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Beastly Planet by Richard A. Catron (rcatron) gets my nod as the best shirt of the week for being skilled and almost universally appealing work. The animals are well-drawn and quirky, suiting the geographical areas that they represent both in location of the species and in the shape they've contorted into. Awesome style, and a great representation of the diversity of the world's wildlife.



The Discovery of Geometry by YASLY aka Danny Jones is this week's Select, a slick tribal-looking piece. It's almost like the breastplate a visual warrior would wear into battle, which is a pretty fantastic concept. With the exception of the optical illusion in gold, the rest is all one color- this is perfect for directing all attention to the interactions of the lines that he's laid out. It conveys a lot of motion and pattern within that geometry, definitely a solid and unique shirt design. The back print adds some extra value as well, making this feel very complete.

Heaven and Earth by Aj Dimarucot (the110) is, as artwork, not very interesting to me. It's essentially a collage of stock art and splatter, which I'm not typically a fan of. What I'm intrigued by, though, is how well it works as a shirt. It looks much more fashionable and clever on the tee than I would have guessed, with the stark contrast of color and huge size working to its advantage. I'm still not a fan of this design, but I can appreciate it as something worthwhile in terms of being a departure from Threadless norms.



Colorblind by Matheus Lopes (mathiole) is, like most of the artist's pieces, a colorful look at the intersection of reality and imagination. A monotone woman stands in a watercolor rainfall, giving question in the viewer about whether rain is truly clear- maybe we're just not experiencing it properly yet. Definitely amazing artwork. I am a bit less enthusiastic about the print than I'd like to be, though, because it feels shorter than I'd like (why not use the entire length of the shirt and give the rain more room to play?). My feeling on the shorter length is that it makes the collar look a bit gross, like technicolor drool instead of a long expanse of colored rain.



The Northern Black-capped Gumchewer by Brock Davis (Laser Bread) is a great tweaking of the conventions of nature illustration. The infusion of action, humor and color is striking, definitely something that would be a hit with nature types. My only reservation here is with the placement of the bubble, which doesn't feel centered correctly on the bird's beak to me. But otherwise, it's near-perfect.

Demise of Mr. Flamingo by Adam Weber (Aweb1492) takes advantage of the creepy blankness of lawn gnomes, portraying them as secret hunters who prey on other lawn ornaments. It's a decently funny concept, but I think the execution falls short. The halftoning is more distracting than helpful in adding dimension, and to my eye some areas seem poorly resolved (the middle gnome's face in particular). I also wish that the grass faded out more instead of ending abruptly and equidistant from the art.



Search and Rescue by Justin Chee (Krakaboom) is one of the best cartoon style shirts Threadless has printed recently. It makes great use of the inherent shapes of the animals it includes, with the giraffe's long neck making it a natural choice as the searcher, a bird perched on top to guide traffic, and a collection of rabbits lost in the hedges, with only their ears peeking above the bush. The style is simple, fun, and shape driven, with a textural treatment on the hedge rows that adds some dimension. Excellent work, and a great fit for kids shirts as well.



Rock is dead and paper killed it by Rob McFadden (SnakeMan) is another of Threadless's slogan shirts, and like other recent additions to the line is custom type instead of font-reliant. Shirts like this one prove what a great call that was- it's more solid a design than mere text, with references to rock music and paper drawn right in. That level of styling puts it at a higher level than past slogan offerings, so I'm glad this level of thought has become the norm for this line.

Real bear hugs are often fatal by Nathaniel Huntzinger (nintechno) is another slogan, this time with the letters forming the shape of a bear. It's a really nice technique for this phrase, because it gave Zeitz the opportunity to create a bear that referenced both the kindness of the idea of the hug (the bear's soft, grinning face) and the disturbing reality (those sharply clawed hands).

Threadless prints new shirts every week, chosen from the designs submitted by and voted on by site members. Winners get $2000 cash and $500 in Threadless credit, with the possibility to earn more through Bestee awards, poster prints, and reprints.

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