Compete-tee-tion

Layers, the how-to magazine for Adobe products, has a great tutorial on how to create grunge effects for t-shirts with vectors.

Although it has yet to launch, the new t-shirt design competition Keydon. Although the site won’t launch until August 2007, Keydon is currently accepting submissions for the first 20 designs to have at launch.

Although nothing is solid until the site launches this August, there appears to be an incentive system in the works for artists whose shirts sell well. Designers can expect to receive a portion of their design’s profits for the lifetime of that design. Additionally, the artist whose shirt reaches 500 sales first will receive a laptop computer (this is currently listed as a promotion occur every month). The designer whose shirt sells 5000 copies first will receive a brand new car (currently listed as a yearly promotion).

Prizes like that would certainly set Keydon apart from the pack of t-shirt competition web sites. As this information is not set in stone, I’d encourage artists to contact Keydon directly with any questions.

If your shirt designs focus around cool characters, Mojizu is the place for you. Billed as a “Contemporary Character Design Community,” artists submit their character designs to be voted on by other users. Each month, one winner from the MojiTee competition is printed (with the winner receiving a share of the profits).

I just came across a great guide on how to make your own shirts using pixellated art. As a huge gaming nut, this appeals to me greatly. Luigi shirt, soon you will be mine…

There’s a contest underway to see who can design the best logo for the London Olympics in 2012. The winner will receive a shirt with their logo on it.

(As the only person in the universe who actually likes the current logo, I won’t be entering.)

There’s an article in CNN Money about Threadless. I have to say, I was unaware that some of those shirts cost as little as $4 to produce! Dang, talk about your profit margins…

It was also news to me that Naked and Angry is considered a flop. I feel like the idea is certainly there, but the site itself is much less intuitive and fun to use than the Threadless one. Hopefully they haven’t given up on it yet, I think it has potential to grow.

New shirts have been posted at Threadless. I’m rather partial to Sound of Silents.

There have also been a few new additions made to the Camiseteria catalog. The best of the bunch is Para Rene Magritte, which is eerily similar to Threadless’ Can’t See the Forest But For the Socks, only with less feet and more Magritte (which is a massive improvement, in my opinion).