I checked out the photos at Double H's blog
and figured you all would want to see them too
as well as read the article about Glennz from
pro design magazine.

Here ya go :




There's a conspiracy theory online that 'Glennz' - prolific
winning designer on www.threadless.com's T-shirt design
competition - is a robot, or at the very least a team of people
working under the one moniker. But the truth is that Glennz
is the online alter ego of Auckland designer Glenn Jones, better
known here as creative director of Dashwood Design. And
despite his world record of 14 T-shirt designs printed, he's a
little bemused by Glennz' cult hero following. "If you read the
blogs, it's a little bizarre what they write about me."

Around 150 new designs are submitted each day to the
Threadless contest, and those that pass an initial screening are
posted on the site for scoring by an online community of
350,000 registered members. Each week, up to six winners
ten have their designs printed and sold on T-shirts for up to
US$15 plus p&p.

In just a few short years, the Chicago based company run
by three young has mushroomed into a US$20 million
turnover business shipping 80,000 tees a month. An online
celebrity in his own right now, Jones often contracted by US
journalists for interviews and comment about Threadless'
success.

Each win nets a designer US$2000 - that's $1500 cash and
$500 store credit - as well as the thrill of making it to print.
With 14 wins under his belt (many in the days of much
smaller prizes) Jones estimates he's won about $15,000 all up
(which helped the mortgage and paid for a few nice holidays).
But mostly he does it for the fun. "I love it. Once you start
doing it, especially once you've had a win, it just becomes
addictive."

He also now has a wardrobe bulging with T-shirts, half of
which he'll probably never wear (although his girlfriend loves
hers). "Maybe I feel a bit self-conscious about wearing my own
designs, but I'll always buy them." He still has something like
$2500 store credit, which he would happily trade for shares in
the company, given the chance!

SPARE TIME
Glenn Jones has so far had every one of the 82 designs he's
submitted passed for voting, with amazingly high scores
averages - an average of 30 per year since he joined - hence
the conspiracy theory. "I go through spurts if I have a bit of
spare time or I might get on a roll and just start pumping out
ideas," he says. "Thinking them up is a refreshing change from
the structured detailing of a working day in packaging
design, he says. "It definitely makes you think a bit more
outside the square, I think. It's a little bit of creative exercise
for the brain."

Jones has found his best ideas for T-shirt often come quite
quickly and he'll dash them off freehand on Adobe Illustrator
at home in front of the TV. "I'm quite an impatient sort of
person so I never spend too long on one; you're talking two to
three hours tops."

There's some very talented people on the website who add
much more detail and create beautiful works of art. "But the
key with any shirt that does well on Threadless, is that the
people can instantly understand what's going on," says Jones.
Humor helps too, along with perhaps a second layer of
meaning. "People like to just put two and two together and fill
in the blanks a little bit."

American designer Ross Zeitz, who has now equaled Jones'
record 14 T-shirts joined the staff at Threadless last year as
one of two creative directors. Zeitz told ProDesign that his rival
has a great knack of knowing what works on the tee medium.
"Glenn is awesome and his style is becoming unmistakable. He
is a pro at making me think to myself, why didn't I think of
that? He also seems like a pretty modest and likeable guy as
well and never comes across as cocky."

The Kiwi illustrator has six designs in the Top 20 highest
average of 63,000 scored, although a high score does not
guarantee a design will be printed. Even one of his top six
didn't make it. "They just won't continuously print my shirts
and it's the same for everyone really," says Jones. "They can't
do all of them. And it is a community so they don't want to be
in a position where they are printing too much of one person."

Glennz designs have sold in excess of 50,000 Threadless
T-shirts, including more than 12,000 of his most popular
designs: 'Dark Side of the Garden' in which a Darth Vader-like
figure is trimming a shrub in the shape of the Death Star.

"For a T-shirt to do well it has to have mainstream
recognition," says Jones. Given that over 60% of the
Threadless audience is American, he draws much inspiration
from universal themes in popular culture, particularly
successful movies and popular 1980s television programmes.

Text on tees is seen as a real negative, he says, because
people see it as having to explain the idea - except when it's a
contest to illustrate a slogan (such as his winning MacGyver
tee), one of several side-competitions regularly run on the site.

And everyone can instantly recognize the Ark, sinking like
the Titanic in 'Biblical Disaster' (his second highest-scoring
design), but what really makes that design work is the little
unicorn bobbing in the water, the one that didn't make it into
the life raft.

CREATIVE RELEASE
Popularity isn't everything. His portfolio of T-shirt designs also
garnered critical acclaim in New Zealand last year, with a
highly commended in the Graphic Design Arts category of the
2006 Best Design Awards.

Many of his fans have asked why he doesn't start up his own
line of T-shirts. "But it's not as easy as that - I've looked into it.
Threadless has 24 hour customer service, and you've got to
have your stock somewhere..." He much prefers the nice,
creative release outside of his regular work.

Jones has been creative director for just over a year at
Dashwood Design, where he has worked since his return from
a two-year working OE in 2003. Trained as a graphic designer
in the early 1990s, Jones started out as a newspaper
illustrator, and then worked for former Auckland design
company Arteria before heading to London, where he works
for Woodward and Co. on in-store graphics for Sainsbury's and
Walls.

At Dashwood, where he oversees four other designers and
three art workers, Jones works on branding and packaging for
mainly food and beverage companies, including Tip Top and
Frucor brands like Mizone, Fresh Up and the recent V3
promotion.

It means he hasn't had the time to take up international
offers of work attracted by his Threadless exposure - including
editorial work offered by Reader's Digest - but says it's a great
creative forum for others.

"The more and more it becomes mainstream, there's some
quite influential people looking at this site." Some of the fellow
Threadless Kiwi designers he has met online are also enjoying
success - in more ways than one. Freelance illustrators Aaron
Hogg and Blair Sayer, for instance, have both seen it boost
their business.

ONLINE GALLERY
Wellington-based Sayer, aka 'Mr Rocks' who has had two
T-shirt designs printed, has picked up several contracts. "I
never expected it to generate interest from other apparel
companies such as Cleatis-Preston. I have even started to
design small illustrations for boxer short patterns, for a
Mexican-based company, after the art director saw my
submissions on Threadless. It has basically worked as a second
portfolio site for me, which is great exposure considering it's
indirect, and completely free. I have also had one or two
unsuccessful Threadless submissions picked up by other
smaller apparel companies, which is nice, mostly
ego-stroking, way of seeing them go to print," he says.

In Christchurch, multi-talented Aaron Hogg (designer,
video director and former guitar-playing vocalistt of
Pumpkinhead) now has seven Threadless T-shirts printed as
"Hogboy" while having to be "pretty selective" with the work
he has picked up as a result in the US and Canadian streetwear
and action sports markets. "I'm just wrapping up soft-goods
ranges for both Westbeach Snowboarding Apparel and Kona
Bikes Co. and managed to successfully subcontract out a
number of prints to one of the designers I met on Threadless
without ever having met her face to face," he says. < typist's
note : That designer is mezo ! :) >

Both are fans of Jones ironic style, as is Wanganui Design
School lecturer and Hyperthesis Visual Lab co-founder Yeoh
Guan Hong, who has had two of his own Threadless T-shirts
printed: "Glennz' design definitely became a great inspiration
and motivation for me."

Shaun Lee, creative director at Lee ter Wal Design in
Auckland, says of Threadless: "It's great to have a place to
publish all those ideas that otherwise would never find their
way out of my sketchbooks. The open brief lets me be really
creative which I can then bring into my corporate work." He's
had seven designs through the scoring process and recently
saw his first go to print.

"I, like many of the other illustrators, have a love/hate
relationship with Glennz - he is an absolute genius and I am
definitely jealous."

Lee's friends, family and work colleges all have Glennz
designs. "The local design community are still getting their
heads around the Glennz phenomenon. In my opinion he is fast
becoming New Zealand's most famous designer. . . ever. He
could be the next Gary Larson."

:)