This is my first attempt back at Threadless in years. I feel like I didn't make the submission image right because it looks small to me but hopefully the point comes across. Be fair, but be critical. I had too many almosts when I used to submit and I think this image is one of the best I have ever done.

i would change the text so it better fits the theme..make it creepy looking :)

you also might want to try it on diff shirt colors

this is a good idea though, i like the design



if you have time, would you mind taking a look at mine? :)

Cool idea, but yeah, it could use some work.

Firstly, I'd enlarge the whole thing, like you hinted at.

Second, you're working with only black and white, so try to create an interesting composition. The book is primarily white; the horse is primarily dark grey; and the tentacles black. Can you try to include all of the colors in each part of the piece to unify it? Making each thing a separate color really destroys the harmony, to me.

When you enlarge it, adding some contrasting features on the horse and tentacles will be a little easier. The suction cups could be larger, so that you could give them a light and dark area, and the horse could have some shadows and highlights, too.

Add some detail to the flames coming from the skulls, and make them larger.

I agree with the above: try to further emphasize the mood you're trying to get across. Creepier text (don't overdo it, but making it a little drippy like blood or just a little more jumbled and 'crazy' would help~). I also think a thicker book, something one would describe as a 'tome,' would fit in nicely. Give it a nice ragged look, like it's 600 years old, and stuff.



Hope I helped without shoving too many criticisms in your face...I really do like the idea!

That is a ton of advice, but I am glad to get it. One thought I had was to go for cheery colors to offset the darkness of the image, but that has fallen flat in the past, so my next one will have more color options.

Threadless is being weird, but here's my update. I added a bit to give more color distribution. I also made the picture larger and gave a few color options.



I still don't know about the bleeding text, though. If I get a major outcry, I'll change it in the next version...

Hey, I don't mind if you ask for a critique as long as you don't just say "lol cool design

check mine out!" And you've already been a huge help to me, so even if you did just say that, I still wouldn't care.



Anyway, before I critique, I'd like to say I submitted my design. I'm not going to upload anything new to my critique page, but you'll see it in the submission section in a few days. I'm pleased with it, so...hopefully it goes well.



Okay, back to this.

You're trying to get a mood across, and the mood is 'horrific.' Details and details and more details, in my opinion, would really draw this out. You added more to the horse, which is nice, but do you think you could go further? Give the body more tones and texture? Make it look like a warhorse? Give it tattered wings, wreathed in shadows?

Could you make the tentacles look slimy or more gruesome? Like they're about to jump off the image and grab you by the neck?

Okay, enough with the rhetorical questions. The skulls look kind of flat, and aren't pleasing to the eye right now. If you somehow brought the horse and the skulls together as both leaping from the book, I think it'd increase the quality of the concept.

Also, the book looks simple and plain for what you're trying to say. This could work as irony, of course, if you really made everything else look gruesome, but if you made that book look nasty, then the theme could be reinforced.

Basically, the whole point of the piece is to make people think very descriptive thoughts about what you're seeing. The simple design, as it stands right now, doesn't make a vivid image in my head.

I hope I'm getting what I'm trying to say out, without being overcritical. The idea is really, really cool, but I just think the presentation of it is going to need some rigorous reworking.

At least, the way my mind perceives it.



...that's my honest-to-god critique. Hope it helps, rather than destroy the very basis of your ego and cause you to turn into some form of psychopathic recluse. I really am trying to help:)

I think Jellyes summed it up...the idea is good, but it needs to be darker and more gruesome.



I'd appreciate your help too

That was like 3am when I posted, so I probably could have summed it up quicker.

Just make the thing ooze "horrific," and you could then either take the text out, or add an ironic statement, such as "Reading is Lovely!"

Have the images spell out what you're trying to say, and you can use the words to reinforce it better than having THEM spell out what you're trying to say.



Also, it doesn't even need to be entirely 'gruesome.' Horror themes like jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, yadda yadda, etc.etc., could all be used in 2 ways:

1) duh, make it obvious what you're trying to say by having more theme-related images

2) bring the piece together aesthetically, depending how you place them in the work, etc.etc.



...Yeahhh tell me if I'm helping, Jiu.

You're helping, definitely. I just think I'm reaching my artistic ceiling here. I want to stay true to my original concept but I also want to make it something people want to buy. I will try to do more later, but I think I'm out of colors (1 black, 1 white, and 5-6 greys) and I'm afraid if I add too much more material it will just look cluttered.

I am in agreement with everyone else. The visual needs to be stronger.

The horse seems like he should be facing forward and coming out of the book towards the viewer. I hope that helps.



Good luck and thanks for the crit on mine.

i actually am going to go against the mold here and say its good how it is. you want something simple, not a cluttered artful "masterpiece." it reminds of the kiddie shirts that would say "reading is good" and I think you're playing off that really well. stick with what you like.

The text seems a bit off-kilter. I thought that if you nudged it to the right, that would help, but it probably wouldn't because it would clash with the skewing of the artpiece itself. Maybe less scew on the artwork so the piece is more "centered."

I like theme. I like it more as an ironical thing than not. I think, the graphics are, for the most part, fine. In agreement with a comment above, I would say add a little tatter to wing. At the moment, it looks kind of bland in comparison to the detail of the horse and the tentacles.

Have you thought about maybe adding children staring at the book with expressions of joy? It would add to the irony. Maybe as a small "haha" sort of thing on the back? *shrug*

If it's going to be ironical, I would suggest making the design a lighter, more cheery colour. A light gray? A light blue on the yellow shirt?

Keep the text! Of course, if the design is scary enough, you don't have to spell it out for people, but the general audience is generally stupid when it comes to designs, so spell it out for them. The font is excellent! (Maybe widen the space between the "f" and the "i" in "horrific." It's a bit too bunched.)

All said, I like the design; I like the concept. The vision is good, and I can't wait to see what you do next.

Sorry, for the long post. Hope it helps!

Yeah, actually, after reading what Spiderwebb and antinomialpanda said, the current style definitely works for what you're trying to get across. Making it super-detailed is just another way to go about it.

I really like the idea anti suggested, having kids reading the book! That'd be pretty awesome. It'd make this even cooler than it already is.

I think the concept is great, but Im not convinced yet about how horrific this design is. I feel like theres another level of horrific that ould be reached. I like that you chose a horse, but what else can you add? Fire? Im not sure. but I think if you keep developing it over a few days possibly, it will come together. I also feel like the text should be smaller, as an "in case you dont get this" addition. Hope that helps, and please check back on my crits.

So, yeah. I weathered the wings, made the skulls a bit more horrific and added some shading (although not too much because the light source is, ya know, flaming skulls...) I want criticism and suggestions, but I don't want to get TOO much further from the original for fear of losing the original theme of parodying those "Reading is Terrific" (or various other "Reading is..." posters).

Not to be a pain but, for whoever voted "Needs Work", could you please post something? Obviously, if this revision doesn't work, I am not going to guess what people want.

Oh, sorry about that. I understand completely and you're not a pain. I just had someone put needs work and don't submit with no explaination on mine. I voted and then I got pulled away from my computer for dinner. I was typing this though:



Interesting design, but if there is any way that you can still make this statement with out the words, it's all the better. And I understand the greyscale, gothic look, but maybe a splash of red could help with the terrifying aspect. Like give the horse a red eye or have blood pouring off the pages. Maybe not too gory but just enough to make it say terrifying more. Just my opinions..



And if maybe you have some time, Palm Tree

I think this design looks cool but not on lighter pastel colors. Seems kind of 'off-putting'. I think this would look greatl if you could use silver and black like you have now and put it on a black shirt and outlining the black edges in silver. Lastly...why do you have a rainbow?



Keep at it. This could be a great design.



Critique mine too?

http://www.threadless.com/critique/25755/Broken_Time

To answer your question, since it seems obvious that this design just won't work, my intention was to parody the old "Reading is..." (Terrific, Awesome, etc.) posters that were hung in classrooms. The image I started with was a book with a unicorn flying out of a book with shooting stars and a rainbow in back. I just went to work on that, finding the dark versions of each.



That said, I get the message that the original was not as widely recognized as I thought it was. Unless I get some definitive advice, I'll probably either just ditch this image or put it up for vote knowing that it will fail. I just feel like no amount of alterations will make this into something people here would want to buy.

no text

I agree with "SM" but what if you made letters from the book kinda exploding from the book? More to make it come to life...



If you have time, please critique "Follow your Heart" my latest design.

Thanx

I was thinking no text, but Mob' suggestion is an interesting one -- have them pop from book might be a good idea. Definitely use a less generic font.

I can't get rid of the text (it would kill the point of the shirt) so I decided to try a different tactic. Tell me what you think and, if you like the color, which palette is better.

i don't quite get the text - is it supposed to be a horror novel? the second palette is much better, except the rainbow and the text look darker than the illustration. i don't think the font matches the illustration, and it should maybe have a shadow because the rest of the picture is very shadowy. and i think the text would look better in an arc over the illustration or at least smaller than it is now.

thnx 4 my crtq!

If you want to keep the text that bad at least meake it hand drawn

*make*

Yeah the colours are a bit off putting.



http://www.threadless.com/critique/23659/Whale_Trail

You still need a better font if you're hellbent on using the text.

Okay, first off, I do genuinely appreciate the comments. I am curious what sort of colors people would want this to be, but at least it shows that you took the time to look at the image and were passionate enough to comment.



I'm going to take a moment to respond to some of the commentary on all versions. I get that people don't like text - I have told people to drop text from their shirts myself - but not only is the text central to the point of the shirt, without it, this becomes another Abercrombie & Fitch design - full of images but devoid of meaning. I personally hate the new school of design - where everything is loud and visually overwhelming just for the sake of being abnoxiously visible - which is why the original version of this shirt was in grayscale. In fact, the only reason I added these admittedly over-the-top colors was to preserve the irritating cheerfulness of the posters (which was why the original black-and-whites were on pink and blue shirts.)



Likewise, I know it's the in-thing to prefer shaky, squiggly artwork over the old, clean look, but the intention of the shirt IS to look hokey and sterile. THAT is the joke. The point is that it is a negative message about reading done in the style of the literacy in the classroom posters of the last few decades. I MAY try another version with the text - perhaps in a more rounded font - arching over the image, but that is as far as I'm going to go with this.

" this becomes another Abercrombie & Fitch design - full of images but devoid of meaning. "



ummmm... as someone who worked at A & F for two years, let me just say no... A&F does mostly slogan tees about hair and drinking.

your image should convey your message without text the way artwork does. I think you will find a lot of the text free shirts on here have a clean and clear message.

and even with the text i still have no idea what this shirt is trying to say, btw.

Okay, I apologize for insulting (or not insulting enough, whichever the case may be) A&F.



Eh, forget it. This is taking WAY too much effort for a silly little joke. I officially give up.

I think you should resubmit this. Make one of their leaves bigger. Like 2 feet long. and make one of them moan like:

"Ooooh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ooooH OOooooooooooOOOOhhhh...oh yes yes yes yes uh huh huhu ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Jiu, I've been traveling this weekend and I haven't had much time to check out the critiques. I'm actually doing something right now so I still can't critique it quite yet but add me on aim/msn,

aim: just 70mph

msn: jellyes2@gmail.com



~

K, I have time, so here's my critique:

I've been liking this more and more as I understood what it's supposed to be: a mockery of the "reading is fun!" posters in the exact same style. I think the top left one captures it perfectly, and I realllyyyy like how that turned out.

I'd say it just might be ready for submission, so long as you make it 100% clear in your description what it's supposed to be like. A description like "Come on, kids! Take a look in a book, where your wildest dreams come true!" would be more beneficial to you than "so this is my design...," ...at least to me.

Basically, I didn't think the style was complete enough before I fully understood what the design was supposed to be. But now I like it a lot. That's just my opinion, though, y'know? others might feel differently.



:p

Well, um... I kinda got really upset and said "I give up," took this (cleaned up) version, turned it back into greyscale, and submitted it with a new font. So I'm guessing it's too late to take that back, but I'm glad to know that you grew to like it. I suppose I shouldn't make so many judgments in haste and anger, but such is life.

It's not too late. Before they post it (3-5 days), work on a new design and they'll replace the image for you. Don't take advantage of this (like, don't do it for every design you submit), but yeah.



:p



p.s. I'm going to tell myself to wait a week after I think my design is ready before actually submitting it from now on, unless everyone says it's perfect and I'm 100% confident. I kind of regretted submitting my design, but I'm gaining confidence in it again.



Goodluck in the voting. You'll get a good score from me;)

This should be the last version. I do think the criticism has made this far better than when it started, but I think it won't get much better from here. I will submit it tonight if I don't hear any reasonable reason not to.



If you want the colors changes, suggest a more suitable palette. If you want the font changed, tell me another corny font.

I understand what you're trying to do with the font, and I think you could pull it off hand-drawn and please everyone.

What you'd do is hand draw (obviously), but try to make it look as close to the current font as possible. As long as you don't trace it, you'd never make it as perfect as it looks now, but it would look loads better.

There's some inconsistency with hand-drawn fonts that just make it look more pleasing to the eye than the to-the-pixel perfection of a TextBox font. So I feel you could keep the same exact mood you're trying to convey, but adding an extra push.

If you hand-drew it, there are tons of other little things you could do like give the letters the slightest bit of texture or a very, very mild 3rd dimension to bring them to the next level and make them stick out a bit more like your design.



Your choice if you want to try it or not, though...but I think you can pull it off!



Also, I'm not feeling very eloquent at the moment so I hope I communicated what I was trying to say.

i really like the colors you used, they look nice on the shirt

i would definitely try what jellyes suggested with the font

I don't think I'm that talented, but we'll see. I don't exactly have the best set-up (Paint.net with mouse).

Do you have a scanner and photoshop?

I haven't read all of the comments. I did see that you said that you don't want screaming colors and such. Why don't you go for more natural colors then? Shirt maybe army green and the horse off white and the hair of the horse brown which you could also use for the bookcover. Like colors that are often used in old pirate things. I think it would also suit the theme better. Also I'd suggest to make the lines a little thicker.



And about the font? Well I agree that you need a different one. And I haven't read it, but I think you want this font so bad 'cause it's a booktype. Well I'd advice you to take a quit different one, but still a bookfont. Like this: http://www.dafont.com/optimusprinceps.font Then print it draw it yourself by putting it on the window with a another paper on it. Then scan it in and give it an outline to (make sure it's lined on the outside and not on the middle). Use the same color for the lines as you'll be using for the rest of the design. And fill it with a color which is already in the design which suits it. I think then it will be awesome! I know this is just my opinion and alot of people have given them. Though I'd really like to see my point of view worked out. Good luck and you're almost there!



Care to check mine?

http://www.threadless.com/critique/25003/That_s_where_the_clouds_come_from



and



http://www.threadless.com/critique/26153/Balloon

Jellyes, yes on the scanner, no on photoshop. Paint.net only. And that's a step up from what I used to use.

For me, I think that the font may need changing, and then it would really set the shirt off. make it more sketchy/ hand drawn like the others have said and then you might be on to a winner! thanks for the comments on my work!

I like the art, the colors look nice.

I think you should do a hnd drawn font, or lose the text all together.





Critique mine please:

http://www.threadless.com/critique/26127/Paint_your_own_world

ive just had another thought on the font, perhaps have 'reading is' is a smaller hand drawn font and then 'horrific' bigger and more scratchy hand drawn, slightly rougher, to give the writing some character?