Lame.

This coffee-lover here was really hoping that the Loves Coffee contest was going to yield an awesome design.

Instead, we get... anthropomorphic food. In case you didn't already have enough in your closet.

Dear designers,

So you're interested in submitted a design to Threadless? Wonderful, and good luck! Before you do, though, ask yourself--
--Does your design contain...

...Anthropomorphic food?

...A heart placed over the actual heart?

...A polar bear pleading for us to stop global warming?

...Scribbley faces in a big blob formation?

Caution! You are about the become a Threadless Cliche! There are numerous Threadless Cliches-- design ideas that get replicated and resubmitted by different artists over and over again. But you can do something. Before submitting anything to Threadless, score some designs. Score a lot of designs, in fact, until you get a general lay of the land. And if someone else has submitted something along the same lines as what you were thinking of drawing-- worse yet, if you see multiple designs on the same theme-- just don't submit it. Don't do it. Not even if you're sure you can "do it better". Because maybe you can, maybe you've can't, but in the end, the theme will still be flat. Boring. Unoriginal. Stale. Passe. In short-- a cliche.

Don't become a statistic. Don't commit Threadless cliches.

I'm kind of wincing currently, because I just noticed that Threadless keeps track of my age to the decimal point. I mean, I'd noticed it did that to other people, but for some reason, it never occurred to me that they'd do that to me...

I haven't even gotten used to being 24 yet, but Threadless tells me I'm 24.16. Damn. I might as well round up and say I've hit 25 already. Hell, let's just go ahead and write my death certificate now, to save time later.

I decided to submit a few slogans recently, something I hadn't done before because, well, I don't really wear shirts with things written on them, so I don't really know what to write on them. However, I'm in the middle of finals for winter quarter, and I need a way to procrastinate.

I have learned something from this experience-- creating a good slogan really does take some talent, and I have none of that talent at all. I think the first part of that statement isn't necessarily obvious, because good slogans are relatively simple, so they seem like they would be easy to come up with. I thought my first few attempts were as good as anything out there. They scored poorly, but that wasn't what convinced me I didn't have this skill-- I thought perhaps I just hadn't gotten lucky, hadn't hit on the right phrase.

Then on a whim I checked out other slogans submitted by people whose slogans had been printed, and it was perfectly obvious that their collections of submissions were, to a fault, superior to mine. I applaud them in their achievements-- especially the way they make it seem so easy.

A vaguely eerie design with a "family photo" theme? On an off-white colored shirt?
Threadless, I love you!

Does anybody else dislike Threadless Select? I can't find info about it on the site, but I take it this is when the Threadless team just asks a veteran design to submit a design, and they print it regardless of the actual quality. I so far have yet to see a Threadless Select design that I like, and I don't like the way the members get cut out of the decision-making process.

ETA: Well, here's my logic. What makes Threadless different than most companies that make t-shirts? The fact that users can vote on designs. There are many companies out there that print excellent designs by talented artists. There are two that I know of where people who actually buy the shirts get in on the process of deciding what gets printed. As a result, Select shirts are fundamentally different from what Threadless generally represents. And it happens I haven't liked any of them much. I'm well aware that catering to my personal desires is not the sole purpose of Threadless. However, I do think the purpose of Threadless is to democratize design, and I'm not sure how the Select line fits in with that purpose.

Also-- you know, I was going to be sarcastic here, but instead I'll be sincere. I've found all your comments hurtful and disappointing. You seem to assume that I expect that my opinions rule this company-- if I thought that way, I'd probably have given up on Threadless immediately, because, interestingly, my opinions don't rule the day, a lot of things I'm not impressed with get printed, and a lot of things I love get panned. But that's how it goes. I'm very comfortable with the fact that I'm not in charge here, not only because I don't have enough money or enough wardrobe space to keep this company alive on my own, but also because I like the collaborative effort that is Threadless. I like the idea that what other people say and do is as important, if not more so, than my words and actions. It's called community, and I've always appreciated that Threadless has it. What disappoints me is how... how childish and derisive members of this "community" can be when met with divergent attitudes. I really had expected better.

Threadless has taught me that I'm a very gothy person. I find this odd, since I have blonde hair and wear all sorts of colors but very little black, I may have serious moments but I'm not somber or withdrawn, and I don't have much of a taste for synth or vampires or neo-paganism but if it's slightly macabre on Threadless, I love it.

Take the design Till Death Do Us Part. I saw it in the catalog and liked it, with no real reason. It's on an off-white shirt, and I don't wear much white or off-white, and it's theme is related to weddings, which definitely scares me, since I am anything but romantic. I told myself time and time again that this shirt was not for me, but then it just sort of *hopped* into my shopping cart, and turned out to be my favorite of the shirts I bought.

At that point, I started noticing that a gothy shirt generally got a much higher score from me. I think it may be because these shirts contrast so strongly with the cutesy, anthropomorphic animals, foods products, appliances, etc. that make up a large bulk of the submissions and which really don't have a place in my wardrobe. But for all that cute bunnies belong in the closets of five-year-olds, not mine, don't goth designs belong to angsty teenagers? Why, indeed, am I such a sucker for these designs?

No conclusions yet.