updated tshirt design competitions
It’s well over a year since the last survey of tshirt design competitions. Back then it was all about threadless. It’s still all about threadless. But there are others. And some of them are big. Really big. Here are a dozen notable ones!
uneetee - if theres a second place to threadless, uneetee probably have it. Huge community, great designs, $1500 prize. and I love some of the shirts over the past few months.
uneetee.com
la fraise - french site, 15000 Euro contest, what’s not to love. They even let you spill our design over onto the underwear!
lafraise.com
design by humans - $3500 plus residuals and one of the most comprehensive guides to designing a tshirt you could wish for - even down to ink types and tiny TINY considerations. great site.
designbyhumans.com
wooshka - a good old fashioned design vote print site with $500 prize. Quite a turnaround on designs too - well worth a visit.
wooshka.com
a better tomorrow - another language barrier - another great competition 500 EURO - google traslate is your friend!
a-better-tomorrow.com
bad as hell - interesting site, lots of activity, great community, scary tshirts, good blog - as long as you can cope with the gore this is a great site. $250 if you win the competitions to get printed.
badashell.com
collar free - $200 may not be the biggest prize on offer here - but the vs style voting is nice. I just say which of 2 designs I like best - so the best should spill to the top - voting is the most fun of all the comp sites in my opinion.
collarfree.com
shocker - shocker are the bad boys of tee land. If you want to offend your mom - buy a shocker. If you want to REALLY offend your mom buy a shocker you designed yourself - and make $150 while you do it.
shockertees.com
j!nx - gamer gamer gamer - huge community, more of a community site with some tees than a teeco - but a great competition / submissions location for gamer / geek related tee ideas.
jinx.com
itself - $4000 isn’t too shabby! and some of the designs on the site are great, creative, and clean. Arty, jokey, crispy.
hereitself.com
teetonic - a great wee site with a nice competition paying out £100 and 50p per shirt sold (I won’t even bother converting that into $ with the current economic meltdown ramming sterling into the ground it’ll probably be worth about $0.01 by Christmas!)
teetonic.com
Almightys - if commission is enough for you - almightys is a neat site - 2 euro per tee sold (again - convert this using your favourite credit crunch calculator if you live outside the eurozone)
almightys.com
Teeco Chart for April 2007
Hurrah! The hacking has all been worth it. The first OMGTees Teeco Chart is live! Complete with fancy interactive thingummy and everything! Go see >
Tshirt directory Jan 2008
Welcome to the first edition of the OMGTees tshirt directory. Here is a collection of well over 100 t-shirt company websites, from tiny indie labels to monsters clothing half the nation. Enjoy - I bet you find something to wear. I BET you!
American Pig
Political tshirts, and more interesting lady tops than most.
americanpig.com
AMP Street
Urban tees, caps, and other gubbins.
http:amp-street.com
Angry Retail
From tea cozy to tee shirt. Geeky in a Craft rather than Make way.
Art in the age
Some excellent designs on quality shirts.
artintheage.com
Balcony shirts
Uk based, huge range, Viva Luton!
balconyshirts.co.uk
Bang Bang T-shirts
Funny, geeky and gamer shirts.
Blend apparel
So. Many. Hearts…
blendapparel.com
boobookachoo
Worth a visit for the big blue button shirt alone.
boobookachoo.com
Bountee
Design, vote, buy in a threadless style - with a different enough feel to be worthwhile.
Bumpnose
Home of the $5 graphic tee.
bumpnose.com
bunnyhoptees.com
Busted Tees
Funny tees. So many funny tees.
chillersclothing.com
Chocosho
Not just tees, but the tees are goood.
chocosho.com
Choice shirts
design your own, or buy something funny
Chop Shop
Designy geek shirts, illustrative.
chopshopstore.com
Cock strong tees
music, tees, and cool
cockstrongtees.com
Contrast
Bold designs on tees, hoodies, and other upper body garb.
Custom ink
Design and print your own T-shirts
customink.com
decktrash.com
Deez Teez
Funny tshirts with attitude.
defunkd.com
Design by humans
Huge designs, illustrative and texturey.
designbyhumans.com
Dickey shirts
simple stylish hip tshirts
dieselsweeties.comshirts
dirtycoast.com
District Cottan
Organic, fairtrade, ethical tees
districtcotton.com
farennikov.com
Fat guy shirts
Shirts for fat guys, plenty of food joke tees.
fatguyshirts.com
http:fatrabbitfarm.com
French loser
Boutiquey t-shirt shop with a bizzarro website.
Good storm
Capitalism done right.
goodstorm.com
weargoodness.com
http:gorillariot.com
imperfectarticles.comStore
Inviaggio
Flash site, lovely photography, interesting tees.
inviaggioonline.com
jasonshogreen.comshop.htm
johnnycupcakes.com
Just be nice
Feelgood clothing, ethical, organic, etc…
http:justbenice.com
lafraise.comcontest.php?op=lafraise_shop
lmnotees.comstore
lochers.com
Look at me shirts
Funny, random, tees, hoodies and even PJs.
loveandtug.co.uk
Lucky Threadz
Funny, and sometimes sweary tees.
luckythreadz.com
Made Up Apparel
Old school imagery your thing? Head here. Now.
mimijude.com
http:modnwld.com
monsieurt.net
Moustache
Skulls, horses, all that good stuff.
http:shop.moustacheclothing.com
mistershape.com
Natalie Dee
Sweet sketchy tees based on cartoonist Natalie Dee.
nataliedee.com
Negrete
London based label. Free shipping worldwide. Nice.
Nerdy Shirts
Gamer tees, funny tees, and nerdy tees.
nerdyshirts.com
no-demo.com
http:nostarclothing.com
Not bad for a girl
Girly shirts
notbadforagirl.com
One night stand tshirts
Shirts that are comfortable and that you love to wear
onenightstandtshirts.com
orangealexander.com
Origin 68
Some nice enviro green shirts, give the flash site time.
Progress Wear
Political and activist tees
http:progresswear.com
http:pussytat.com
Red Bubble
Where art meets cotton
Rich Robots
Lots of tees, great photography, interesting site. Top notch t-shirt site.
richrobots.com
roadkilltshirts.com
http:sharpshirter.com
Shirt for a stud
Very college. very.
ashirtforastud.com
shynola.com
silentkimbly.comShop_Apparel.htm
Skrew Gear
Funny, juvenile, college humor t-shirts.
skrewgear.com
Snorg Tees
Funny, stupid, cool tees.
Social T
Social comment subscription tee site, monthly fee, monthly shirt
social-t.comsocialt
spitefuls.com
Split Reason
Gamer and geek nirvana.
Spraygraphic
thought provoking stuff
spraygraphic.com
startupschwag.com
tchirts.com
teeteaser.com
Teetonic
Tshirt design competition
teetonic.com
tenbills.com
The Affair
Tiny label, tiny selection, big site!
theryde.com
Theolotee
Christian Tee, as in Christian Rock.
theolotee.com
This shirt rocks
funny, vintage, tshirts
Threadless
Threadless, the granddaddy of tee competition sites.
threadless.com
http:threadpit.com
Tippitappi
Green, eco, ethical goodness
tippitappi.com
http:todieforclothing.com
tons of shirts
vintage shirt site
tonsoft-shirts.comservletStoreFront
Tshirt hell
Got someone to offend? Go here.
tshirthell.com
turtlehead.ie
uberindex.net
Uncle Kimono
John Malkovich official web shop
Uneetee
one day, one artist, one cool shirt.
uneetee.com
unhappyanimals.com
vansity.com
ilovewaterloo.com
http:shirt.woot.com
Worn By
Retro style shirts inspired by famous tee wearers
http:wrongwroks.com
Wunjo Wear
Graphic designy tees. More cool than funny.
wunjo.com
If I’ve missed your favourite, or your own label / site / imprint then drop me an email or comment below to make it onto the next issue.
The next issue will be Top 100 style, based on clicks from this list, popularity of posts in OMGTees and a secret algorithm tapping into the public mindset!
Note - Any missing thumbnails are probably due to flash breaking my thumbnail code, I’ll get that fixed for next time.
christmas is a comin’
I know - it’s not even December - but hey - if you want to buy this in time for festive fun you need to know about it NOW. Santa needs to go to rehab - ho ho ho. Bad ass santa!
top 12 bike t-shirts
Bike tees get you through winter when you spend less time on the bike due to cold and wet and wind (poor souls). Stamp your 2 wheeledness on your chest people!
Spokes people. Someone needs to rebuild their wheels. Cool tee though.
Two beats four. Wheels that is. Obviously. This is like the tee equiv of those old MS Word clip art protest posters you used to get on campus before computers were any good. Great fun.
Kids penny farthing. Old and new, etc… amusing.I love the bat tee for tots too, but this is a bike post, so I’m showing the bike one! Technically a onesie, not a tee. Maybe they should be called onesetees?
Bikes are for lovers. This is entirely true. Just look at that cloud of hearts, you don’t get that in a car. AND, so girl ever got on the back of a bike because she loved the cannondale more than the guy riding it. Can you be that sure with your Porsche?
Fixed gear. Nice harsh graphic chain ring tee in black and red. I keep thinking I’m going to go back to fixed gear, but then my legs start crying. I’m such a wuss.
b&w bike. A simple silhouette bike again, this time complete with macho model pose!
Roadsign. If you like that roadsign look, this works, hands down. I have this tee already and the green is way nicer than it looks on screen. From our chums at Orange Alexander.
Girly colors, and a manly bike. I like.
Interesting silhouette spatter effect Trike. And another for the lady biker.
I bike NY. Simple, although cycling in a grey tee could have slight unsightly side effects on a hot day!
Fun between the legs. Well indeed. Some more cool stuff in their shop too.
Sketch bike. I love sketch tees, especially with rubber ducks in em. I’m always tempted to color them in.
Ok. It’s official. I’m addicted to Etsy. There’s only one non Etsy tee in this collection.
ultimate star wars tshirt stack
Star Wars t-shirts are making a comeback, who knows why, I blame LEGO myself! Some of the better, more interesting, funny or abstract ones listed below. Add any more to comments if I missed your favourite!
Stormtrooper a simple red on white stylised stromtrooper design from bangbangtshirts. Storm trooper shirts should be white, shouldn’t they!
Han shot first - of course he did. Nice cartoony tee from the starwars shop.
Han shot first two - if the cartoon is just a little too cartoony, and the tee too colorful (i.e. not black) try this classic from thinkgeek.
Booboo Walker - dogs look cool with those ‘don’t bite your leg’ collars. Why not these guys! From Go Ape.
Podracing Capri - one for the Brits of a certain age this. A classic peoples sportscar turned into one of the cooler vehicles of the movies. Nice. Another from bang bang t-shirts.
Dark side of the garden - Threadless have to turn up here somewhere, despite the fact they seem to NEVER print the great star wars related idea submissions - copytheft problems I assume. A few girly sizes left, none for guys until they reprint.
Che Trooper - classic che tee remade with a nice storm trooper mask. Amusing. From UrbanMedium (who need bigger pics of their tees on their site - this is the biggest I could find! it’s tiny!)
Distressed Logo - want to look like you bought the shirt the first time round? Look no further. No one will be fooled, obviously, but it’s worth a try. Distressed logo tee from retro clobber.
Distressed Boba Fett - An empire tsrikes back logo and boba fett - what more could you ask for! From 80stees.
Costume tees - I love these, even though they are amazingly awful in many ways. I still like the idea of going to the worst fancy dress party ever, where everyone is just wearing a stupid tshirt. From 80s tees.
OH MY - C3PO saying he hates space travel. Joy. From 8ball tees.
Let the wookie win - Official lego starwars mech - I love the Lego arm rip on this one. From Game, among others.
RUN R2, RUN - Nice crisp design, special character swearing, R2D2 and a walker. Nice! From split reason.
Come to papa - nice joke, nice pic, nice tee. Good old spoiler shirts, be careful with this one, remember - there are always young uns who haven’t seen the movies yet. You could be ruining it for them! From 101 tshirts.
Ti Fighter starfield - this would make an excellent screen saver, if it weren’t a shirt. Make you chest look like an early 90s PC! From Chunk.
That’s it for another marathon tee hunt folks. Any more, just post ‘em below.
Ultimate LEGO Tee List
My interest in lego has been rekindled by the latest podbrix release - young Woz and Jobs! Very neat. Some lego tees:
Classic PodBrix
The classic Brix Tee is sold out again, but will return sometime I’m sure.
ROCK
This is probably my favourite shirt on the list. The details are beautiful - just look at that hand! Joy! Rock on LEGO style. Well done Old Crappy Tee.
Hairdresser
The lego store does a stack of excellent LEGO geek t-shirts, my favourite is this hair swap shirt. Swapping the hair on a LEGO dude to give him a disguise because he just murdered Barbie was always fun!
Who Dun It
This decapitation tee from NoiseBot is pretty cool. A bloody and gruesome take on the headless LEGO dude theme.
Zombie
And why would anyone decapitate a LEGO dude you ask? Because they turn into LEGO Zombies. The Tshirt of the 19″ scupture from Dead Zebra. Subtle stuff!
One small step
I’m pretty sure I’m missing the joke with this tee - but I kinda like it’s poor photoshopping.
Organised
Another Zazzle shirt, this is more organised than my legos ever got. I like the slight Beavis and Butt head quality to the drawing.
Star Wars
Personall, I don’t get LEGO star wars. I played star wars with lego - I didn’t need LEGO dudes shaped like Luke and c3PO. Ho hum!
Headless
Not threadless, headless. This tee from Moji approaches perfect, it is just the mullet of ROCK that keeps this off my #1 spot. Previously reviewed here.
20 ASCII T-SHIRTS
Black tshirts in the workplace are just easier to get away with than colored ones. Especially if they only have some cryptic binary joke, 2600 reference, or other geek nonsense on them in plain text. ASCII shirts. Joy! Don’t expect this to be the most colorful post you’ll ever see on OMGTees btw.
ExSysOp from fractalspin. Elegant minimalist use of the character set there.
ASCII Tank from most-awesomest.com. Comes on red and blue as well as the classic black.
Howdy is a japanese shirts, stretching the ASCII definition a little thin, but hey, lets go with it. From jbox.
Beyond ASCII, comes binary ASCII. You are Dumb from ThinkGeek geek elitism at its best.
ºoº has nothing to do with mice. Or animations. Or free stuff you get with burgers. At all. Honest.
ASCII Helicopters litter cafepress and other sites, but ROFL from ThinkGeek is the best executed, and so the one you should buy.
With ASCII comes HTML, the simplest markup is always the best. <GEEK> from ThinkGeek just confirms what everyone knew already! How do I know? You’re reading a list of ASCII Tshirts dude! Normal people just don’t do that.
TIE Fighter in ASCII. If you don’t think the <GEEK> tshirt is emphatic enough. Try this. KeyStrokeTshirts.
“You see the arrow means ‘is greater than’ in math”. Practice that phrase if you buy this tee, you’ll need it. i > u from ThinkGeek
Metal. Up yer ASCII. well yes, indeed! From Crack Smoking Shirts.
From ASCII to HEX. Black printed in black on black in hex. Shiny. #000000 from ThinkGeek
O’RLY from Zazzle.com. Again, many many many versions of this out there, but this seems the most elegantly executed.
Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night in ASCII. Who could resist buying this for an aunts Christmas, making her wear an ASCII shirt without even knowing it. At Computergear.com.
Emoji are Japanese emoticons. Some of them scare me. This one just looks confused. At PCR.
</emo> Poor little emo kids. Don’t let them see you wearing this. They might cry. Or gain a sense of amazing power that they drove you to change your shirt. Yet more fake HTML, but it’s all ASCII really. Another from CrackSmokingShirts.
That HEX code. Sometimes a bit of ASCII can get you in trouble. Don’t hide it on your blog, wear it on your chest. From NerdyShirts.
Space Invaders. Back in the day almost all games pretty much WERE ASCII. So immersive! From NerdyShirts.
Finally Bad Ascii, Linux, and a few others at CafePress.com (just search for ascii, there are thousands, mostly awful!) to satisfy those looking for some black on white Ascii Tee action. Don’t say we don’t look after all tastes!
If you didn’t spot anything there and you have a kick ass bit of ASCII art in your sig, just print it yourself HERE, HERE or HERE. If you do, tell us, and we might post about it.
top 12 places to submit your tshirt ideas
UPDATE - new updated article available here!
So you have a Tshirt idea. Threadless rules, but there are a stack of other sites out there asking for your tshirt ideas. The rewards can vary enormously depending on where you send your design - anything from a sticker, to one off cash payments to a cut of all Tshirt sales.
So which site gives best value for you? You need to weight up a few factors:
- Traffic, if you get a cut of shirt sales you better hope the site has a lot of customers
- Reliability, do you trust the site, have other people received the cash?
- Kudos, you want to get a job doing this? Go for the big ticket sites!
So below are links to the submissions pages of 20 sites offering to print your shirt. Any experiences of submitting to these would be vastly useful - comment below. The list:
J!NX Shirts
J!nx are very geek focussed, a typical shirt featuring an RPG joke. They offer $100 for an idea, $400 for the artwork if they use it.
Threadless
Now offering $2000 worth of benefits ($1500 cash, the rest essentially in Tees). Competition is fierce on Threadless, but if you get a shirt printed you instantly become a shirt design legend among your peers.
Cafepress
You don’t so much submit your design to cafepress, as just publish it. You take a cut of everything sold. Cafepress has some sweet designs on it, but you do risk simply sinking into the clutter unless you put some effort into an affiliate style site to promo your shirt. Potentially higher rewards, but you have to do most of the promotional work yourself.
NerdyShirts
$200 for a shirt design, $50 for a slogan. They do promise a quick response though - “if you win, you’ll get an email on monday”. And if you want a portfolio piece, they take some nice promo pics!
Busted Tees
Busted have a simple policy “just send it to us at ideas@bustedtees.com and if we like it we’ll give you $150 and a shirt with your idea on it too!”. You can’t say fairer than that.
TShirt Hell
An edgy shirt site, TShirt hell may be a home for your more… out there ideas. $200 plus 10 shirts of your choice is on offer. Picking 10 shirts won’t be a problem, $200 is typical, and you get a different kind of cool point here!
Shocker Tees
If tshirt hell blushed when you showed them your idea, try shocker. They print anything! $150 for your idea. Cool points? Perhaps. Infamy? Guaranteed.
Stagehand Tees
Stagehand do a seemingly endless list of black shirts with simple lettering with some pretty funny stuff on them. Which is about right for a seller of apparel for stagehands, roadies and entertainment technicians. Not exactly the mightiest of prizes no cash, just the first tee off the presses but hey, it’s a free tee.
Thoseshirts.com
“where conservative humor, superior quality, and professional artistry come together.”. $200 for your idea, so if you have a great Clinton gag, or firearm pun, this may be the best place to try.
Split the atom
A slightly above average $250 is on offer here for your submission. Guidelines, templates etc… are all particularly good although I find the flash site a pain to use on my laptop. User voting a la threadless is also used on split the atom.
Off Your Back Shirts
OYB shirts offers a $100 voucher plus 2 of your shirts. Some pretty ‘worthy’ shirts on offer, so if you have a cutting comment on our tv obsessed lives in the form of a 16″x16″ square - you my have found it’s home.
Uneetee.com
This is a pretty unique site, operating a single lead design at any one time. It offers $2 per shirt sold with your design on it, so if it sells a few thousand you’ll be better off here than at Threadless. I like the JENIUS shirt.
Thats the list! If you know of, or are, another place to submit ideas comment below!
Ultimate Wii Tii Shirts List
Let it Bii
Beatles based puns. I love ‘em. I want to go bowling with these guys! Poor old Paul, you always end up identifying him because he’s not the other three. He needed a comedy nose! 
Buy Let it Bee at Nerdy Shirts >>
Wii tarded
If your significant other is useless with the Wiimote, make them wear this. Even if it’s under another shirt!
Buy Wii-tarded at T-shirt hell >>
Wiid
This just makes me smile.
Buy Wiid at T-shirt hell >>
Wii Death
I love this, I want one for my teevee just in case it happens and I need to cover up a destroyed LCD panel.
Buy Wii Death here >>
Wii Vil
Another sinister spin on the wiimote. When I first picked one up I DID think it was the devil. I still do, but I accept it’s strange ways.
Buy Wii Vil here >>
Tii Shirt
Explode views are just cool man. Proves your absolute geek status!
Buy Tii Shirt here >> or watch it being printed here
Real men Wii standin up
A fake shirt from kottke, absolutely true, they do.
Buy real men Wii standin up >>
Stab Mii
Available for boys and girls, this shirt suggests that you were wandering around the games room unaware that the xbox 360 had been replaced by the Wii.
Buy stab Mii shirt here >>
Giik
Geek / Giik. I’m assuming a Giik is someone who tries to get his Wii to boot Ubuntu.
Buy Giik here >>
Evolution
Nintendo controllers are just cool, but something in me wishes we still had a crosspad and two buttons. Life was so simple back then. Who can argue with evolution shirts!
Buy evolution here >>
Mii on a Tii
Your own Mii on your own Tii. Just send your Mii to MrCloud to receive your Mii on a Tee. Amazing.
Buy your Mii on a Tii now >>
Nintendo family Trii
Okay so this isn’t a full on Wii shirt, but it has a Wii on it, and it has some pretty cool older Nintendo hardware too, so you don’t have to betray your old favourites. Old game systems hate it when you put them in the cupboard you know. They cry! Make them happy, get this shirt.
Buy Nintendo family Trii >>
I’m Bruce Wii
Bad joke, cute shirt.The irony won’t be lost on the truly nerdy as they know that this stance would get you beat pretty badly in the actual Wii boxing game, but style over function wins the day here.
Buy Bruce Wii now >>
Well that’s it. Love Wii!.
If you have a shirt you’d like to add to the list that we missed just send an email to hello@omgtees dot com with some info, or comment below.
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