Springleap have hooked up with Vodacom in South Africa to offer a very generous $1250 in their latest contest, yep that’s US dollars and not South African Rand, so if you’ve got some design talent and you’ve never tried your luck there, this would be the time to start! The theme is “connectivity”, essentially it’s all a clever piece of marketing for a phone company who’s marketing department seemed to have got caught up in the whole idea of crowdsourcing, people hooking up with each other, that kind of jazz. Anyway, forget the hype, all you need to know is that:

The deadline for submissions to win $1250 is March 25th 2011.

The theme is “connectivity” and in particular imagining a life without Vodacom, without SMS (without mobile phones beeping incessantly… trains full of business jerks texting Eastern European call girls because their wives are screwing their fitness coaches… interruptions at dinner, or when you’re getting it on with that someone special… a life without mobile phones? Bliss.)

If you’re not a member then sign up at www.springleap.com and get cracking on that vision of a quieter, better dull and boring world without Vodacom!

As with the rest of the business world, the t-shirt sector has its “bad apples”, one of the first to come to my attention following an initially positive review here at Buy Tees was Teextile.com. They still remain the worst offenders in poor if not non-existent customer service, sending out t-shirts late, sometimes never at all, and even neglecting to pay their designers. Today I received another comment at my post Teextile – A Rip Off? which highlights all the crimes and misdemeanours of this relatively young venture into the world of t-shirt crowdsourcing. Here’s what the designer Warren Hart had to say on the matter:

“I let them use one of my designs ( SLF ryu shirt ) (http://www.fourninjas.com/shop/product/1006828) to sell in January of 2010. They have yet to pay me a dime for the amount of shirts they sold. In total they owe me about $300. For months I’ve asked and asked for my money and nothing. Just one sob story after another. They were quite rude to me as well. Now they don’t even respond. P.S. Tanga.com have ripped off my design as well.“

A few days ago I also received a comment from a reader complaining about the French t-shirt community site Wordans.com:

“Wordans has very poor business skills! I ordered shirts for a festival I was attending, their web-site claimed it would take 5-10 days and it took my shirts over 16 business days to reach me. When I cancelled my order they said they would not give my money back and I should have put a rush on my order even though I ordered with more than sufficient time!“

Now, despite the awful example of Teextile, perhaps the most crooked and conceited t-shirt community on record (read these comments to see why!), I might be blowing things out of proportion. Although I have a suspicion that most t-shirt buyers experiencing problems with customer service and shipping times may simply be on the receiving end of companies that are a victim of their own success. For every Threadless, Design By Humans, Cafepress and Spreadshirt out there, obversely there are dozens (if not hundreds) of failing t-shirt companies and ‘Print On Demand’ t-shirt sites, and it’s simply a matter of under-manning and underfunding. Without enough staff and a decent contingency fund there’s little most t-shirt companies, or any company for that matter, can do when demand outstrips supply.

Then again, I’d like to see a single instance of say a car designer, a commercial architect, or a governmental advisor in a quango who hasn’t received monies for their services. The truth is that certain t-shirt communities out there are getting a very bad reputation amongst designers, far worse than they will have garnered through a dissatisfied clientèle. Without design, the lifeblood of all t-shirt communities, there is no community, there are no t-shirts, no customers, no profits, absolutely zilch. It seems extremely short-sighted for any company, no matter what they sell, to cheat their own designers, do they think we are all fools?

The time is at hand, I believe, to stand up against the commercial bullies, the cheats, the crooks and the thieves in the t-shirt industry, and the best place to start is with the current worst offenders, Teextile.com.

Above is a button to include on your own blog, site, or social network page if you want to help stop this ever pervading problem. If you wish you can link to this post or http://buy-tees.net/2010/03/teextile-a-rip-off

or not, the choice is yours. I simply think it would be a good idea to make it clear that we’re not going to take this s*** off any t-shirt community again. In the UK we have something called Trading Standards that to a degree can guarantee customer rights, along with our own Statutory rights. In America the best they can offer is the Better Business Bureau which seems to be something of a voluntary organisation with little legal clout and a tendency to ignore those companies that haven’t signed up to their register. Useless.

What we really need is an independent body, funded by all the major t-shirt sites as mentioned before, i.e Threadless, DBH, Cafepress, Spreadshirt etc. This body would essentially provide a seal of approval for new and old t-shirt communities, including a ratings system that is recognised world-wide by the industry and the buying public. The ball is in their court now, who knows, if we all stand together on this it might just happen.

As a matter of interest I’m guessing the site’s name is based on the (slightly more) sophisticated alternative to the awful netspeak for laughter “LOL” meaning laugh out loud. SOTI means “smirking on the inside”. Then again I could be wrong and it could be a reference to sex on the ice, but that’d be a long shot ;) The site is pretty sophisticated too, with an ultra clean design every little interaction seems somehow smoother and quicker than most stores, fans and designers should find it a breeze to shop, vote or upload a submission.

Here’s my latest submission based on a piece of mine called ‘Pearly King’, basically a vision of an alternative reality where Elvis was born within the sound of Bow Bells. Let the Dick Van Dyke impressions commence!

Pearly King T-Shirt

If you’re a member at MySoti I’d appreciate a few votes! Here’s a few more up for the vote that deserve a boost…

Storm In A Teacup T-Shirt

Here’s a great use of the classic Japanese painting The Great Wave by Hokusai. Designed by Ross Robinson who from his profile photo where he’s wearing a Union Jack tee I’m guessing he’s British, then again featuring anything connected with tea in a t-shirt design is another big giveaway. I love this design, it’s deceptively simple yet beautifully drawn. Vote for it or buy it for £21.56 in all sizes and plenty of colours here – only available in a  men’s style?!

Epic Rock Paper Scissors Battle T-Shirt

This is a superb design by YAWN, I really like this designer’s sense of humour, and they have a really great talent for eyecatching illustration. There are a few more by YAWN worth checking out including Ice Is Nice! and Nerd Gets Hurt. If you fancy voting for any of their designs check out YAWN’s profile. Their Epic Rock Paper Scissors Battle T-Shirt is available for Girls, Guys and Kids in plenty of sizes and colours from £15.59 here.

Marilyn Sane T-Shirt

Probably my fave tee at MySoti right now this is the one that got away from Warhol, well if he’d been into early 1970s British Rock. I actually own a copy of the album “Aladdin Sane” by David Bowie, he was going through his Thin White Duke phase when he wrote it, although the make-up is straight from his Ziggy Stardust wardrobe. There are a couple of cool songs on it but try Lodger, Heroes or Low for the real deal. You can’t get more Pop Art than this shirt, a great design by RikkiB available for Kids, Girls, Guys and Onesies from £21.67 in a range of colours, vote for it or buy it here.

Why not vote for a few more, upload your own or even buy a few tees with a more British feel at www.MySoti.com?

We received a request recently (sorry have been on the razzle all weekend) for a review from Miss Etti, one of the crazy people at Shirt Fight and couldn’t resist the chance to open up your eyes to this relatively new t-shirt contest site offering weekly themed design competitions aptly named “Shirt Fights”. They’ve already got a few winners under their belt and have plenty more in the running. The site is slick yet friendly and they go out on a limb to make sure their community gets the full lowdown on each of their winning designers.

Check out their interview with Evanimal – their first winner and their hand picked top 10 heavyweights. SF offer a whopping $500 for a winning design so if you have the talent and are out of pocket it’s well worth knocking out a tee and seeing if it lasts the gruelling rounds. There are plenty of ways of keeping up-to-date with all the latest happenings at SF including Twitter, Facebook, RSS and the blog. However as you may have guessed we’re going to focus on the t-shirts, that is why you’re here after all?

Spirit Quest – Only $15!

Spirit Quest is SF’s latest winner, it’s on sale now for just $15, so if you’re looking for a budget alternative to “doing a Jim” – i.e Jim Morrisson wandering off from The Doors in the middle of the desert and following a bald Indian into a cave (yes I’m quoting the Oliver Stone version of events here) – well this is most likely your best best to get a little D.I.Y shamanism in on the sly. It’s a simple but effective design by Zipperking (let’s not even get into why they chose that as their username) with some very attractive detailing, wild vector extravagance (or is it a Photoshop brush?) for the effervescent spirit rising on high, rather ectoplasmic in style and a smooth tonal range gliding into a turquoise blue. Smart hippy, minimalist stoner attire.

You Might Need More Than A Nightlight This Time

Very reminiscent of Maurice Sendak‘s children’s book Where The Wild Things Are, I used to love that in my most formative years, You Might Need More Than A Nightlight This Time plays upon those very same childhood fears, although I’d say there was a good deal of psychedelic influence in this design too. Evananimal has managed to maintain a sense of humour in the artwork and I appreciate the detail of a lad peeking from under their covers to view the oncoming cartoon nightmare. Trippy without being dippy, scary but not too much, an explosion of colour tamed by a master of line and contour.

Vote For Zilladelic

Amazing design terrible t-shirt colour. Something that can be easily remedied I’m sure. Zilladelic is a great example of old school comic art at its best, way before the cutesy doe-eyed elfin figures of so much of Manga and Anime, the Japanese did a damn good job of mimicking DC and Marvel style comic art, whilst adding their own inimitable blend of weird and wonderful mythology. Now if someone could just get the message across to TNT138 that lurid day-glo green isn’t the most popular of t-shirt colours we may witness another future winner here!

Vote For El Presidente’s Loco Robo

Now I know that robots have been done to death, just like skulls and all manner of other popular images in t-shirt design, but you have to admit this is about the strangest and most funky robot you’ve seen in a while. Totally crazy vectors, mad colours, mad love. It’s kind of a tribute to El Presidente, the self-elected leader of the gang at Shirt Fight, which is fair enough, someone has to run the site and deal with all the barmy t-shirt designers and fans there! Anyway I love it, it looks best on a black tee as far as I am concerned, it has everything you could want in a t-shirt, ufos, monsters, aliens, robots, lasers, a totally wacky showdown of colour and line that adds up to a marvellous cacophany of a design. El Presidente’s Loco Robo – great stuff from ElvinJohn18!

Take a look, submit a vote, buy a tee, design and submit a tee, it’s your choice at Shirtfight.com – just make sure you don’t try and design anything with your boxing gloves, and if you don’t mind a few bruises to your ego who knows you could be up $500 before you know it. Oh btw SF offer free shipping across the USA and are suposed to have pretty reasonable rates for the rest of the world. Oh you lucky Americans you.

Here’s the latest news straight from Kamil, one of the team at Cameesa -

* They’ve lowered support amounts from $20 down to $10, so now you can support a tee for just $10 or wait to buy it for $18+
* There’s Free Shipping on everything from March 20th-27th so hurry down there now!

What’s more if your fave tee doesn’t make the grade you can reclaim your sponsorship, in fact you’ll get 110% back just for your trouble!

Whilst I’m at it here’s a few of their latest t-shirts on offer…

Eye For An Eye by God Machine at Cameesa

Totally mad, Grateful Dead / Alton Kelley style graphic exuberance from Godmachine at Cameesa, simply entitled “Eye For an Eye“. Available now at the store for $18.

Gamer Mother by The Infinity Loop at Cameesa

An absolutely hilarious rendition of Whistler’s Mother – Gamer Mother by The Infinity Loop shows a great sense of humour, it needs your support now! Just $10 will help get this tee printed – right now it’s approximately halfway there, so why not show some Cameesa love and get yours in advance and on the cheap!

Ride or Die by Deekin at Cameesa

As Deekin of Cameesa explains this design – Ride or Die – was originally for Halloween but I like it, great line and tone, I particularly like the bandages flying in the wind. I’d have gone for something more like “BMX Addict” for the title and skipped the gothic background, gave him a trick bike with some decent shocks and so on. Essentially extreme sportsters don’t know when to stop, I can imagine this guy clambering out of his hospital bed to do some jumps. It’s not doing to well sponsorship-wise, only $30/$500 right now (gulp) – so I thought I’d give the guy a boost and see if we can’t get a little more support out there. Perhaps his target market is a little slim, any Gothic cyclists out there?

Our Lady of Guadalupe by Jimiyo at Cameesa

This absolutely stunning tee Our Lady of Guadalupe by Jimiyo is certainly tipped for the top, right now it only has $180/$500 sponsorship but I doubt it won’t make the grade, superb illustrative work, almost sculptural in design. Jimiyo has put a lot of work and time into this one and is practically begging for support, which I can totally understand, if Cameesa doesn’t print this one it would be a crime, perhaps not against God as such, but at least against t-shirt design mastery. So start digging through your pockets, check your piggy banks, and sponsor this one, it’s a beauty.

Anyway you get the idea, it’s all about people power at Cameesa, and it’s cheaper than ever, so if you want to have your say, put your money where your mouth is and sponsor a tee!

For all the budding t-shirt community stores out there hoping to make their mark, Wordans can teach you a thing or two about how to set the scene and make a unique mark in online urban fashions. Usually the immediate concerns of everything from bottom line profits, delivery mechanisms, and Google rankings get in the way of the essentials that savvy t-shirt buyers and urban fashionistas will always want. Simply to find the best of the best as soon as they hit the store. A fine balance has to be struck between presentation, quality control, and design excellence. Wordans truly know what their people want and they ensure they’re never swamped in a labyrinthian search and browse system of tags and keywords, search terms and subjects in the process.

I’d rather they skipped the Flash-based designer and I’d love to see some larger design formats than the usual, how about some all over printing? I suppose you can’t have everything can you. Asides the rather slow Flash designer, Wordans is as tactile as virtual shopping can achieve (for now – unless they invent a holographic internet), and I personally feel they’re heading in the right direction. Like the most happening ghettos of the most style conscious cities across the world, the development of a style is organic, and evolution however haphazard is always more fun than the megalomania of a business creationist.

This is cute, very street art, and a nice simple idea, Design T-Shirt by Bendesign gets straight to the point and leaves behind the pretentiousness that could’ve have haunted this work. A cool free-flowing style tops off the crunchy iconography for a t-shirt with meat on its bones.

Kinda creepy I suppose but what a refreshing change from all those awfully glib slogan t-shirts, most slogans leave me cold, and sure IANAM does the same, but at least it does it for all the right reasons. With the world’s climate of paranoia and oncoming doom and gloom, I can see this being a hit with the more cynical fashionista looking to make an impact on the old men who run the game called society.

I seem to be picking out all the monotones at Wordans but I do like a wisecrack and this tops them all, New York Taxi is very tidy, quick to the point and rather amusing in it’s own strange little way. I must remember to get a flaming torch the next time I need to hail a cab there, maybe it would help who knows.

I’ve noticed quite a few by Kanari, one of the more popular designers at Wordans, check out these two, Gangster and Hip Hop Baby:-

So there you have it – a real quality act all round – I really like the way that Wordans.com obviously appreciates its designers, they offer a decent subdomain for each store, and by the looks of it plenty of opportunity for designers to customise their own little corner of the web, and Wordans definitely know how to sort the wheat from the chaff. If you’re sick of ‘I Love Some City Or Other’ tees, and flags and hearts and all the usual gumpf then you should really check out Wordans, they are already breaking the mould, one to look out for at the very least.

Threadless.com‘s business timing couldn’t be better, sure it may just be the grizzled old cynic in me that can’t resist pointing this one out, but have you heard about the state of Icelandic’s economy these days? On average their prices for everything from hotels to food to shopping and bars are down around 40% compared to last year. So even if you don’t win their latest competition, it shouldn’t break the bank if you fancy popping over there for a while. Still it’s always nice to get a freebie, and with the latest theme of ‘Threadless Loves Travel’ you’ll have a pretty wide remit as far as design briefs go.

I’ve just got back from Morocco so the wild and frenzied culture of North Africa is still spinning through my mind, but to be honest you could choose anywhere and anything, be it the Great Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China, an Amazonian adventure, a flight into space, I’m not sure if time travel would count (although I’d be game – would be handy for the lottery numbers).

Whatever you fancy creating for the contest make sure you submit your work by their deadline for entries on October 22, 2008. Their contest is sponsored by Icelandair, action sports accessories company Dakine, IES Abroad (Institute for the International Education of Students), and even the band Calexico, are each making it possible for the best design to take to the skies in style. The creator of the winning design will receive a bounty of travel goodies including two round-trip tickets to Iceland on Icelandair, a $1k credit to a travel site of his or her choosing, courtesy of IES, a Dakine Split Roller 90 Travel Bag, and a personalized song, written by Calexico, inspired by the winning design.

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!

However most people with a political opinion don’t particularly like the opposition, I doubt that many Americans out there who’d vote for Obama would have any kind words for McCain and vice-versa. The truth is electoral politics lives and breathes the antagonism of difference, without it the debate becomes stale, although it could be said that parties in power immediately switch to a politics of indifference in an effort to avoid being torn apart by the arguments of an unsatisfied and even angry electorate. I can’t think of a single political campaign that hasn’t sunk to the depths of bickering, sniping, and personal insults that CF obviously want to avoid.

At least CF give you the option to skip a candidate, say you don’t want to vote between two t-shirts of McCain or Obama there’s an option to move ‘to the other side’. But deep in my heart this isn’t a judgement in fair play, it’s censorship. People love to hate, it’s a fact of life, there will be some ardent politicos out there pummelling the vote buttons trying to increase the popularity of their favourite candidate, but eventually they know they can’t ‘win’ anything over the competition, this isn’t a political contest, it’s a t-shirt vote. Still, it’s nice to have a break from all the back-stabbing out there at the moment.

So what’s on offer? Well for the voters there’s a chance to vote and consequentially buy an Obama or McCain t-shirt when the contest is over. However for the designers, there’s a $250 prize and 20 free t-shirts plus tons of recognition for the winning designs (one for each candidate), and 10% of the profits from each t-shirt sold. I appreciate what Jimmy Hendricks (wow nice name) and his team are trying to do at CollarFree.com, I know how frustrating the backbiting in politics must seem to the majority of everyday people looking for a fairer deal, equality or perhaps a few tax breaks. However if CF’s model was to be taken on by government, you’d have two Americas, Donkey USA and Elephant USA. Which isn’t exactly united is it? The political fires are inevitably stoked by the media, and those corporations with enough vested interests, such as oil refineries and car manufacturers who regularly throw money in an attempt to avoid the problems rather than fix them. Besides the media has it’s own unique agenda, the agenda of fighting the boredom of a generation with the shortest attention span in history. I’ve said it many times before, good news = no news. A ‘pig with lipstick’ makes the headlines not ‘candidate makes a valid point about macro-economics’.

They’re using the popular ‘crowd sourcing’ model that many market research companies have taken up off the back of sites like Threadless.com, and I can see this having a big future in politics itself…

The only way we can take the electoral process to the next level is to remove the media from the process altogether. Get the voters to click on their TV remotes and tally the results. No fanfare, no ticker-tape parades, no public advertising. Everyone knows we’re always going to get the same thing. One loves big business and war, the other favours the poor and human rights, one wants to reward the winners, the other wants to help the losers. If anything I think society is almost ready to drop government altogether, they’ve privatised enough of the services and utilities in the USA and Europe as it is. The rich have private security and the poor are more often abused by the police than protected by them. Perhaps I’m leaping ahead by a few decades again, perhaps we do have to keep going through this ritual for a little longer, but never forget, the only people who truly control the electoral process are the media, financial markets, manufacturers, retail giants, and energy and arms barons. The rest of us are only here to make up the numbers.

No person, no party, no government can fix our current situation. The electoral process has been reduced to a market research tactic, and the swaying motion of the undecided is merely economic. If the economy is doing well we all want to be humane and benevolent, if it’s not we become selfish and opportunistic, just the way that politicians do.

Still, I fully appreciate CollarFree.com‘s admirable intentions, I’d rather CF were in government, at least there would be far less argument (and plenty of great t-shirts for every voter). If you feel the same, go and check out CollarFree.com right now and have your say.