, because the details are on point). Danr's on a bit of a roll at DBH- of his four submissions, this is the second of his that has been printed.



Pink Shirt by jublin has a seriously nice color palette- the pinks look great, and the unusual drawing style gives the sensation of being trapped in a hideously cute nightmare. I have no idea what's going on in this one, and I like it that way.

Voodoo! by LucaT is the only one this week that I'm not really sold on- I loved it in voting, but the changes made in production don't really work for me. Instead of a charcoal tee, it's been printed on navy blue. The pink was brightened, and there is much less distressing. The new colors, in particular, just don't hit my eyes quite right- I find that shade of pink on navy blue to be very uncomfortable to look at. It's possible that it looks better in person, but that's not something I'd risk a purchase on at this point.

Overall, though, it was a pretty great week of shirts. There was a nice variety in imagery (if not in shirt color). If you're considering a purchase, try coupon code YP1B6M for 15% off.

Remember, Design By Humans is an on-going t-shirt design competition. If you think your design has what it takes, enter it for your chance at up to $3500 (plus residuals).

Labels: design by humans

The easiest way to ensure that your work will be accurately reproduced on a shirt is to create a vector file of your artwork. Most beginning designers, though, are more familiar with raster programs such as Photoshop than they are with vector-based alternatives like Illustrator.

Luckily for all those people, there are some really nice vector tutorials online. The guys at Fantastic Bonanza found three great tutorials, and they've even got the contents summarized (complete with pictures!) so that you can find the tutorial that's right for you.

If you're into the distressed look, you should also take a look at U.S. Screen Print and Inkjet Technology's Industry Downloads page- they provide some free overlays for distressing.

Labels: tips

Shirt.Woot has another Derby underway, this time with the theme of Night. But be careful, they're rejecting any entries with a Halloween connection (because that is next week's theme). Designs can be submitted any time before Wednesday at noon, but earlier entries have the advantage because voting is ongoing.

The prize is pretty awesome: The top three shirts (as voted on by Woot members) will be printed, earning their designers $250 for up to 500 shirts sold or $500 for more than that sold on the first day. Designers can also earn $2 per shirt sold after the first day of sales.

Seasoned designers have the option of skipping the derby altogether and submitting their designs (of any theme) directly to Woot. They get the same prize as Derby winners, but submitting this way can be advantageous because the Derby voting process is very erratic.

Labels: derby, night, shirt.woot

Teetonic has been on a roll lately, first with the Wet Wet Wet contest and now with the Official Scotland collection competition. They're asking Teetonic members to design a shirt for fans of Scotland's soccer team.

The winner of the contest gets a ton of cool prizes: a framed (and signed!) Scotland replica top, an iMac 24" 2.8GHz, an iPod Touch 16Gb, an AppleTV 160Gb, five shirts with your design and £100 in teetonic.com vouchers. And, wow, that is a surprisingly awesome prize. I know nothing about Scotland's team, and I'm still tempted to enter.

Enter before October 26th, 2007 for your chance to win.

Labels: scotland, soccer, teetonic

Allmightys has announced a new t-shirt design competition and is asking for submissions with the theme Mech Tech. So if you're into drawing the technical and the mechanical, this is your contest.

Submit your work before November 19th, 2007 for your chance to win. Allmightys works on a commission system, with the Gold winner earning 2 euros per shirt. The Silver winner gets 1.5 euros per shirt. Bronze and Special Selection winners receive 1 euro per shirt.

Labels: allmightys, mech tech

Allmightys has announced the winners of their Once Upon a Time contest, and I'm very pleased with the results. Their Gold winner (The King is Dead by Yonil) and their Silver winner (Vile Stories by Puzon) were also my favorite two designs during voting. Very awesome! Bronze went to It's for you... by knikola, which is also a nice design (I'm digging the style of the wolf).

For more information on the contest (including the Special Selections, which will also be printed), check out the Allmightys blog.

Labels: allmightys, once upon a time

Gorilla Tank is holding a sale until the end of October, and all shirts are being sold for just £11! Pictured above are GT's two most recent additions, Nudist? and PB & Jelly Wrestling.

Remember artists, Gorilla Tank is an on-going design competition. So if you think you can design a better shirt, get to work! Printed designs earn £300 check and £120 store credit.

Labels: gorilla tank

I had a hard time picking a favorite new Threadless shirt this week (so many great ones!), but in the end it had to be Derby of the Damned by Leon Ryan (d3d). It's a fun mash-up of two popular ideas (roller derby and zombies), and the pinks really pop on the dark grey shirt.



When I was a Pumpkin by Jeff Tuininga (tuniguts) is really expertly put together- from the dripping wax to the trick-or-treaters in the background, everything is rendered well. Additionally, it's a cool twist on a type of shirt that's been done before. Instead of the typical view of a jack-o-lantern, we're peering at the world from inside the pumpkin. It all sounds like the recipe for a great shirt, but unfortunately the subject matter limits the possibilities on this one- while costumes, zombies and skeletons are concepts that can be work year round, carved pumpkins are too strongly associated with Halloween to make that leap. It's basically a shirt for one day (or maybe one month, if you celebrate early and often).

The Revenge by Black Rock Collective (aka Legion of Doom) is totally sweet- it's a piece that is a mash-up of drawings by many of the group's members, much like their recent win Robot Attack at Design By Humans. Three mash-ups were submitted, and I'm glad that my favorite of the bunch got printed. Oh, and this finally cleared up some confusion for me on Black Rock and Legion of Doom- I've been wondering for awhile i they were two groups with a lot of overlap or two independent groups, so I'm glad to finally have an answer on that.



Transfarmers by Ole Ivar Rudi (OlliRudi) deftly mixes eighties nostalgia and traditional country living. At first the idea of mixing giant transforming robots with the farm setting is a bit terrifying- I picture huge, brooding, metal beasts that work not only from sun up to sun down, but all hours of the day and night to create substances that they will never taste. But then I recalled hearing that agriculture is often one of the first places to see new technology in use (due to competition and low profit margins), so maybe robots on farms isn't that impossible.

Impatient by Clayton Dixon (Pee Pee) depicts a tooth fairy who has grown tired of waiting for the tooth to fall out and has taken matters into her own tiny hands- with a huge pair of pliers. I'm not in love with the concept, but the way this uses the space of the shirt is fantastic. It's a great illustration as well, I think the way the metal of the pliers is shown raised the quality level on this one.



How sweet is Heavy Metal Listening Party by Ed Pincombe (Edword)? I will answer that for you, it is the most sweet possible. Nothing but hands, mouths, lightning and a huge mass of hair, I can't picture a more accurate visual of heavy metal. This was also a very serious contender for my favorite shirt this week.

Hide and Sheep by Steven E. Hughes (Castle) is a shirt that really rewards the viewer. While a casual observer might just notice the cute sheep, a deeper look reveals wolves hidden everywhere (including the clouds, trees, and the herd itself). The sheep have started to catch on as well, and their facial expressions telegraph a sense of impending doom.



This week's Select is The Seeker by Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch. I love the drawing style and color palette, but the structure (a triangle) and contents (tree, bird, star and heart imagery) really gives me the impression of winter holidays. This may be my own weird issue, but it would prevent a buy for me. I'm not huge on white shirts, either, but because I'm a fan of the drawing style I wish this guy would get another crack at doing a shirt. There's definite shirt potential there, even if this shirt isn't all I'd like it to be.

Imposter by Aaron Hogg (hogboy) is the perfect Halloween reprint. It has it all- a great visual joke, fun dancing skeletons, and most importantly it GLOWS IN THE DARK. Good stuff.

Overall, this was a kick ass selection of new shirts, easily redeeming the awfulness of last week. I had three major contenders for my favorite this week, and four total shirts that I'd consider buying. Pretty nice odds.

Labels: threadless

Here's a Design By Humans coupon code for 15% off: YP1B6M.



The Birdman by Ky11 is undoubtedly my favorite shirt this week. It is a gorgeous, textural piece, and I can imagine that the blue foil used on the eyes looks spectacular in person. The character is intriguing, as he seems world-weary yet hopeful.



Tree People by a_mar_illo has the same unique style as the artist's other works: a color palette focused on browns/blues/pinks, disembodied heads with hollow eyes, and textural linework. It's a beautiful shirt, and I hope to see more prints from this artist in the future.

Attraction by akoelle shows moths hovering around a light bulb. It's a cool image, and a bit disappointing to see that it is only available a womens shirt. I think some adjustments to the placement and colors could have made this a nice shirt for guys as well. Still, it's nice to see DBH is printing shirts with females specifically in mind- at most other shirt sites, women seem to be more of an afterthought.



Bad Pet by nesk is probably the most adorable poo shirt you will ever see. The dinosaur's owner admonishes his pet, and further to the right you can see why- a passer-by has been crushed underneath a huge pile of dung, his briefcase flung uselessly to the side. Obviously, this is a very funny, very cute shirt... for people who lack my hangups about wearing poop.

A Pirate's Tale by robsoul is a concept that I'm a little more on-board with- a pirate sits on his treasure chest, recounting tales of his exploits (with pipe in hand). What makes this shirt for me is the look in the pirate's eyes... there's a real sense of wonder there, as if he can't believe that he got out of the situation he's describing alive and intact (or as if he can't believe he's getting away with the lies he's spinning).

Definitely a great week of shirts. One of last week's batch, Chaos came from the Ocean by Steven, was just named Shirt of the Week. Shirt of the Month was also announced, and was awarded to Revelations by jimiyo. Nice choices!

If any of these shirts caught your fancy, use this coupon code for 15% off: YP1B6M.

Labels: design by humans, shirt of the week

Hey, did you know that Camiseteria recently increased the winner's prize package to R$600 and R$400 in Camiseteria products? Well, they did. And it's pretty awesome.

While I was there, I noticed that they've got some really interesting shirts for sale- Banditismo por uma questao de classe by Rodolfo Franca and The Roots Cage by Aey are totally unique. They definitely stand out from the kinds of shirts available at other contest sites, which have been trending a bit too much towards puns for my liking.

Labels: camiseteria

T-shirt contest sites are always plagued by unoriginal work, it can be a nasty side effect of the voting process (which asks the public to rate their favorites, sometimes leading to a mediocre focus group-style result). But it is worth the aggravation of seeing endless penguin, pirate and pun designs to see truly great, artistic works beat the odds and get printed.

So it's a real shame when those original works turn out to be heavily based on the work of other artists.

Exhibit A in this debate is The Magical Zipper to Weiner Man Land by John Barthell. Soon after it was printed, a fan of artist Spencer Hibert realized that it was heavily based on a Hibert painting. Not only that, others soon noticed that the hand itself appeared to be traced directly from the painting:



Is borrowing a theme from a painting (and using a traced element of that painting) plagiarism? The debate rages on in the forums, as many believe that the styles of the art involved are divergent enough to qualify as independent works. Threadless, meanwhile, is taking no chances- The Magical Zipper to Weiner Man Land has been removed from the Threadless catalog.

Exhibit B in the debate is What's Yo Flava? by Fabio Girardi (and a number of other illustrations by this artist). After his work was published in Ideafiza magazine, friends of artist Audrey Kawasaki noticed some very striking similarities:



As you can see, not only is the style modified from Kawasaki's original paintings, there is a strong enough similarity between facial structures that many believe tracing was involved. Girardi denies tracing images, but admits to being inspired by Kawasaki. For her part, friends of Kawasaki have stated that she isn't interested in pursuing legal action, as she feels the art is dissimilar enough. Perhaps motivated by Kawasaki's attitude about the situation, What's Yo Flava remains available for purchase at Camiseteria at this time.

In both examples A and B, some very talented artists created work that borrowed heavily from others in their field. Each person who looks at these examples will probably have a different take on what constitutes plagiarism and what is merely inspired by other works. The real tragedy is that two artists who are capable of some really amazing work will now always have people wondering how much is original and how much is borrowed.

Labels: camiseteria, plagiarism, threadless

This week's Derby theme is a doozy: Cryptozoology! Head over to Shirt.Woot and post your best shirt design featuring non-existent animals. Submissions and voting will open up Friday at noon, so start getting your designs ready now- fortune favors the quick.

The prize was upped last week and now stands at $250 for any winner that sells up to 500 units, or $500 for any winner that sells 501 units or more. As always, designers can earn more (in the form of $2 per shirt) when their design sells at the higher $15 price on the days following the first day of sales. As always, the three most popular Derby winners will be printed next weekend, and they'll all be getting paid as described above.

Designers who are capable of setting up print-ready vector files of their t-shirt designs have the opportunity to bypass the derby and submit shirt designs of any theme directly to Woot. Check out the What is Woot? page for details. If selected, you'll be getting paid the same $250 or $500 (plus $2 per shirt for shirts sold after the first day of sales) as the Derby winners receive.

If you're a fan of the Derby, make sure you check out the Derby statistics page and the Derby fan blog Best Losers.

Labels: cryptozoology, derby, shirt.woot

The UT Grand Prix website has been updated to show 1000 designs. Of these, one will be the Grand Prize winner of 3,000 yen. You can help determine who the top 100 finalists for the prize are by voting on the designs you like.

And there's a neat little prediction contest for voters- 100 people who correctly predict the Grand Prize winner will win a copy of that shirt. Pretty cool, you don't see sites offering prizes for the voters very often (although they definitely should!). This part of the competition continues until October 24th, 2007 so register your votes and predictions before then.

Labels: ut grand prix

Bountee (artist-created tees) and Drawn! (illustration blog) have joined forces to create what I believe is Bountee's first contest. Users are encouraged to upload shirt designs with the theme of "creativity and inspiration." Just tag your entry with "drawn.ca" and you're good to go.

There are some cool prizes in the mix. First place gets 31 free shirts (a shirt for each day in the month) and a $75 gift certificate for BlueFlip Art (a site selling great art prints). A runner-up will earn 5 shirts and a $25 BlueFlip Art gift certificate.

Submit before October 31st for your chance to win. Or, check out the submissions so far and vote here.

Labels: bountee, creativity and inspiration, drawn

Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on Livinglife by Tan Wei Hau, Uneetee's September Grand Prize winner. It's a great shirt, the expressive quality of the lines definitely stands out from the rest of the catalog. The inclusion of puff ink is also worth noting- I don't recall seeing Uneetee do that before. I wonder if they'll be using more variety in inks to help compete with the likes of Design By Humans?

Livinglife won $1500 for being selected as the September winner. The October contest is currently underway, so submit now for your chance at the prize. Or, vote on the current crop of contestants and help Uneetee narrow things down to a top twenty.

Labels: uneetee

The Select design this week, Away From Home by Ryan Lin (Kojima) is far and away the best of this batch of Threadless shirts. It's a haunting image, depicting a cold, lonely city and an inviting view of earth looming behind it. To me, this shirt makes me think of the strangeness of space travel and what an odd feeling it must be to miss a place that you can still see outside your window. Gorgeous.



Allan Faustino's Runnin' Rhino was the winner of the PaRappa the Rapper Loves Threadless contest, in which designers came up with shirts that dealt with the theme "I gotta believe!" While this wasn't one of my pet favorites, it is definitely a solid effort. It's easy to feel sorry for the poor rhino, eternally running on the treadmill in the hope of becoming a unicorn one day. It's easily recognizable as a Threadless shirt as well, due to the clean, cartoon-y style (this is the main reason the shirt didn't stand out to me in the contest, so I guess that's a bit of a double-edged sword).

Victor Manuel Moral's Nonsense is a cute take on the idea of holes that go in unlikely directions. It's definitely good work, but what keeps this from being a favorite of mine is the fact that I've seen so many variations on this (my personal favorite was an ostrich). That said, clean simplicity works well on this one, and it'll probably be very popular.



Piggy Bank Heist by Jason LaRose is so classic that I kind of can't believe that the concept hasn't been done already. It just looks like a shirt that Threadless would have, you know? And, as with Nonsense and Runnin' Rhino, it is so cutesy and so similar to the prevailing style of the Threadless catalog that it completely fails to catch my interest. It's not a bad shirt, of course, it's just part of a style that Threadless is over-saturated with.

Joel Cocks' An Elephant Never Forgets... TO KILL! is a shirt that is, to me, completely in the shadow of its fantastic title. A great idea that fails to be a great shirt. Part of the problem here is that the style of the drawing overwhelms the detail work- you'd have to get pretty close to the shirt before you'd see that one character is capturing this image with a cell phone camera (and I think that is the funniest part). The other character's hand isn't rendered very clearly, so I'm just guessing that he's pointing. The elephant looks great, but he's the only visually interesting part of this for me- the man-eating theme of the shirt is just not that nice to look at in comparison, and I feel that the humor element isn't strong enough to overcome that.



Time to Babysit by Scott Ferguson has a great concept. Kids and monsters, how can you go wrong with that? *cough* Well, the style doesn't really appeal to me. The various figures seem lacking in character, and the piece as a whole seems like an attempt to pander to the voters (but hey, it worked!). A lot of people are going to love this one, but I'm not among them. It just feels unfinished somehow.



First reprint this week is Tim Sutcliffe's War and Peas. It's definitely one of Threadless's more famous shirts, and if cutesy designs need to be sold I'd generally prefer that they were sold as reprints, so that more innovative work could be newly printed. Overall, the design is pretty solid- my only issue is that it's a little cheesy to actually have the text "War and Peas" in the scene, particularly when the pun is so obvious.

I'm just going to be totally blunt about Tasty Table by Kenny Wheeler: I think it is a terrible, terrible shirt. Again, you have to get very close to the shirt to even figure out what the text says, and from far away it isn't very good looking- periodic tables have a certain structure to them, and that structure was not built to be eye-pleasing. This would be a great poster, but it is a complete mis-match for the t-shirt medium.

Looking at the week as a whole, I have to say I found this batch to be fairly mediocre. The designs relied on common Threadless styles and concepts instead of stretching and innovating. It's pretty disappointing that the only shirt I'd even consider buying this week is the Select design.

Labels: parappa, threadless