You didn't like my orange pulp design? :( neither did i. Got a more refined version coming up.

I'm still waiting a submission with Jarvis Cocker's face.

haha, thanks eskimo! that made me laugh :D

Jarvis Cocker's a little old now for the cool kids now isn't he? heh. he would fit though, completely!

Already done, see below.

http://www.threadless.com/submission/42038/UP_YOURS

but the comments below are a mix of "yay Jarvis" and "Jarvis who?"

The two components you missed are a cigarette/smoke and heavy shadowing.
Also, maybe, bad bloody footprints.

...however something tells me these are exactly what IFC wants...remember this is a contest to design a shirt for IFC....not Threadless.

Are you saying there's a formula to putting together pulp stories and images? Could it be because the entire genre is formulaic to begin with? Look at the list of movies they're showing. Name which one doesn't have a gun battle or other violent scenes? How many lack a woman used as set decoration and innuendo?

That being said, there's no excuse for seeing the same crap over and over, except everyone has the same ideas and few people choose to try something different. Maxim was like this, and it was a formula shirt that won. CompArts was so wide open, anything could've won, and did. I'm curious to see which robot/spaceship image won the Wired contest.

I've got a design in mind, but I'm bothered by how formula-esque it is. I figure if I want to do anything for this one, I have until tomorrow to decide.

Good points, MDepot and grayehound. I think as long as the contests revolve around corporate sponsorship like the Maxim / Wired / IFC, the contest entries will continue to be heavily formulaic (I know mine were).

I think the challenge of these type of competitions is to use the neccessary elements in a new and intruiging way. The winning designs need to be instantly recognizable to viewers as belonging to the brand, so boundary-breaking expimental designs just aren't going to win unfortunately.

And grayehound, definitely submit your IFC design. You seem to have a nice way of breathing new life into stale formulas.

little hobbit feet: yeah, i missed out cameras too which seem to have srpung up a lot in recent entries. can't fit it all in though :P

grayehound: yeah, please do enter. even if it is pretty formulaic (sp?) your work is usually a step above most of the submissions!

i understand what you're all saying about branding, but really, it makes the site a helluva lot more like hard work to browse for good designs. at the end of the day, i would have thought companies coming to threadless for these events would half expect threadless style entries, rather than the usual muck you get everywhere else...

The thing is, I've seen some AMAZING "formulaic" ideas. Just most of them are shite.
I marked more than a few blood-spatter heavily shadowed suited man with a gun and a cigarette shirts 3 or up and even a couple "I'd buy this."

whoa...can we tap the brakes on generalizing the submissions as "crap" and "muck."

Fact of the matter is many of the designs are well done. If you don't care for the subject matter that is fine...but this is a contest in which we are to think sex, violence and revenge. I think IFC is getting exactly what they want and that is why they came to Threadless.

I agree there have been some great entries in the IFC contest, and I think that IFC is going to get a great shirt out of this contest (and definitely get their money's worth.)

And I don't mind the formula at all when it's well applied. I guess the problem is that Threadless has grown so much that instead of 50 or 100 designs, you now have over 220 with more than a week left in the contest. With that many entries, it's no wonder that most of the designs are beginning to look the same.

Exactly right Ian.

Personally I love all the submissions...it is great time waste while I rot at my crappy job.

All good points made here. I think you've hit the nail on the head there Ian, with the point about the the number of entries being the thing. It's easy for a half rate designer to paste together some clip art and blood and enter it, and thats what we're seeing. So in a sense, I also agree with Jaycee...
Personally, I enjoy the contests. A theme gives me alot more direction than a blank piece of paper. And although my sub features some of the 'ingredients mentioned above, I feel I produced something to the brief. It's original art, and the first thing that sprung into my head.

So there you go. I am not Swiss, but it would appear that on this subject matter, I am neutral.

lol.

i do agree that themes are a good idea, but not ones as heavilly subjective as IFC or Maxim. i think the Wired competition was the best, because it was ambiguous enough to get a nice variety of designs, but gave enough direction so as to inspire the masses. the Designer Blues competition was very hard to design to, but in a way that's also a good thing since it kept the quality of the designs high.

anyway, i'm gonna start making some new stuff now that my exams are out the way. that's enough to cheer anyone up :)

I don't think I've submitted anything besides my first two designs that wasn't for a themed contest. I think I've become a bit used to having that structure to design to after working in design for the past few years...I'm almost nervous about putting anything else together. Weird feeling that.

There've been some really great entries in all the contests. For that matter, I'd bet the percentages of high-scoring designs (2.13+) to the rest is probably about the same as in any other week of standard entries. Anyone from threadless wanna back me up on that? Yea, we'll wait for you...but in the mean time, my point is I don't think more entries means worse work, just more average work to sift through. Threadless is getting TONS of free advertising, as we can all atest to, so it makes me wonder when things will calm back down, if ever.