3 new prints coming soon!

there is a new competition in town that is raising some eyebrows. well, some brows are being furrowed.

tshirtvault.com has a new contest model that awards designers $3 per $19 shirt sold, and the top 5 designs sold get a portion of a $10,000 prize.

why are brows being furrowed? some find the setup incredulous, and even i feel like i am gambling as i submit designs into the competition. the detail that is concerning artists is the fact that you have to send it print ready art from the word go. the first rule of design is to never send the print ready art until you have cleared the check. and for tshirtvault.com to start selling your designs, it's a necessity to have this art up front.

the fear is that these designs could end up being ripped off. the company is brand new and hasn't had the time to build any trust with the online designer community.

i am throwing my hat in only because i see other respected designers taking the same gamble. and if we're ripped off, i will commiserate with good company; if that's any consolation.

now that i've waded through the uncertainty, i'll speak to the perks. barring rejection from tshirtvault.com, these designs will definitely be available to purchase on march 1st:



this eliminates a lot of work for designers. usually, when a design is finished, a designer looks at the different competition communities threadless, emptees, design by hümans, tee fury, shirt.woot, etc.) and guess which one is the best fit. then you submit and cross your fingers for prize money or 24 hour partial sales compensation. all tried and true systems, no doubt.

tshirtvault.com operates more like the old bountee.com (now a different company, hence no link) where every design submitted is available for sale, there's no uncertainty. and unless you win one of the top 5 sales spots, you retain your designs artistic rights and can pull the design at anytime to sell elsewhere (which raises the issue of the bigger design competitions not accepting previously printed designs, no matter how low the quantity, they're tainted.)

so i'm hopeful, and i have selected designs that are particular to tshirtvault's printing process and have been favorites when featured as sidebar art on sites like tee fury, but have never been printed. so please, spread the word. make my gamble worthwhile and help me get in the top 5 printed designs!

death of the airwaves.

here's my new design that is a macabre homage (oooh, spicy vernacular tonight!) to the death of traditional broadcast, now that we've gone digital:


this design is up for vote at design by hümans.

and, a reminder, i have added an "up for vote" area to the front of my website to easily find where to vote on my wearable wares. (alliteration, awesome!)

and a reminder, "on a horse with no name." is on sale until the end of this week at teextile

death of a hero.

here is another easy way to showcase my progression as a designer.

i will start by showing you my old idea and art:



and then, 2 or more years later now, the idea cycled back through my brain. this time i had a better idea for execution and design:



i think i like the new one better.

hooray yay art.

yay art is yet another online competition i've recently joined. this one in particular sells limited run art prints.

i've put together 2 pieces, one i was assembling for threadless, and the other was reassembled from an entry i had placed at design by hümans.



you can visit my yay art profile here, i'm sure i'll be updating that page often. as much as i adore t-shirt designing, it's nice to step out of that and do these prints and skate decks.

edit:

boo yay art.

i have 2 more designs in the same spot, but they are fairing really badly percentage wise.

the diva in me thinks it's the other artists all "naying" or voting that they don't like every design that is not theirs in hopes that it will help them win.

the reality may be that people don't like my designs, but it has dropped pretty drastically fast on both days 2 and 3.

yay art is also announcing the winners shortly after the last day of the competition, and the voting is ongoing. so while mine will be voted on for 2 weeks, with people stabbing it in the heart with nay votes, someone could enter theirs on the last day, get their 15 online friends to vote yay, and they have a considerably better chance of making it into the top 24 prints than i do sitting around for all the nay votes.

i hope the folks at yay art have a way to take this into consideration.

two new shirts to vote on.

I seem to have a thing for skulls lately. You can vote here and here.