Compete-tee-tion

Fans of sports and comedy take note: The Comebacks Loves Threadless. What is The Comebacks? It’s a sports movie spoof, starring David Koechner (who you probably recognize from about a thousand non-starring comedy roles, including a stint on The Office).

Submissions should use the theme “Keep Your Eye on the Ball.” Submit your work before October 17th, 2007 for your chance to win a prize package including a Sony Portable DVD Player, Fox Atomic DVD’s, Comebacks swag and the customary Threadless prize of a $500 Threadless Gift Certificate and $2,000 in cash.

Design By Humans is quickly becoming my favorite t-shirt site. This week’s batch of shirts has a wide range of artistic style and an intriguing selection of printing techniques. Let’s take a closer look:

My favorite shirt this week has got to be It’s a Lovely Death by OutwardCreative. The textures are beautiful, as is the color scheme- it’s an attractive look at a deeply unattractive subject, and that juxtaposition is very appealing. I love the way the colors loop around each other.

Silk Moth Soliloquy is totally original. The asian theme is a great fit to artist iotadial’s style, and the strong vertical of the design expresses a lot of yearning. I can imagine that the gold foil accents in this piece give it a lot of pop.

tomburns’ GOOD and EVIL has an amazing vintage illustrative style, perfectly suited to an oversize print. It’s a one-color print done really well- the lines communicate shades of grey as well, which keeps things fresh.

Tales by DangerRuss was probably my second favorite this week. The subject matter, a grandfather regaling his grandchildren with exaggerated stories from his pasts, is both amusing and heart-warming. The style is expressive and unique (in particular, I love the way the speech bubble is treated). Silver foil highlights add even more pizazz to this awesome shirt.

fawnfruits’ Underwaterdeer is the first shirt I can recall that has had an applique treatment. While I was skeptical of how that technique would look on a shirt, I have to admit that this looks really wicked. Placement is different on the men’s and women’s versions of this shirt, but the men’s version is perfect- the horns curve around towards the collar.

Overall, a great week. I like the range of work shown. Also, I’ve added Design By Humans to the list of contest links on the right of this page. Thanks to Jamey of Sunsports for pointing out the oversight.

Rocky Road Rena are purveyors of limited edition t-shirts (with runs of either 1 shirt or 50 shirts), and this Australian-based company is looking for shirt designs that tell the world how you’re keeping the environment “green ‘n’ clean.” Keep it black and white and send it in by October 5th, 2007 for your chance to win a fabulous prize package of $500 worth of Rocky Road Rena gear.

ComputerLove, a website that serves as a network for creative professionals, is holding a t-shirt design competition. They’re looking for designs that express the theme “Utopia.”

First and second prizes are iPhones, and third prize is a Nintendo Wii. If that sounds good to you, submit your work before the deadline of October 15th, 2007.

(Thanks to Rangga of T-Shirt Island for the tip!)

There’s a new Derby on at Shirt.Woot and this week’s theme is “Blank is the New Pirate.” They’re looking for shirts with a new, cool historical archetype that people could replace pirates with. Listed examples include vikings, gauchos, centurions, samurai, Foreign Legionnaires, monks and Cossacks, if that gets your imagination running.

Submit your work before Wednesday at noon. Sooner is better than later, because voting is on-going until Thursday at noon. The top three designs will be printed next weekend, with the winning designers getting $200 (as well as $2 per shirt sold after the first day of sales).

If you’ve got a great design that doesn’t fit the theme, Woot is still interested. E-mail Woot with details of your previous design experience and some samples of your work. If printed, you’ll be picking up $200 per design (and the customary $2 per shirt sold after the first day).

This Shirt.Woot thing must really be taking off, because there are already a couple of new websites built to assist the Derby fanatics. One member has set up a statistics page so that designers can see how voting patterns affected their work (and when they gained or lost votes). Another site, Best Losers, is dedicated to the great designs that didn’t quite have what it takes to win the Derby.

I’ve posted previously about the t-shirt site Keydon, which was formerly a t-shirt contest site. They’ve recently changed directions and are now featuring humorous and vintage-style shirts instead of the more illustrative style they previously favored.

The change was due entirely to some trouble on the technical end, and while Keydon will remain a vintage shirt site, key people at the company are still intending to create a competition-style site under another name in the future (stay tuned!).

Unfortunately for those of us who wanted to buy some of the artistic shirts from the site’s last incarnation, they’re not available. After the site changed directions Keydon released all the artwork back to the artists (so don’t be surprised if the shirt you liked pops up at another site).

Here’s some good news for all the idea people out there: Keydon is looking for some great shirt ideas. If you’ve got an idea that they use, they’ll pay $100 (and you’ll get a free shirt)! Think vintage, think funny and send it to Keydon.

Gorilla Tank has just added two new t-shirts to their line-up. Both are now available for purchase, but act quickly- like all Gorilla Tank shirts, quantity is very limited (200 pieces).

First up is Nudist Beach. I admit, I’m not crazy about this one. The joke is decent, but I just don’t understand what it’s doing on a shirt. The imagery is well-done, it’s just not a very attractive subject. I also feel like there’s a missed opportunity in that the egg is cooking on the sand in the hot sun (complete with smoke plume) and there’s no mention to that in the text. Surely some kind of hotness or coming out of one’s shell reference could have pushed this over the top.

PB & J Wrestling, though, is one I have no criticisms about. It’s a funny image (sumo is inherently funny) that manages to be completely gorgeous at the same time. The jelly, the peanut butter and the bread each have a distinct texture and the colors really pop on the brown shirt. I’m probably going to pick up one of these today.

Gorilla Tank is an on-going t-shirt design competition, so if you’ve got the goods check it out. Winning designers will receive 300 pounds (about $600) and 120 pounds in store credit.