chaunt: t<3    |

I just read a post by Andy on HideYourArms.com about Camiseteria.  He said it’s a site that people don’t blog about or mention enough, and he’s right.  The language barrier puts most people off, but as he says, it’s not too hard to work out what’s going on.  I reckon it’s because people can’t spell it!

I have gotten in the habit of reading tshirt blog posts (and vendors, and artists) almost daily in Google Reader.  I went through a mad phase a couple of weeks ago of adding any and every RSS feed I could find.  It’s a great way of browsing a large selection of sites regularly and I would thoroughly recommend it (if you want to subscribe to this blog, link is at the top of the page).

Anyway, to bring this post back to the subject (because there is one, honest … coming very soon), I noticed that one site that gets mentioned too much is teefury.com.  I guess it’s the nature of the site, fresh tee every day, limited stock, lots of buzz on sites like emptees, backing from DBH etc.  But I reckon I see about 8 blog posts every single day informing us about the new tee.

Take today’s for example, I don’t think it’s a great tee.  But there it is, multiple times in my reader.

Maybe in time the ‘buzz’ will quieten and it will become just another site, with tees of worth getting mentioned.

Maybe I take too little interest because the site doesn’t yet ship to the UK.  And because I think the concept could have been so much better if the tees were actually exclusive and one-off.  I’m not saying it’s a bad site at all, I love it.  It’s just way over-hyped at the moment.  In my opinion of course.

I wish I could draw.  Or had any artistic talent.  Because I have some great ideas for tees and there are so many opportunities out there to earn some decent cash!  Here are some of the main ways to get your designs printed and earning:

1) Threadless.  The site that will nowadays get your tee worn across the world (I can’t beleive how many Thredless tees I spot around London).
Prize: $2,000-$13,000

2) Design By Humans.  Another huge site and growing quickly.  Different style to Threadless, much more arty and tend to do unusual and full-tee designs.
Prize: $2,000-$13,000

3) laFraise.  The ‘new’ kid on the block but starting to gain traction against the above big two.  Prize is in Euros, which for you Americans is good news!
Prize: €1,000 ($1,600)

4)  Uneetee.  Good prize on offer and I would suggest generally a lower quality than the sites above (so in theory easier to win?).
Prize: $1,500

5) Teetonic.  Works slightly differently in that you get a one-off prize of £100 ($200) and then £1 per tee sold.  So in the long run could be more beneficial, but depends hugely on the success of the site.
Prize: £100 ($200) plus £1 per tee sold

6) Wooshka.  Cool website and a few cool tees.
Prize: $500

7) Here are some of the rest.

• Allmightys.  €2 per shirt sold
• Gorilla Tank.  £420 prize
• Styletax.  €1 per shirt sold (though not currently accepting submissions)
• Without Pockets.  $1,500 prize
• Split The Atom.  £250 prize
• Tshrt.  £50 prize
• There are quite a few more.

But there are other options - competitions organised by big brands.  For example, the uniqlo yearly competition can net the winner $30k!  Or there’s currently a Virgin-Edun competition going on here which would get you great exposure.

So which to submit to?  Well I would say that if you are top notch and can make your name at Threadless, you can generate not only decent prize money but fantastic publicity that you could then take to sell your own tees.  Smaller sites like Without Pockets provide a great opportunity for the prize money given the (currently) lower number of submissions.  But if you really want to get your name out there, I would keep an eye out for the competitions like uniqlo’s.

Of course, these are the ramblings of someone who can’t draw for shit, so it might all be crap!

Here’s a good resource that lists some upcoming competitions.