Cameesa.com - Crowdfunding Fashion.

Here’s a new crowdsourcing t-shirt site to add to the fold (the more the better) called Cameesa.com - however there seems to be one distinct advantage for Cameesa supporters (aka customers) compared to other grander operations like Threadless and DesignByHumans and that’s the fact that they actually reward them for their efforts.

Essentially for the first time fans and artists can be in business together. Each artist issues 50 ‘parts’ (shares) per design, parts cost $20 each which totals $1000 per t-shirt. Together, the artist’s supporters have to raise $1,000 to get the design of their choice fully supported. Each part earns the supporter 3 cents per sale, and each supporter receives a free limited edition t-shirt as part of the package.

The artist earns $500 for each fully-supported design, plus a free t-shirt and a whopping $2 per sale to top it off.

Buy Eye For An Eye T-shirt by Godmachine at Cameesa.com - This one’s a total trip, something between comic horror and a Grateful Dead album cover. Very spooky very cool.

Each buyer who purchases a t-shirt generates an income for Cameesa, the artist and their supporters, 20% of the funds going to the artist and supporters. I can’t quite tell what the printing limit for each t-shirt would be, but with my basic understanding of arithmetic it seems that a supporter would need at least 666.666 t-shirt sales to recoup their money which is rather ambitious, plus it seems to be just over the sign of the devil, someone call in Damien from The Omen perhaps he can explain this. However, you have to remember that each successful supporter also receives a free t-shirt worth $20 with free shipping so all in all it’s a pretty rad deal, you’re potentially gambling on buying a limited edition t-shirt and making some money, sounds great. Essentially this method should incentivise supporters/voters to promote their fave tee on social networks and blogs seeing as they can actually make some money out of it.

Buy Take Me To Your Reader T-shirt At Cameesa.com - I love wordplay as many of you know - I particularly appreciate the old school illustrative treatment and colouring in this design.

There are t-shirt designs out there that have built the financial backbone of certain crowdsourcing sites like Threadless.com, so it’s no wonder that Cameesa.com are thinking down this line. Furthermore they actually have some great designs on offer too, so there’s a good chance they might achieve their goals of a whole new format in t-shirt marketing. Skulls Are Still Kool! is currently the most popular t-shirt looking for support at Cameesa.com - it’s currently at 64% support so I’d hurry if you eager to get on board.

Support Skulls Are Still Kool T-Shirt At Cameesa.com - Hey that’s nice to know - it seems a lot of people at Cameesa agree with the artist Madeforyou who’s top of the supporters’ league right now with a whopping 64%.

I’ve picked out a few of my favourites but I’m sure you’ll find plenty more that you like either in Cameesa’s shop or support section. It’s a simple signup process if you do fancy showing some solidarity with an artist, what’s more if you submit a popular t-shirt you’re sure to find a far more dedicated fan base here than usual, seeing as they have a vested interest in seeing that you succeed.

Support One Tree At A Time By Villeast At Cameesa.com - This is a real beauty, I noticed it’s only notched up 14% support when I checked it out so there’s still plenty of room for your support in case you fancy chipping in.

Overall I’m very impressed, there’s some great strategy behind the whole crowdfunding concept here, a natural evolutionary jump from the competition, and going by the current quality of design available I can see this becoming a very popular idea. Who knows, Cameesa might even give Threadless a run for their money in the end. With the power of social networking and bookmarking I am sure there are a few potential supporters out there with the clout to give their
favourite design an enormous push. Take a look at your FaceBook and MySpace accounts, if they’re bulging with thousands of friends, this may be the
perfect opportunity for you!