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La Fraise just might be the most frustrating t-shirt contest I follow. The shirts tend toward the unique and amazing, but the exchange rate leaves them eternally dangling just out of reach. The Course of the Werewolf by Rusc is another winner that has me yearning to own it, with it’s funny take on the nostalgia of old movies like Teen Wolf. In this horror movie, the monster isn’t the villain- it’s a looming science test. Style is really well-done, with a moody background, classic-feeling movie text, and a main character you can’t help but root for.

Winners at La Fraise earn 1000€ when their work is chosen to print. Three to four designs are chosen weekly.

Something I’ve been consistently surprised by is the number of aspiring shirt designers who don’t sketch. For some, since a design usually ends up in Photoshop or Illustrator, there’s an assumption that starting the design there makes sense. But while that process can work for some, most artists find that sketching is integral in deciding things like placement of element, angles, expressions and more. And that’s why posts like the Original Sketches of Threadless Prints blog are so important- it shows that designing isn’t always about going with your first impulse, and that each printed shirt represents a lot of thought and work. Even for the pros, this stuff isn’t effortless.

Badlands by susie is my pick for the best of this week’s batch of tees at Design By Humans. While I admit to being less than enthused with the proportion of the art (I really wish it were a bit longer, to cover more real estate on the shirt), the style is just undeniable. These injured animals plead for your help, with a degree of patheticness that is guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings. And even better, gorgeously penciled textures draw the eye and add interest. It’s a heck of a shirt.

White Beauty by oxygen is a very nice drawing of a horse. This is both an asset and a weakness, because while the drawing is quite capable, it doesn’t really do anything. There’s no story being told. And you’re not going to be drawn in by the style or details, either- it’s all very straight-forward. So for horse-lovers, it’s an absolute gem. But for the rest of us, there’s nothing to remark on. With that being said, I do like the way it’s printed- it sits very nicely on the tee, capitalizing on the strength of the horse’s snout (probably the wrong word, what do I know, I don’t care for horses).

red sky universe by dzeri29 is very intriguing to me- it feels like the opening panel to a horror comic, where the scene is being set and you can just tell something horrible lurks within. This design is all about ambiance, and the red sky isn’t the only signal that things are a bit off- the smoke is strange, almost possessed, and there are way too many birds. Totally eerie, and fun to explore. I’m kind of annoyed by the clip art birds, but they’re a minor enough element that it doesn’t mar the shirt as a whole.

B-Shirt by Design2r has a pretty rad concept, using the familiar checkered pattern of a hot air balloon and showing it disintegrating into the sky. It’s a neat riff on the idea of pattern and chaos. I’m less fond of the design than I am of the idea, though, largely because the execution lacks freshness. The vector crispness combined with a dull color palette (a tweaked CMYK) and bird silhouettes just doesn’t feel exciting.

Turbulence by igo2cairo came pretty close to being my favorite shirt this week, but some of the choices made in the printing confuse me. All the brown ink makes sense if the goal is to create an ambiance, but it’s ruined by how light and contrasting the shirt is. The rectangle of the art stands out more than the art within that shape. I think if the art had continued to the bottom hem, it would have been a lot less distracting. At any rate, though, it’s a fun piece- the art is really skilled and detailed, with just enough realism on the plane to make you imagine yourself in the scene.

Design By Humans is an on-going t-shirt design contest that prints new shirts every weekday. Prints are chosen from the shirts submitted by and voted on by DBH members. Shirt of the Day winners receive $500 cash and $250 DBH credit. Shirt of the Week winners get $1000 cash. Shirt of the Month gets $1500 cash and $250 credit. Winners also have an opportunity to earn residuals through the Rockstar Awards Program.

Red is White has been the main player in the Christian shirt contest realm for awhile now, and to cement and improve on that prominence they’re making a big change, starting in April. From here on out, there will be a new winner each month, picked from the entries being voted on the previous month.

The most recent winner, The Kingdom of God is Not Meat and Drink by chriswallace, is a good example of the kind of work that tends to win at Red is White. The look is fun and trendy, while the subject matter references the Bible or religious themes. Often it is subtle enough that a non-religious person wouldn’t recognize it as a Christian design.

Bear in mind, though, that the rewards at Red is White changed recently. While previously they gave an immediate cash prize, the current prize structure is based on sales. For each shirt with their design sold, the artist now earns $3.

Bunker Designs is a brand new contest site operating out of Costa Rica, and they’re already printing some very impressive stuff. That’s because aliadotony, one of the most unique artists in the contest world, is on staff and provided 4 of his designs to form the launch collection from Bunker. My favorites of the four, Blackbolt and GULFIE, are pictured above, but all four are pretty rad.

While most contest sites focus on large, immediate prizes, Bunker is differentiating themselves by using a different tactic- artists are paid purely by sales commission, which can range as high as $5 per piece sold. It’s a bit of a gamble because huge payments aren’t guaranteed, but if the site takes off it could lead to substantial profits.

Shirt.Woot’s newest derby has a Luck theme- which might prove interesting if designers address bad luck as well as good (otherwise, I’m not sure how many rabbit shirts I can take!). At any rate, here’s what Woot has to say about the theme:

Sure, you can get by in life on hard work and determination, but there’s something even more rewarding about skating by as the universe inexplicably and arbitrarily rewards you for simply existing. After all, anyone can just try hard. You’ve got the fates on your side, and that makes you way more special. This week, work your shirt magic and show us luck: lucky totems, lucky people, lucky happenstance, or just conceptualize the idea of luck itself. And yeah, we’re coming up on St. Patty’s Day and all, but anybody can slap a clover or a leprechaun on a green shirt. We know you’re better than that.

Incidental text is permitted: It’s okay if someone’s holding a legible horse racing form. It’s not okay if your shirt just says “GET LUCKY!” in huge balloon letters.

No Mario.

No Star Wars.

The derby opens to submissions at noon on Friday, with submissions continuing until Wednesday at noon. Voting is on-going from Friday at noon until Thursday at noon. Three winners will be printed the following weekend (as chosen by site members), with the printed designers earning $1000 for the first night of sales and a potential $2 per shirt sold on any sales after that date.

Boom Box by Alex Solis (alexmdc) stands out in a big way as the best of the week. This is a perfect bit of nostalgia, taking some of the greatest parts of the 80s and combining them into a glorious moment. We’ve got a Mario villain standing in the classic Say Anything pose, blasting beats on his boombox while wearing some sweet hightops. The boombox-bomb wordplay is just an added bonus. What’s especially neat is the colors- the gold pops nicely on turquoise, and sets the scene for the 80s well without being too over the top.

Fisherman’s Find by Esther Aarts (gumbolimbo) is so skillfully done that this piece is fun to just explore, relishing in the way each detail is rendered. I love the balance of the piece, with the weight of fish evened out with gleaming stars. There’s a gorgeous softness to the glow of the moon, which seems to reflect off the glass of the bottle. The fisherman is appealingly precise and geometric, with just enough detail to reveal a bit of character. It’s a triumph of technique. Of course, having said that, I have to admit that I don’t particularly care for the concept- the idea of the fisherman in a bottle seeing himself in a bottle and so on just isn’t particularly funny to me. It’s a testament to how well-executed this design is that I like it in spite of that!

The Cat Who Mistook His Wife (and the Kids, and the Furniture, and Even the Parrot) for a Hat by Joao Lauro Fonte (joaolauro) is pretty freaking cute. Loosely based on an Oliver Sacks title, it shows a gentlemanly sort of cat riding an old-fashioned bike while wearing his family (and most of his possessions) atop his hat. It’s a great idea, made even better by the softly worn style. While there are some areas that feel not quite resolved (the lowest cat on the hat and the mustache both could use some refinement), it’s still a tee I’d wear and buy. Charming and interesting.

Sir Rhyddcelot by Esther Aarts is this week’s Select, a gorgeous piece done up in sunset-like colors. The coat almost becomes the main character, a technicolor daydream coat of sorts that holds within it a landscape of homes, sea and sky. It’s day within the coat and night without, the scene capped off with a reading moon that reflects the habit of the coat’s owner. It definitely starts to tell a story, because you find yourself wondering who this guy is, and, uh, what his story is. Awesome stuff, and I love the strange angle of the protagonist.

In Real Life by Marika Mattila and Benjamin Berg (Akaka) imagines a family portrait for the modern era, with faces replaced by text smileys. It’s a slick idea with instant appeal, and some of the juxtapositions (like the mother figure with her grimace and tongue hanging out, and the confused puppy’s tilted head) make the concept even stronger. The style is a little too loose and cartoonish for my personal taste (I think something more detailed and realistic could have created a funnier contrast), but it’s still a solid piece.

Grandma’s Hot Air Balloon by Brent Schoepf (wowrainbows) is the kind of image that immediately evokes emotion. You can almost see the breath of the balloonist hanging in the air as it travels onward, an optimistic yet old-fashioned vehicle that brings color to the beautiful but bleak land below. It feels a bit like finding an unexpected postcard in your mailbox, a pleasant distraction from the junk mail and boring envelopes that just makes you smile. I’ll admit to being a bit annoyed by the repetition of the tree shapes, but in the end it’s a minor issue because the feeling of the design overpowers it.

The Official Guide to Music by Kris Howard (krishoward) is easily one of the cooler text-based designs I’ve seen, using the negative space formed by text to create a music note. The sheer number of styles used is impressive, even more so because they’re all unique and relate directly to the genre they’re representing. It’s skillful, but also a lot of fun. I’ll admit to finding the color choice a bit boring (I preferred the gold on black of the original submission), but it isn’t overly harmed by it. This is a classic-feeling shirt that any music lover would enjoy.

Stop Animal Testing! They Don’t Know the Answers! by Nestor G Gomez is this week’s TypeTee. While it’s not a new sentiment, this phrasing is probably the most compact and effective that I’ve seen. Visually, it capitalizes on the absurdity of the idea, with a chewed up pen and paw print magnifying the humor. It carries the feeling of frustration, a nice touch. Solid work, though nothing exceptional.

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.