How to get printed on Threadless

Getting printed on Threadless is the dream of many a designer and the rewards can be amazing. In fact today Threadless announced the winner of this years Bestee Awards and the winner received $20,000. That is amazing. It may not be life changing but it could be. Check out the video of this lucky girl getting the news:

So now you’re thinking that it could be you and you are right and designing tees is easy. I know I have designed tons of them myself and they have even sold. But designing tees for Threadless is another story. And most of the people who have designed tees that have been selected by Threadless wouldn’t call what I do designing. I wouldn’t be offended. I tend to agree for the most part. Anyway, I  digressed.

The point I was trying to make is that it isn’t easy to get your designs selected at Threadless but one guy has taken it upon himself to help you. I think his main purpose may have been to understand the process himself but he has published his findings in an easy to follow guide. Check out the Complete Guide to Adobe Designing on user Jellyes’ Threadless blog post.

Thanks Jellyes! I hope you are able to get a design printed there soon.

Work for Threadless

I imagine Threadless would be a great place to work. Of course you don’t know until you work there but from what I have read the people seem cool, the environment seems fun and the conditions are awesome. So if you need a change of pace and would like to try a new company and don’t mind working in the windy city you should check them out. They are filling posts at the moment.

Unfortunately I am not qualified for any of them.

$10 T-Shirts at Threadless

Not all the t-shirts are $10 but there is a huge selection to choose from. From my count there are over 400 to choose from. Now that, as the boys at Threadless like to say, is awesome. There new campaign is quite fun too. $10 Buck Tony is the used car salesman of t-shirt vendors.

Below are Rude Retro’s picks and remember that if you want a particular shirt don’t wait around as your size may sell out. Also the sale is on for 3 days only (if they don’t extend it).

T-Shirts for Haiti

I haven’t had time to post recently but I have been keeping up on things. One of the big things in the t-shirt industry in the last month or so has been the support for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Here are a collection of t-shirts or sites that are doing their bit.

1. Flying Mouse is contributing all profits from this tee too Unicef.

2. Local Celebrity collaborate with Yele Haiti and 100% of tee profits go there.

3. Threadless are contributing all proceeds (not just profit) from the sale of this tee to The American Red Cross and Haiti Relief and Development Fund. At the time of writing this post they have already sold 7000 of these $10 tees and they plan to sell up to 15,000 more. Awesome!

4. Bungie (makers of video game Halo?) are contributing profits from this t-shirt as well as all online store profits through February directly to the relief efforts in Haiti.

5. Cafepress had a t-shirt designed by Shepard Fairey (which is no longer on sale) as well as designs donated from the community which are still available. Cafepress have already donated $30,000 to the US fund for UNICEF.

6. Storenvy have a selection of beautiful shirts and $8 from each sale will go to the American Red Cross. Lots of designers offered up their designs and they all deserve a shout out but only six were chosen.

7. Blink 182 apparently raised $30,000 for Haiti with this t-shirt but it doesn’t seem to be on sale anymore.

8. Lady Gaga also added her celebrity power to a charity t-shirt with all proceeds going to the Red Cross.

9. ZBQ will donate $6 from every t-shirt sold in their until the end of February which is pretty awesome as they have a great collection of original tees.

Vote for the Gentleman Cuttlefish

There are those designs you see that you say to yourself: why didn’t I think of that. And those designs are usually very clever and make you feel a bit envious. Then there are designs that make say: Wow! I would never have thought of that. And they make make you envious but more likely they just leave you in awe of the person’s talent. Falling into this second category are designs by Daniel Newman aka Quakerninja.

Daniel has a plan to start his own clothing line and I am sure a lot of people are excited about it. I know  I am as Daniel has kindly given me a sneak peak of what’s to come. As I am kindly passing on to you……….You’re very welcome.

The Quakerninja store will open in February and the above poster set will be available immediately while work on a second poster set has already started and will be on sale later this year. I know what you are thinking. Why am I talking about posters? Well, the thing is, the designs on these posters will be available on t-shirts too although the release date has not been set yet. But those vectors are drool worthy. Check out some details about the posters below:

There are 8 designs total in this first release
size 11×17 digital print on glossy stock
There are two purchase options.
The full set of all 8 designs, comes packaged in a nice elegant green artist portfolio. U.S. $45.00
or you can buy the posters you like most without the portfolio separately. U.S. $6.00/each

If you like Daniel Newman’s work and you’d like to see those t-shirts sooner rather than later I recommend heading over to Threadless and voting for his design. There are just three days left so don’t wait around. And if you would like to see Daniel do his Quakerninja stuff you can watch him live on Newman TV Fridays at 5pm pacific standard time. If you miss the live event don’t worry, there are recordings you can watch on Ustream.

47 Online Ongoing T-Shirt Contests

There are now tons of websites holding design contests as a way of sourcing designs for t-shirts and this is probably the most comprehensive list you are going to find. So if you are creating some awesome designs you now know tons of places you can submit to.

1. Threadless
   Of course Threadless would have to be at the top of this list as it is often credited as being the first to use this business model. It is also the biggest and probably the most successful of all the t-shirt contest sites.

   Prizes
   $2000 Cash
   $500 Threadless Gift Certificate (can be redeemed for $200 cash)
   $500 in cash each time your design is reprinted
   Up to $22,500 more if you win a “Bestee” in the Threadless Awards
   Alumni Club membership including a Medal of Honor and other goodies

   How often?
   Weekly.

2. Design by Humans
   At just about 2 years old Design by Humans is one of the most talked about tee contest sites and is famous for its large prints.

   Prizes
   Shirt of the Day: $500 cash plus $250 store credit
   Combined with Shirt of the Week/Month and the Rock Star program you could earn up to $8500

   How often?
   Almost daily.

3. Uneetee

   Prizes
   $1500

   How often?
   Weekly

4. laFraise
   Probably the largest t-shirt contest site in Europe. Owned by Spreadshirt they have a lot of resources. Specialize in cartoonish designs. Multilingual web site (German, French and English).

   Prizes
   €1,000

   How often?
   Almost daily.

5. Look- Zippy
   France based site I believe, multilingual (English, German, French and Spanish) and specialize in fair trade organic garments.

   Prize: €300 for 200 shirts, €75 for every 50 more printed
   How often? Monthly

6. Springleap
   South African based contest. Don’t expect to get paid soon. It is about one and a half years since I got runners up there and still haven’t seen a dollar which is probably about all I earned as the runners up prizes were probably the worst prizes ever for a tee contest. A few days ago I received an email saying that they are finally going to pay the winners but I’ll believe it when I see it. My advice: avoid this contest.

   Prize: About $900
   How often? Bi-weekly.

7. Red is White
   The premier Christian tee design contest site.

   Prize: $500 plus royalties after first 250 shirts
   How often? Perhaps monthly.

8. Bang Bang T-Shirts
   British contest site that focuses on pop culture.

   Prize: £100 – £125
   How often? Occasionally.

9. Edo Label

   Japanese contest site with bilingual site (English and Japanese).

   Prize: 50,000 yen + 10,000 yen  store credit.

10. Code Creations
    Organic apparel for you, your baby and your dog.

    Prize: Varies but mainly based on sales.
    How often? Monthly.

11. Shirt.Woot
    They have a Derby (contest) regularly as well as accepting submissions for their daily tee. Famous for $10 t-shirt deals.

    Prize: From $500 (I think)
    How often? Weekly (perhaps)

12. Scribtee
    It’s connected to the ShirtCity POD.

    Prize: $300-$500 plus $50 shopping voucher
    How often? Twice a month.

13. teetonic.com
    British site.  I haven’t notice much activity around here in a while.

    Prize: £100 plus 50p per shirt sold.
    How often? Rarely, if ever.

14. Allmightys
    One of the first contests where the prizes were based on sales.

    Prize: $2 per shirt sold.
    How often? Occasionally.

15. Cameesa
    This site added crowdfunding to crowdsourcing to build what should be a risk free contest site. They don’t print the tees until they are paid for.

    Prize: $200 cash, $50 credit plus $2 per shirt after the first 125 sold.

16. Ink Fruit
    India based site.

    Prize: 5000 rupees (about $100)
    How often? Every 15 days.

17. Monsieur Poulet
    Based in Paris, France, this is a bilingual site in French and English that uses fair trade cotton garments.

    Prize: €2 per shirt sold
    How often? Several times a month.

18. Fair and Bare
    British based site also using Fair Trade cotton.

    Prize: £200 plus residuals
    How often? Occasionally

19. Chimpogo
    British based contest site.

    Prize: £500
    How often? It says every week but I don’t think that is happening. Maybe occasionally.

20. Canvas
    Contest for Christian based designs.

    Prize: Up to $400

21. Ink Hound
    Design hats and t-shirts.

    Prize: $2 per shirt
    How often? Weekly.

22. Teextile
    Fairly new site that sells t-shirts for one week only.

    Prize: $4 per shirt for first 500, decreases after that for some reason.
    How often? Weekly.

23. Full Metal T-Shirt
    This site is wild. Like a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and bikers if you could imaging such a thing.

    Prize: $100 cash, $100 credit plus $5 per shirt (or print) sold for one year.
    How often? Weekly.

24. Teepay
    British site imilar to Cameesa in that the tees won’t be printed unless enough people order them.

    Prize: £2.50 per shirt sold.

25. Tilteed
    Another new kid on the scene.

    Prize: $500
    How often? Weekly.

26. Goodjoe
    Looking for designs that inspire.

    Prize: $1 per shirt
    How often? Weekly.

27. Scopial
    Another India based site that attracts a lot of great designers.

    Prize: About $400
    How often? Don’t know.

28. bookis.org
    Similar again to Cameesa. This time though the designer can set the profit he wishes to make per shirt. Based on the Chinese idea of “tuangou” where a group of people get together to buy in bulk from the wholesaler.
29. Metal Ink
    Tatoo inspired designs for tees.

    Prize: $700 cash + $300 store credit + residuals

30. ArtyTee
    Not too sure about this one. Seems to be some type of subscription based store.

    Prize: $2 per shirt (up to $100)
    How often? Monthly

31. SwishSwosh
    New site from the UK.

    Prize: £1100 + 50p per shirt sold for first place, £101 + 50p per shirt sold for runners up
    How often? Monthly.

32. Syckfits
    Another new contest site by the looks of it.

    Prize: $500
    How often? Monthly

33. Badashell

    Prize: $200 + $50 store credit
    How often? On a break.

34. nomoretees
    This is another site in the same vein as Cameesa. If enough people preorder it will be printed. Nomoretees is no more.
    
35. Camiseteria
    Brazil based website in Portuguese.

    Prize: R$800 in cash, R$800 in store credit

36. BlackEyedT.com
    Don’t know how trustworthy this site is. The fact that it is full of comment spam makes me think that it isn’t being maintained. Last update to their blog was in October and that was a cry for help. The tees are not the best designs I have seen so I am not all that surprised they are struggling.

    Prize: $500 cash + $100 store credit

37. Is This Chicken?
    Netherlands based contest wins prize for most creative name.

    Prize: Don’t know.

38. Collar Free

    Two guys got together to set up this contest site that favored graphic tees. Didn’t go so well and they tried to branch out into another business but it looks like they are coming back.

    Prize: Looks like it will be on a per shirt basis.
    How often? No idea.

39. itself
    Turkey based tee contest burst onto the scene about two years ago with a $4000 prize. Selected just a few tees and then no activity. While they appear to be accepting designs and if you dig around you can find a voting area I suspect there is no longer a contest. The last submission was in July. The last tee was chosen about a year ago.
40. Wooshka
    Australian based site. No recent activity. I imagine it will just disappear one day.
41. Milk Shop Gang
    Australian site with interesting site design. I have never seen any activity on this site.
42. Righteous Enterprise
    Disappeared
43. ice cream t-shirts
    Say they’ll be right back but they’ve been saying that for a bit.
44. Tasty Threads
    Never made it out of the gate.
45. Teeple
    Japanese t-shirt contest. Shut down recently.
46. tFuse
    Had a short run and then seemed to disappear. It is now a “Reported Attack Site”.
47. Caponocca
    So little activity on this site too I am going to assume it has gone under.

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Note: These are all just websites that I have come across over the last while or so. I didn’t search the web for t-shirt contests so I am sure there are some that I have missed. On top of that I am sure I have made some mistakes in the details. These things happen.

If you know of any other t-shirt contest sites or can see some mistakes I have made please leave a comment below and I will do my best to rectify the situation.

$10 Panda T-Shirts at Threadless

The Threadless sale rolls on with all t-shirts just $10 and new t-shirts being added all the time. This morning there are two sweet new t-shirts featuring pandas. Both of them original ideas and while one is just about two cute the other is very stylish. Check them out below.

Threadless Holiday Sale Continues $10

New tees are added and the sale continues at Threadless. It may be too late to get the gifts by Christmas but it’s never too late for a bargain.

Threadless New Tees/ $10 Sale Continues

The Threadless sale continues where you can get any t-shirt for just $10, the hoodies are a bargain too, I saw one for just $25 so I imagine they are all priced the same way. Just to make the sale better there are new tee available at Threadless from today like this sweet number by Leon Ryan. (Scroll down for a closer look at the artwork.)

All Threadless Tees $10 This Week

Well, I guess this will be your last chance to get bargain priced t-shirts from Threadless before the holidays. So whether you want some new fashion for going out or you need some Christmas stocking fillers now is the time to go shopping at Threadless. They even have some new tees like this Simpsons parody tee below.

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