Although I have little authority on designing tees , I have scored my fair share of submissions and have noticed some trends. True, I have not submitted any of my designs to Threadless, reading comments and observing each weeks winners has led me to compile a small list of dos and don'ts when it comes to designing successful Tees.

Style: Printed Threadless tee's often have a distinctive graphic style. Most employ clean lines, simple yet effective illustrations and bright, but not clashing colours. while this is not a uniform rule, messy graphics and rough illustrations often score poorly.

Content: While there is a broad range of themes and ideas behind Threadless shirts, invariably some ideas work far better than others. Humour/puns/satire is a common theme but works best when it is multidimensional. 'Cuteness' for no apparent reason is rarely successful, as is 'randomness'. Also, meaningless collages involving musical instruments, ipods, guns, grafitti... are never printed. The same applys to meaningless pop culture references. Blatant political messages will also fail.

Text: One of the most common comments I have seen is "loose the text". The most successful designs have either no, or very limited text. A good design should be able to communicate its message through graphic means rather than relying on text for an explanation. If you do have a good slogan, consider submitting it as a 'Type Tee'.

Lastly, before submitting a design evaluate it in the context of the current selection of printed designs to be sure it is 'Threadless' tee.