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.

An absolutely incredible design oozing sci-fi and fantasy all over the place. I love the extremely delicate use of halftones in this piece, deceptively simple and filled to the brim with a sense of wonder. I think this must be Dobi’s best work yet. It’s available for both men and women for $19 however they’ve sold out of small size tees for women :/  Still you can get yours at http://www.designbyhumans.com/shop/detail/6190.

Whilst I’m at it here are three classic designs redesigned or as he describes it ‘reset’ available at Rob Dobi’s own store FullBleed.org.

Forever Longing T-Shirt available here.

Paint It Red T-Shirt available here.

Work Is For The Birds T-Shirt available here.

Rob Dobi’s client list has exploded over the past few years, just before I scarper check out these big names…

Amazing!

I couldn’t agree more with Liz and hopefully you are also in agreement, we need to step up the evolution in the world of t-shirts and reflect the massive developments in our industry, it’s true that since the emergence of sites like Threadless.com there has been a noticeable key change in the attitude and culture of both designers and consumers of the beloved tee.

The same could be said for many market sectors, something funky, something cool is happening to our little planet and we need to stand up and be counted, share ideas, co-operate in new ventures, and counteract the old man culture of business once and for all. There really is no call for technocrats and specialists when it comes to the popularity of t-shirt fashion, with literally millions of screen printers and clothing manufacturers out there to handle the complexities of producing tees why should the majority of us and the highest listings on major search engines be bogged down with the intricacies of a smidgeon of what constitutes this vibrant and dare I say it exciting community of creative people, harking from all walks of lives and cultures”? Should we simply shrug our shoulders and accept things as they are or shall we change the future of this industry for the good of all?

Unlike the present establishment, Liz welcomes your suggestions and ideas to help enable her and her team to produce a forum that we all can use and enjoy, potentially TDT can offer us all a vital resource for promotion and discussion of t-shirt designs, markets, ideas, and everything related to designing, creating and marketing this important sector of the fashion industry. Liz openly invites designers to promote their work in their ‘Pimp Your Tees’ section and offers reviews and experiences of all the ‘Print on Demand’ services available now.

I’ve just signed up myself and if you’d like to hook up my username is ‘buytees’, the forum uses a vBulletin script so you can be rest assured it’s a quick and painless process with no confirmation needed, once you enter your details you are ready to contribute, have your say, edit your profile and generally get stuck in. I’ve made a few posts myself, all the forum needs is more people, it’s hosted on a decent server, the posts move fast and the people seem friendly, what can I say?

There’s a very useful section on t-shirt design competitions which will help you discuss the best methods for success at sites like Emptees, DBH, Cameesa, Threadless and many others. Of course the forum is a little empty right now but I’m sure with your help it will be thriving very soon! I had a little trouble viewing my signature but I’m sure it’s only teething troubles. I’ve also hooked up with a few people I’ve reviewed before at the forum so you can be assured you’ll be mingling with the best of the best!

If you’d like to help contribute to the forum sign up now and have your say, you’ll be pleased to know that your posts will also be promoted at her very popular t-shirt reviews blog at PopCultureTees.com, which essentially means more bang for your buck (excuse the metaphor – it’s all free!).

Come and show your support for this mainstay of the t-shirt review blog sector, Liz is waiting for your contributions, however great or small, I’m sure you can help to make a difference and help prove that there is a new and more vibrant alternative for t-shirt designers and consumers alike! If we’re ever going to notch the t-shirt industry up a gear, this is the perfect time to start. Come and sign up today for free at the new TeeDesignTalk.com forums and have your say!

They offer a new screen-printed limited-edition tee every 24 hours for $9 however you can only buy a maximum of 3. They print on high-quality “regular-fit” tees that are made of 100% ringspun cotton. They pay each artist $1 per shirt sold AND the artist keeps full rights to their design. After a design’s 24 hour stint at Tee Fury the artist can sell the design anywhere they like. They charge $2 US and $7 Worldwide shipping.

Their back catalogue brims over with some of the finest illustrative t-shirts you’ll ever see, unfortunately most of them are no longer for sale, such is the nature of the Tee fury beast. I think it best I focus on designers rather than designs, and what a selection TF has, it would be almost impossible to pick out all my favourites without losing a few nights sleep, so I’ll limit this review to the cream of the crop, and don’t worry (where possible) I’ve included links to sites where you can buy their t-shirts whenever you like ,and where I can’t you can vote for a reprint! Teemocracy in action!

Jimiyo ‘Keep Fierce’ T-Shirt

You can buy Keep Fierce at Design By Humans. A superb double-sided design, almost psychedelic in parts!

Jimiyo offers excellent some illustrative detail and a beautiful range of muted colours to make this tee a must have.

Sign up for his newsletter, and be entered to win a FREE t-shirt. To sign up, Jimiyo.com and enter your email. Every time he sends out a newsletter, someone will win a t-shirt!

Jimiyo’s preferred tools of the trade are the almighty pencil and Photoshop.

Ryan Miller is an illustrator and designer who offers commission designed t-shirts, posters and flyers. Unfortunately you won’t see any of his works for sale to the general public but his blog is still well worth a visit.

Ryan Miller has a fantastic knack for grunge-retro images, I particularly appreciate his due care and attention to line and colour.

I love the textural weave effect used in his Obama T-Shirt, and the contrasted colours really make this work come alive.

He’s prepared to sell the rights to this for the right price, so worth considering if you’re looking to beef up your own t-shirt store collection! Visit his blog for more information at http://www.relentlessstudio.com/portfolio.php?id=69

Fouad aka Tessa Vesak only has a few t-shirts on offer but ‘Murder of Crows‘ is a beauty, you can also buy another work ‘Evolution‘ at Uneetee.com, although I still think M.O.C is my fave.

Funnily enough I’ve a few t-shirts submitted there, both are previous Threadless.com incarnations who didn’t make the grade, although Moonlighting did make it through a full seven days of voting.

Yes it’s a shameless plug, but if you fancy voting for ‘Face Book‘ at Uneetee by well …me, you can vote for it here. Yes I know I forgot to include a placement image, doh! I’ve had a few moans and groans about that, don’t worry I won’t forget again!

I’ve realised whilst perusing the artists directory at Tee Fury that many artists haven’t a web site, or they almost exclusively offer commission-based illustrations, which means that very few of TF’s original editions aren’t available, which increases their exclusivity, but makes it rather difficult to review their past offers. However you’ll find the following designers do offer other designs not available at TF, which I have listed below.

J3Concepts has also had success at Tee Fury in the past, here’s on of his classic tees, “Country Club Nouveau” – now available at only $14 from Design By Humans!

Collision Theory is also relatively well known in the underground t-shirt industry, however his winning t-shirt “When Pandas Attack” hasn’t made it at Threadless.com which backs up my argument about the problems with their voting model! CT still has some great tees available, you can buy “Refraction” at Design By Humans, one of my faves by this designer.

Perhaps my current favourite designer to have sold at Tee Fury, Monographiz offers some absolutely perfect designs, MG recently won the weekly prize at UneeTee.com with his design “Hidden Castle“. Just take a look at the detail in this…

I had to give one last mention to Tom Burns who’s well known by many as a winner at Threadless.com, Uneetee.com and DesignByHumans.com. He’s also a past winner at Tee Fury, and currently offers many of his designs from his own store at Loiterink.com including his celebrated “Communist Party” t-shirt. If you can’t remember it – here’s a reminder…

If you’d like to follow in the footsteps of these and many other great t-shirt artists and at the very least make yourself a little extra free publicity, all you need to to is submit your art to art@teefury.com (if your design is selected, they will contact you for the high resolution version).

Submission guidelines:

1. Designs are limited to 6 colours and front chest print up to 15 x 19 inches.
2. Submissions should be at least 800 x 800 pixels (keep file size below 10MB).
3. Include a succinct but interesting biography in your email and a link to your portfolio site.

You’ll find many of Tee Fury’s archived winners’ tees at the following sites:

Threadless.com

DesignByHumans.com

Uneetee.com $10 Deal! One Design, One Day On Sale Everyday. New Deal Every Midnight!

I’ve mentioned the whole problem before, if you’re a Myspace or Facebook star (I must join those two one day lol!), then you’re set to be a famous t-shirt designer (well almost). My first experience of t-shirt voting was at an ecological t-shirt site I’d reviewed (http://buy-tees.net/2008/06/vote-green-at-eco-t-shirt-competition) – District Cotton are a cool company, they contribute ten percent of their profits to charity and their ideology is so sound I had to make a contribution, I submitted my design and waited. Nothing happened. I asked a few friends, they voted for my t-shirt. Then some of the worst designs I’d ever seen started to accrue so many votes, and sometimes they’d hover exactly one vote more than my total, at other times it would jump by 50 votes in a period of five minutes… hmm. I suppose that’s why most t-shirt contest sites require membership, so they can try and put a lid on the cheating. That’s enough ranting – okay on with the list!

Threadless Clones are sites that follow the business model laid down and market formed by Threadless.com – if enough people vote for a t-shirt design, the designer earns a commission and residuals. Seems simple enough, but be warned it’s a t-shirt voter eat t-shirt designer world out there! Threadless sold $6.2 million worth of merch last year and has pretty much quadrupled in size each year for the past four years. Their designer quality control is one of if not the most stringent out there. They make big money from their products so only your very very best submissions here (and then some). This year’s target is $18-$20 million. The others have a long way to go when it comes to profit, but they offer far more opportunity of actually getting your t-shirt printed!

Threadless.com – The gargantuan t-shirt voting site that created the whole market obviously has to reside at the top! From the humblest of beginnings (Threadless began as a thread in a forum) in early 2000, Jake Nickell, Jeffrey Kalmikoff, and Harper Reed went on to form SkinnyCorp, the company behind Threadless.com that handles everything from site development to t-shirt fulfilment. They are geniuses at ‘soft marketing‘ which stretches far beyond their novel business model. For instance their golden t-shirt label idea, √† la Willy Wonka‘s Golden Tickets, which offers a free t-shirt to every lucky winner. Threadless was the first, the most profitable, offers the highest prizes, has the largest membership, and many more advantages. They even interview their top designers to give them a greater public profile (which in turn increases Threadless.com’s own popularity), and have a section devoted to celebrity spotting – essentially who’s wearing their tees where. But be warned, if you’re rising up on the Threadless manna you maybe heading for a bad comedown. This site is vicious, many voters are there to prevent success rather than encourage it. The most proliferate voters are usually designers with a bad habit of scoring as near to zero as possible, it truly takes a work of conceptual or artistic genius to win their competition, with very few exceptions, most of their t-shirts end up selling more than most independent t-shirt designers could sell in a lifetime. This is the bottom line, you’ll need a legion of fans, you’ll need to be a master of idea, illustration, colour and presentation. If people do start effin’ and blinding on your page Threadless won’t remove it (unlike DesignByHumans.com). What’s more they’ve refused my last submission ‘Prosper’ and they pulled the one before that early, have these guys got it in for me or do they do this to everyone, I mean, treat them like crap that is? They say copyright issues yet Glennz has designed two Star-Trek related t-shirts, it couldn’t be the Obama reference could it? Have Threadless banned Obama??? Worst of all the chances are that I, you or anyone we personally know will ever win their top prize, or any of their prizes. But then again I do like a challenge – if only these guys would play fair!?!

• $2,000 in cash
• $500 Threadless Gift Certificate (can be redeemed for $200 cash)
• $500 in cash each time your design is reprinted
• Up to $10,000 more if you win a “Bestee” in the Threadless Awards

LaFraise.com – The first shock in the list, a little known French tee contest site with a whopping amount of traffic! They have some very cool designs here too, well worth a visit.

• ‚Ǩ1000 top prize and a temporary contract to sign whilst they sell the tees (so I guess you’re only leasing the rights!).

Myntra.com – This is probably as much of a surprise to you as it is to me but the third most popular t-shirt voting site is Myntra.com! They are based in Bangalore, India and hold just one t-shirt design competition a month, the prize is 25,000 Rupees which comes to nearly $600 or £300. This month it’s a Bollywood theme t-shirt contest, as you might expect.

• 25000 Rs

DesignByHumans.com – This should be my favourite t-shirt voting store, I love the feel and attitude of the site and community. Expect more support and a friendlier attitude generally, however the prizes are lower, the audience smaller, and problematically, no one but those you encourage to come will vote for your work. I’ve mentioned in a few posts and even an email or two to DBH that they should consider featuring their designers more, and not leave it to fate and karma and what have you. The truth is they should be the best, even the name conjures up ideas of egalitarianism and cerebral art communalism, and to be fair it does to a degree. I had a real plonker spamming my comments at DBH, I didn’t want to argue with the guy, he was getting on and very bitter, he produced a few drab watercolours and they’d had a few comments from his friends, but he was lording it over other designers. Unlike Threadless, DBH’s support was fantastic, they’d noticed he’d been giving quite a few other designers the same treatment. Generally slagging anything off anything and everyone was not what I call constructive criticism. DBH responded quickly, removed the offending comments, warned the guy and even thanked me for my advice. They’re currently considering making changes to their system to filter out the worst offenders. Democracy in action at Design By Humans!

• $3,500 plus residuals!
• $750 ($500 cash, $250 credit) Runners-Up.
• $1000 cash for Shirt of the Week.
• $1750 ($1500 cash, $250 credit) for Shirt of the Month
• Plus Rockstar Awards Program.

Uneetee.com – Has a nice feel to it, generous t-shirt thumbnails on their homepage displaying their latest design winners, a good selection of talented designers, overall a sparse but perfectly adequate layout (a rather tiny log in link on the top left though). Once you’re signed up you can either vote for other works or submit your own. Unlike Threadless they only accept a maximum of 4 colours for submitted designs, and if they’re accepted you’ll have to wait and see what their users think. There doesn’t seem to be that many people here, or most of them don’t seem to be too vocal, and when they are they lean more towards positive criticism and praise than out and out Threadless-style combat. I can’t say I’m bowled over by the t-shirts here, some of the winners are fantastic, but overall UT seems to lean towards old school illustrative line drawings rather than vector images or puns. The humour is muted, the colours and styles ranging between delicate and expressionist. I’m not sure if this means the site is left wide open for a few of my designs, or that they’d reject them, I just can’t quite get what UT are about. Friendly but a little confused. They do however offer a $10 deal on one featured shirt everyday and it seems like they offer residuals for their design winners, but I’ve no idea how much, I could research this on the net, but then again it’s another example of UT’s rather confusing approach to their users. Then again they have a popular store here so they must be doing something right!

• Residual Commissions.

Emptees.com – Took me a while to work it out – there’s an unobtrusive grey css button at the top labelled ‘New Tee‘ – that’s where you submit your work. The interesting thing is you can submit your work at any stage of development, perhaps an idea you want some feedback, or your latest design, and of course tees for sale from just about anywhere, although I’m sure they must reject Cafepress.com and Zazzle.com links because the standard seems too high. There’s not much clarification on the site and for the main part independent designers mainly using a BigCartel.com store and a few winners at DBH and Threadless. Saying that, however well crafted many of the t-shirts are I couldn’t find many that I loved, or even liked particularly! I was so confused when I first joined I had to email them to ask what I’d need to submit a design, I was convinced they printed them as does Threadless and DBH. I was sure they only served BigCartel.com stores, and then I realised what they’re up to. It’s great PR, especially for BC, who earn their bread and butter from successful t-shirt designers seeking a way to set up their own independent store. Offering subdomain hosting and not providing fulfilment put me off the idea, but if you’ve got a great (and cheap) local t-shirt printer it maybe worth a try. Essentially Emptees provide a perfect addition to any decent t-shirt designers marketing strategy, design a t-shirt, sell it anywhere, upload a photo and a link here and you’re done! One piece of advice for ET, try enlarging your thumbnails, seems like there’s plenty of spare space in the site’s design. Essentially they offer free promotion as opposed to prizes and sales.

• No Prizes!

SpringLeap.com – South African Threadless clone with some pretty good entries here, I’m a little perturbed that the most prominent section on their home page is devoted to ‘featured SA designers’ – which makes me think they’re seriously biased towards their own. Fair enough but I’d just make it the policy rather than give an unfair advantage to some designers over others merely because they live in South Africa! If I’m wrong then why even write SA designers. Besides that they pay in South African Rand (which has a notoriously low exchange rate) which at current values amounts to a top prize of US$ 1068.88. They do offer a few incentives including your own name on the label! Hey Threadless what about that idea? Plus they sell their tees via independent shops (in South Africa) and feature you in your own mini-blog. So great over all, if you’re South African that is.

• Top Prize 748218 South African Rand
• 2 Rand per t-shirt sold – what’s that then… 13 pence? 6 cents? Hmm..
• Free tees for runners up – which means you might lose your copyright for a measly t-shirt voucher!

Allmightys.com – I’ve not heard of this one before, a lesser known European based site in the list, however they offer some really nice features, and I feel many elements of the Allmightys will set them in good stead for the future. The site is well designed, clear links at the top reveal a social network set up with everything from forum discussions to archives and member pages, the forum gives designers a chance to provide more background on their work, sulk if it has been dissed, and cheer if it wins. The voting system is a tad slow for me although I do appreciate their larger than usual thumbnails and featured designs throughout the site. You also have a chance to change your mind at any stage which is a nice change from the Threadless model, although there were only 7 designs to vote on when I was there that may be a good thing. Voters burn out easily and soon mark everyone down. They have a great offer on their shipping, buy four or more tees and they’ll ship them to you for free, internationally, yes anywhere in the world (are you listening Cafepress? International shipping for free, I had to repeat that before CP decides to give up totally on Europe). So to recap, small but perfectly formed, friendly, helpful, easy to navigate and great if you’re looking for your first prize as a t-shirt designer! If you want to submit a ‘discussion’ aka a t-shirt design and win you’ll receive residual commissions from every sale – read the full details of payments. Essentially the more they sell the more you make. I do like the fact that runner-up winners can still make a profit.

• Gold prize winner ‚Ǩ2 per tee for the first 50 sales.
• Silver ‚Ǩ 1.50 for every shirt
• Bronze and special selection ‚Ǩ 1.00 for every shirt
• Sell over 1000 you’ll earn ‚Ǩ4 per shirt, and ‚Ǩ6 if you win the gold prize simultaneously!

Hereitself.com – I’ve given this Istanbul-based site a mention before because it offers a $4000 top prize however they don’t pay residuals, so be sure you don’t mind losing the copyright on your best designs. Furthermore I made a boo boo recently, call it fool-proofing their site if you will – I being the fool in question – anyway I entered the wrong email address when signing up and got them to correct it or me (great), but I never received an activation link and even though they said they had activated my user-name, they haven’t. Eve though I’ve reviewed the site, even though I’m mentioning them again here, they still haven’t managed to activate my user-name. So i can’t fully review them and now I’m thinking better off not.

• $4000 but no residuals?

A-better-tomorrow.com -German T-Shirt Voting.

• ‚Ǩ500 top prize.

TshirtMonster.ca – A straightforward and friendly t-shirt voting site (they don’t even give preference to Californians!) that offers a reasonable top prize but also gives you a chance to sell your work, no matter what the vote result!

• $1000 top prize (but can sell tees there anyway).

TeeTonic.com Wow what a stingy site! £100 or $200 top prize plus residuals from this UK-based t-shirt competition site. They pay 50p/$1 per t-shirt sold which doesn’t really make up for the uninspiring first prize. Could do better!

• £100 plus residuals.

InkFruit.com – The site template isn’t great and neither are their t-shirts.

• Prizes? They won’t say!

Bestylin.com – First problem, they can’t spell. On their home page is the statement ‘$250 + 3 free t-shirts + residules’ – not residuals but residules. It makes me wonder what other mistakes they might be making! I don’t like the designs here and I suspect they’re all DTG.

• $250 and 3 t-shirts + residuals.

SplitTheAtom.com Friendly enough UK-based Threadless clone with some cute designs.

• £250 top prize.

Roygbivlab.com – (Dead!) I’ve no idea what the name means but the site seems promising except for one details, the winner’s circle features some of the worst t-shirts they have on offer, not sure why, there are some rather beautiful tees in the running so I’m guessing it’s because it’s still early days for these guys. They mention that your t-shirt will be on sale in a national retailer, I’m guessing they mean the USA, but which retailer I’ve no idea. I’d say it’s too soon to judge but I’d seriously think about getting a new domain name!

• Preliminary Review $500
• Final Review $1000

• £250 top prize.

GorillaTank.com – Another UK-based Threadless clone.

• £420 top prize.

Scribtee.com which is actually a dynamic page at UK-based ShirtCity.com feels more like an afterthought rather than a real t-shirt voting site – in fact it kinda sucks! Sure they have a decent site design but their address looks like this in my url bar http://www.shirtcity.com/shop/index.php?sc4_start=en_idcom The prizes are mean and I have a feeling they’re hiding this site at the back of their main store in order to ‘keep it quiet’. Essentially this looks like a big corporation taking advantage of independent designers – the sweatshop of the Threadless clones. A one off payment and a voucher from such an enormous company is almost insulting. There are no real residuals, just more vouchers (if you’re lucky), and even then very little credit given to you as the designer once SC are making a fortune from it. If you want to see good work go to waste, this would be the site

• £350 cash + £70 SC shopping voucher
• £250 cash + £70 SC shopping voucher – if you don’t win but SC want to print it anyway???

IceCreamTshirt.com – okay looks friendly enough, they print up to 5 colours, the prizes aren’t great but neither are the competitors, however almost two weeks after submitting a design I’ve not had word either way. My ice cream has melted and is now little more than sticky pool on the carpet. Very iffy.

• ‚Ǩ350 per 200 t-shirts sold.

The latest submission to Design By Humans, it’s called Paperwork and I believe its pretty much self-explanatory. It features a two characters wrapped in newspaper, one sweeps the road, the other is homless, the two share a moment under a sky-filled faux-water colour ticker-tape parade. I could push the whole eco argument again, but in all honesty this is more an exercise in the pointlessness of life than ecology. To be more accurate, the pointlessness of many of today’s society’s mechanisms of control, order and general management. Those who have little clear up those who have most, those who have nothing are cleared out of sight, and those with everything can’t see the trees for the paper.

{Has been accepted by DBH – VOTE FOR PAPERWORK HERE!}

I doubt it will get much attention but what the heck I enjoyed making this one. Incase you’re interested in how I created the faux-water colour effect, it’s quite simple really, if you have Adobe Fireworks that is. I know I know it’s supposed to be used for creating web graphics, but the usability and functionality of the layout means even if I was running on half the brainpower I have now (which isn’t much) I’m sure I could still handle it. Photoshop is great, but however many add-ons I add on, however many tutorials I follow it seems to take forever wherever I’m involved in the process. I’d love to merge the two, have all the fancy tricks of Photoshop built into a dummy interface like Fireworks, but I suppose I’m in the minority.

Back to the tip, find a complex and intricate photo, the larger the resolution the better (that’s basically how many dots per inch the image contains – imagine blowing up a Gif thumbnails a hundred times to see an unsightly splodge – basically not enough information for a larger image to process), and click the select tab in the toolbar of Fireworks. Now you’ll see one option called select similar, oh this is such a timesaver for me, coming from a collage/photo-montage background originally I rely on this everyday. Essentially you choose your parameters, including tolerance (play with this is can really make a difference later), anti-aliasing or feather (I don’t recommend hard for this) and click a colour or shape you hate, now “select similar”.

You’ll see hundreds of complicated shapes of the same colour surrounded by dotted lines. Delete them, or if you’re not sure save as a layer and then hide. Continue on until you have the bare bones of what you want. If the image is too dark invert the colours, and vice-versa, if the lines are too jagged, go back to the original and adjust your selection settings. Play with the contrast and hue functions too, sometimes you can find yourself staring into a world of psychedelia (if you’re lucky) other times it may seem more brusque and Constructivist (if you’ve a limited pallete), sometimes it will reveal a completely new image to work from. You may still need to work on those bit-mapped edges, there are plenty of vector tools to work from. If you have Adobe Iillustrator CS3 you can even turn the whole thing in to vectors (vectors create smooth lined images and can be enlarged without loss of clarity) and rid yourself of all the raggedy bits. Although I do enjoy a few raggedy lines, if you’re designing a screen-printed design you’ll need to lose them, unless you’re ready to spend a few weeks cutting out the image for printing.

Anyway will add a note if it’s accepted so you can vote if you wish, although you’ll have to join DBH if you do which is a little tedious, but then again, the added security means less cheating I suppose. Don’t worry it’s free, unless you want to buy something lol.

“First off, I apologize for the negative encounter you had with one of the members of the community. We try our best to promote a positive atmosphere here at DBH but sometimes there are those who choose to spoil the fun for everyone. We have since deleted ********* comments on your design as well as on some other artist’s designs. Thanks for calling our attention to this.”

I was very impressed with how far DBH have gone to make me feel welcome, admittedly there is still the problem with the comments system. I’ve asked Matt to discuss the possibility of a comment approval or quick complaint system to counteract this abusive form of behaviour. The truth is if we’re ever going to raise the benchmark of t-shirt design, or any design/arts medium for that matter, we have to place more emphasis on the quality of submitted works, rather than mere positive or negative publicity. I encountered an artist with little talent, and probably almost all his attention was focused on generating an income. He may have had a fan base, or he may have used an anonymous proxy server to charge up his votes, either way I don’t believe the guy had talent. Yet… I never wrote a single thing about any of his t-shirts or himself, either on his profile page, or his comments section. I did lose my temper, however I kept this retaliation to my own page at DBH

you maybe asking, what’s the difference Paul? Well firstly I wasn’t bombarding his works with a negative publicity campaign. As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, true, however, a long rant of an argument below an image, especially a personal and pointless barrage of insults, provides great temptation to read on, or close the page. As Matt explains, this wasn’t an isolated event, and so my suspicions were proven, some people climb by their own talents, whilst others smear and besmirch their competitors in an attempt to reduce choice, and elevate their own position in a new arena, influenced by their own objectives and beliefs.

This happens everywhere, in politics especially, there’s nothing wrong with a third party, or tenth, or hundredth. It’s simply a matter of supply and demand, and the problem of making good on your promises. Talk is cheap, the only thing that people truly respect is results. If you can do it better than most others, there will be a market for your talent. Of course, infinite choice is inevitable in a world of infinite suppliers, producers, distributors, marketers, it is in the vested interests of many self-made entrepreneurs to promote what pays well. The only chance the online consumer has of finding what they want, and not what’s ranked on Google, or subjectively reviewed by a million affiliate marketers, is the power of public appreciation.

i have to admit, I would find myself in the same quandary as the team at Design By Humans when it comes to the voting system, my recommendation would probably cripple their traffic and hence presence on the net. However, I’d still say their is currency in the following modification to their rules.

Instead of letting anyt DBH member vote, only offer this option to those who have purchased a product, but who haven’t designed one. This would mean seperating the login sections for buyers and producers (which I’m sure a php genius could do). I doubt they’ll ever do this, it’s probably self-defeating, sre they could limit access by IP address, however as I’ve mentioned before, anonymous proxies can always work around the security of most popular vote sites.

I’ll keep wrangling thoughts on the subject, I’m sure if I send this question far enough to the back of my brain, something will figure out the perfect way to promote and sell popular t-shirt design. However it will probably take a while, I’m not the most logical-minded person in the world. Just takea look at my t-shirts for proof! However I do have one final suggestion. Perhaps DBH could create a thumbnail sized featured image in a prominent position on the homepage. It could change with every referesh, with every new visitor, and it would display the very latest submission. Regardless of votes or talent, or amount of friends who vote for you because you vote for them.

I do have a problem with the nepotistic nature of the arts industry, it indulges in a lot self-congratulation, small cliques find themselves in a position of influence and steer the world up another cul-de-sac of short-term vision. I am not a snob, I find inspiration in the dirt, in the detritus of culture, the idioms that never caught on, the bygone years that never were, and their mistaken ideas of what the future would reveal. I love t-shirts and t-shirt design because I feel at home with the history, the culture, the styles involved. T-shirts is the last remaining icon from the now dead, now revived, now dead Pop Art movement. Andy Warhol screen-printed, Roy Lichtenstein took infleunce from comic art, fashion found bold colour and chaos in pattern, people of all classes and intellectual levels began to realise they could express themselves, it was allowed, you didn’t need permission.

If I’d lived through WW2 the 1960′s would’ve been a godsend, an antidote to the restrictive existence forced upon all those involved, the rations, the lack of fashion, the lack of fun. I hate suppression, I can’t abide rulebooks, I will always support a creative revolution, I am glad to tear down the walls of assumption for a clearer, wider perspective on culture, life and our reasons for existence. The answers are never logical, the answers are never black and white, hence we have art. Art is the vital integer in the equation of life when put in the context of logical progression and objective analysis on an emotional, cultural, or even spiritual plane. We cannot live by numbers alone. We cannot allow those who suppress creativity and originality to succeed. If you find yourself witnessing this, defend the rights of the individual concerned, not the rights of the oppressor. If one doesn’t eventually this negative viral event will turn on you.

So anyway, I’m back at DBH, and I will be submitting more work there. Who knows I might even win something one day.

He began by slating my work (fair enough) and then proceeded to push his biased world view on me, which basically entails not understanding any culture that doesn’t belong to the same landmass that he inhabits. He pointed out that Amsterdamned looks like a Mayan Calendar, which is fine, it’s all relevant – although in fact it was based upon a selection of Indian Mandalas (To the idiot at DBH: That’s India, the Sub-Continent – look it up on a map), a Ouija board, and a skull motif. He then proceeded to advise me to remove the “boat” – yep that’s a Dutch Barge lol. He wouldn’t admit it but he’s never even left his hometown let alone visited Amsterdam. Besides the barge I’m even sure he was confused by the “XXX” symbol which is are 3 crosses that form the core of Amsterdam’s city crest. These are St. Andrew’s crosses, named after the apostle St. Andrew who is said to have been martyred on such a cross. (Yes I was trying to be ironic – that one definitely flew over his head, sure there are prostitutes there, and I’m sure if he’d visited the place he would find the first “massage parlour” available and skulk there till dawn. Amsterdam is wild but it’s not just sex and rock and roll. I have a genuine feeling of warmth for the place and the people. It’s the European centre of animation, it’s an incredible diverse place for creative types, it’s fun. Next he advised I add a bunch of hookers, plenty of drugs and so on. Funny guy. I was getting irked. I asked him if he could find any other designs at DBH that showed explicit reference to sex or drugs and all I received were more wisecracks, including how he was “killing my @ss” at the votes and that was it, I’d had enough, and I’ll tell you why.

This guy’s work really sucks, it is as predictable as you can get, a wishy-washy collection of shapes, mainly feathers for some reason. I sat stunned, why on earth would someone with so little talent have such an enormous ego, that they could confidently slate every designer (although I suspect it is the new ones mainly), and then after a quick ciggie (terrible habit) and a cup of tea I think I’ve worked it out.

I once worked, unbeknownst to me, for a religious cult. It was a hippy jewellery company that imported cheap crystals from Eastern Europe and attached them to gaudy pre-cut steel templates, mostly of pixies and the Moon, they were called “sun-catchers”, and I hated them. I couldn’t stand their products at all, but what made me even more unbearable to work with was the whole “push down the little guy” attitude there. Let me clarify, there are two kinds of people, those who find success through their own merit, and those who try to destroy anyone who might be competition in the future, just in case they are their better. I am convinced that this ungainly fellow falls into the second camp, he crushes his competition via snide comments rather than through the quality of his work.

I began to imagine how many people who’d read them clicked to see his work, it’s probably the cheapest way ever to promote your work, but from a Karmic perspective it’s really screwed up. I’m obviously no businessman, I don’t play the hard and fast rules that some do, I want to learn, I want to share, I’m sure there’s far more future in that. In the main I write about what I understand and appreciate, there are cultural divides I can point out but rarely traverse, I suppose it’s naive of me to expect the same from others.

DBH are no better in this aspect, you have no control over the comments you receive, and you can’t remove a work easily either, I mailed support and got an auto-response “Please allow 72 hours for us to contact you” blah blah, I love some of the top designs at DBH, but if the rest of the humans there are as jaded as ********* and his finger-painted view on life, I’d rather knock this one on the head.

So, in short, DesignByHumans.com – great for buying t-shirts and awful for selling them. Until they fix this so they provide the traffic for each work (how about featuring new submissions on the homepage? Until they fix the ridiculous comments system. Until they give more control to the artist, I’m giving them a wide berth. You better have a lot of friends at DBH – be warned, if you do put your work up there, any jerk with a handful of MySpace pals can make sure your designs never see the light of day again….

NB:- Seems like DesignByHumans.com have been reading the blog – still no control over the comments but at least they removed the offensive items. Who knows maybe this will work out after all lol! Okay one more try – everyone deserves a second chance…

I had a very friendly exchange of emails with Taylor at DBH who reassured me that my style suited their site’s creative ethos to a tee, essentially the mistake I had made was nothing to do with the quality of my work but rather the placement of the images on their t-shirt template. My advice is the less coverage a design has over the spread of a shirt, the higher you should mount it. I notched my design up a few inches towards the armpits and resubmitted the design with a resounding success. I’ve even completed a second design – see the image below!

Unfortunately no one has voted for Eggheads yet! I’m going to have to take a closer look at how DBH works their voting system, but I have a sneaking suspicion that yet again it is all down to having a very popular site or an unlimited advertising budget, or a few thousand Facebook mates (none of which I have yet), to push your designs to the top where are DBH users will even see the damn thing.

If and that’s a big if, I ever get to the stage where I could run a similar site to DBH, (although I would only offer organic fair trade tees), I’d like a script that would make sure each and every accepted design got a fair crack at the whip. In plain English, I have a big problem with successful marketers scooping up the prizes at all these Threadless clone sites, I mean shouldn’t creativity come first above all else?

Anyway enough of my grumbling, I’ve been foolhardy enough to design and submit yet another work to Design By Humans, it’s called “Amsterdamned”, and if I had the marketing budget to back me up I think this would be a hit with their voters…

Amsterdamned harks back to the old Bob Masse psychedelic festival poster designs of the 1960s, not sure what the message is here, I’m sure it isn’t so much ‘drugs are bad m’kay’ as ‘too much of a good thing can be a bad thing’. I went on a trip to Amsterdam with around 90 other art students decades back and I had never seen so many stoned people in one place in my whole life.

The hoteliers, the bar managers, the shopkeepers, obviously all of the coffee shopkeepers, the prostitutes and even a few policemen (by the looks of their pupils) were all stoned. I suppose ‘passive inhalation of second hand smoke’ could’ve explained the cops, but in essence the place was too high, so far gone it almost took the pleasure out of partaking oneself (I said almost). Over a decade later I visited the city again and actually took in a few art galleries and museums that time – ye I am getting old. People were far less stoned in general, they’ve had a crackdown on the coffee shops since then, over half were closed down I’ve heard. Nevertheless I can call this work a nostalgic jaunt, a hark back to more innocent and rather mellow times, when hippie ideals came before business and profit. Even if they were all stoned.

I’ll keep you updated to my progress on this submission to DBH, as and when or if it is accepted. Who knows perhaps it’s just too controversial – ooh!