you don't hate this design. It got you 2000 dollars in cash and prizes. You should be thanking this design.

can I judge you by your sweet 'stache?

I hate it too $5 ;-P

nope he got $500...it was a contest winner of OLD.

i will forever judge you

FOREVER!

actually i got 1500

NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO
NOOOO

are you kidding? i LOVE this design.

i was trying for the win. and i got it
and i pust the stupid text box saying something.

it makes me really upset that my only full win by myself is total bullshit.

let me ask this question, is that the only way to get printed here?
to buy into the threadless look?

if so that sucks, but i still love all you guys.

were'nt we supposed to have like an alumni choice pick.

so we can have wierd arty prints?
some of the recent prints have been un inspiring

please please threadless. have alumni choice picks every so often.

i don't think that this shirt is anything near the "threadless look"

I do

I see what you mean by the 'Threadless look.' They were printing a lot of shirts that were similar to this in style for awhile.

Although I feel like they've been printing a good number of shirts lately that diverge from that look... 'Treasure Map' and 'Sink Yourself' are two that come to mind.

It's not a bad print at all, but you've done loads of better stuff that they haven't printed, which is odd.

^What Tonteau said.

i geuss this is my problem, and im not mad on my own behalf, because i love the community and have made so many friends.

im just upset that there are so many wins for people who can barely draw, but come up with a cute idea.

and the people who can really relaly really draw and design, stay unprinted until they quit.

there's gotta be some way to balance things out.

im not saying people who have simple styles deserve prints, good for them they had and idea and made it work, and it sells.

but there's gotta be some incentive for artist who dont want to do stuff with icons inside of speech bubbles and cute food with faces things and literal translations of sayings, and quick puns

there's gotta be a way to make this more of an aritst community, because everytime theres a good illustrator here, they leave after a few months , there's NO inscentive here for them.

there needs to be an awncer, and its not the alumni thing.
unless there's an alumni selection thing. but i dont know what happened to that.

they're still working on the system for the alumi picks.

I like this design, what's with the self loathing? I don't think there's anything wrong with conforming a bit to get a print. money rocks and I'm very happy with my print.

that being said I do like some of your other designs better.

for example what happened to jess fink?

i talked to a bunch of artist at both partys
who were depressed that they HAVE to do certain things agains thier natures to get a print.

isnt there something wrong with that?

can someone please give me examples of how this is the threadless look? i've seen submissions that try to use all the elements of this design, but it isn't as fresh.


also, i do agree that when they print someone, they manage to choose their weakest designs most of the time.

impossiblejosh on Sep 27 '07 at 11:29am i talked to a bunch of artist at both partys
who were depressed that they HAVE to do certain things agains thier natures to get a print.

isnt there something wrong with that?

-------------

Well maybe yes and maybe no. I would say there is an art to giving people what they want. But if you want a print so much you're willing to compromise your art then you've kinda given up the grounds for complaint.

not weakest but most sellable- and for what ever reason what is sellable here is the most middle of the road of all prints.

like think of jess fink and all her amazing illustrations.
she won and is best known for her cute soap saying something cute.

im not mad or anything, i just want to make people think about waht their voting on.

but i mean its none of you guys, ya'll have great taste.

i guess im just frustrated for teh sake of other artist

threadless picks your weakest designs so that when you get 4 up there you can put some real art on a shirt... so get more prints you ass basket!

if you are putting your art up in a gallery, then you should never bend your style to sell your work

but if you are trying to appeal to a mass audience and you don't want to learn how to apply your style to that audience, then you should either not complain about not being printed or not complain about the artists who have a wide enough range to be printed

here's what i like to think about (i've probably posted this on the blogs a minimum of three times, so i apologize if it is getting old):

thelonius monk. although a well-known jazz musician to the general public now, spent a lot of his performing years only being respected by other musicians. he had mastered a style of jazz that celebrated notes that were NOT played, but it didn't feed his kids. SO, he put out an album in which he applied his style of ivory tickling to songs that everyone was familiar w/, popular tunes of the time or nursery rhymes such as twinkle twinkle little star. he got radio time. the next album he put out sold so many it went gold. he basically taught his audience how to understand his music.


i'm not saying that i think everyone should adapt their art and feel like a dirty whore. just that you need to make a decision about whether what you are currently working on is something that would appeal to the people who buy these shirts.

or something.

whew.

that was long. sorry.

The Alumni voting will be definitely be biased.

Time to suck up to the Threadless Alumni Chicagoers.

yes but you forget josh is a golden god... and all will kneel before his masterful art, that rubbish you see in museums is chicken scratch compared to the stuff he will shove into your eye sockets

all i want is to hang out with more illustrators.
but i totally understand the printed process here.

im just BEGGING for more artist insentives. so i can get to know more great drawing people.

i think its shamefull that i can find better art on deviantart.com of all places.


im totally ok with all the prints here, because i know they have a market, i know people wnat it. there's a reason they got printed.

all im saying with all the money floating around at threaldess, and with the AMAZING buisness model that it is, we coudl do better as an artist community.

i dont want people to look at threadless and say "waht a bunch of ametures" because thats what i hear.

im not saying this, THIS IS WHAT IT HEAR. and it sucks, i think threadless is a great thing is this big new buisness of do it yourself websites like youtube and wikipedia.

i just wish i didnt always have to sell to middle america, do the lcd mind of consumers.

i want a place where we all talk about art and collaborate.
i want a palce that has THE BEST ameture illustrators in teh world getting to know eachother and competing with eachother and collaboratin with eachother.

that is NOT what threadless is. but it could be? does anybody see that? see the great potential?

it wont happen without inscentive.
i dont mean to say that im better than anybody, or that certain people dont deserve prints.

but im not gonna shut the fuck up about this, till there's some change. and its a fight worth fighting.

we need to change the aestheics of this community to be better respected by the rest of the art world.

and we can do it from the inside. and its going to happen.

bump for all to hear

Don't stop pressing the issue. I enjoyed your manifesto above and wish more people would listen. Scoring is depressing when most of the subs are far worse than mine, and I barely have a 2.0 average.

i want a place where we all talk about art and collaborate.
i want a palce that has THE BEST ameture illustrators in teh world getting to know eachother and competing with eachother and collaboratin with eachother.

i've seen this here since the day i started and it is a huge part of the appeal. i do understand that you want more though.

you may not be seeing it.

everything here rotates around the artists (and their growth).
everything.

ART is broad and most "artists" don't like that.


i think it is awesome that you have a fire in your belly and i'm sure if you started a project a ton of designers would jump on board. create. inspire. go!

josh i think it's good that you hate this design. or something. because it shows how much you've improved since then? or maybe you just felt you were selling out with this design to begin with. in either case, i remember when this was printed, i had a much different impression of you than than i do now. i mean, not personally, but artistically. and that's a good thing.

i know a lot of people who just see the cutesy stuff and puns in threadless also, people who i think could make an awesome contribution here, and i try to convince them otherwise, but they're set in their beliefs just because a lot of this art is the majority. and i mean, i still like a lot of cutesy art and jokes when they're done well, but in order to draw in more artistic folk, they need to somehow see that there's stuff beyond it, too.

i think threadless is moving in that direction, with the selects, and other things i might've heard. it's difficult when you're as big as threadless to bring in more art that would appeal to a minority of people.

Then again, maybe we just want to win some money and sub whatever will have the broadest appeal. Maybe Threadless is not art.

lol @ threadless.

I think you're right Sonmi. It is moving in that direction - perhaps not as quick as you'd like, but it has to be organic.

anyone remember "emo-bear?"

I think that was the high point for threadless

hahahaha

p.s. josh, did you dye your hair?? it looks lighter in your userpic

I think threadless adresses this pretty well. for the past couple months they've been printing low scoring high quality stuff almost one a week, since I started my low scoring gems list they've printed like six off the list. The staff knows good stuff when they see it.

the cutesy and punny stuff bring them in the door. I think theres room for all of us.

why don't all the good artists just go to designbyhumans.com?

this blog frustrates me, lol

i did not know that.
i do not direct ANY of my complaints at threadless.

we are participants in this, and im frustrated with other participants.
threadless gave us this forum. and the user base runs it.

but yes god bless them for printing low scoring gems.

but agian if ANY anger came off of this at all
it is NOT for the staff or owner/operators.


i just cant quit asking people for this

julia: this picture is like 1.5 years old
i had blondish/greenish hair

designbyhumans has good aesthetics but there is no community.

so thats why im here.

but im never gonna stop designing wierd things for threadless.
because no matter waht anybody says.

IT DOES belong here.

my wierd shit, and nick gazins wierd shit and mr. pimpaints wierd shit is printable, and people do love it and it is marketable.

thats the message im trying to get across. i want anybody who reads this to think about what threadless CAN be

chelly: im not trying to rub anyone the wrong way, or say that everything is fucked up.

i just want to inspire people do and buy wierder things.
and make them try as hard as they can to be as wierd and cool and diffrent as they can.

i just thought a lot about this when i went back and looked at this sub.

a designer will be happier if they DONT DO THIS./\

kaloyster on Sep 27 '07 at 11:55am
The Alumni voting will be definitely be biased.

I couldn't agree more.

josh in order to change that kind of stuff you first hae to change threadless's customer base and thats not easy. you keep asking for threadless to change its asthetic but who are you asking . teh bloggers agree with you teh staff agrees with you. the people who buy most of the shirts and do most of teh voting .. teh ones that will never read this and know your anguish over this issue .. they dont. and until you can change THEIR minds its not goign to change, as much as you want it to.

bu tin the mean time liek you said never stop submitting cause you never know what can happen. just enjoy this for what it is and enjoy its growth however slow it may be

Josh, your last 2 prints were scored $5 each from me.

Keep up the weirdness!

wullagaru.

i totallly agree, and im not mad or unhappy wiht the system.
we cant change the buyers minds unless we change ourselves.

and thats what im tryign to do, inspire change within me and you and julia and chellly and edword and everybody. we ALL need to be pushing the limits of what we can do.

im trying to rally people who agree with this setiment to try and help me change things from the inside.

people have told me its impossible to change the demographic of this website. or its too hard.

lets show everybody how possible it actualy is

that's a total bummer josh, because this design looks great on a shirt and it has nothing in common w/ any of the other shirts that i own from here. knowing that the artist feels like a sell-out for creating it, makes me feel like a retard for liking something so awful. this design was weird and beautiful to me.

there is no specifics for the boundries of what is considered: art, weird, normal, etc

to me, the artists that you mention aren't weird at all. so now what?

it is honourable that you are rooting for the underdog (although i don't know they would consider themselves as such) and want a wider range of designs for these t-shirts.

all you can do is lead by example, hope ppl agree, and then really hope that they don't agree so much that the next blog you create is saying that being weird is selling out.

i don't want it to sound like i look down on anyone trying something new/different in order to grow. if anything, i really love that kind of shit.

-just wanted to toss that out there.

i really dig a lot of your designs. they seem pretty "threadlessy" to me. the fact that you haven't been printed more is just weird. you must be lucky in love.