Vibrant colors and bold graphics helped make “it’s a small world” one of the most popular attractions of the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Your challenge is to design a t-shirt inspired by the mid-century style of renowned designer Mary Blair.* The simple patterns and shapes and childlike whimsy she used to create “it’s a small world” are as famous as the attraction they represent. If you’ve ever had the chance to visit one of the “it’s a small world” attractions and experience the music and scenes from all over the world, you should already have plenty of the inspiration! For those who haven’t yet had the chance to visit “it’s a small world,” click here to explore! The chosen design will be sold on Threadless.
*All designs should be the submitter's original work. In no way should Mary Blair's actual artwork be used in design submissions.
Meet one of the dogs of Threadless! Today we’re meeting kahlen’s pup. Today’s her last day as Content Director at Threadless, and we’ll sure miss her and Billy!
Name, Age, Breed
William Murray Wilson aka Billy Murray. Age 2. Mix of Beagle and some kind of terrier. The Lady thinks I'm funny so she named me after the best funny human.
What department do you work in?
I'm not sure what a department is, but there are lots of "creative" smells.
What do you like most about Threadless?
Sniffing other dogs, eating pizza crumbs, ball.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
Once I was in a canoe with The Lady and I saw her hat fall into the water so I jumped out to swim after it but then I realized I was still attached to a leash then I realized I couldn't swim then I saw some other humans and barked at them and then they saved us. But I got the hat.
What hobbies or tricks do you have?
My favorite is whizzing where everyone else has whizzed. I also like cheese. Tricks include:
- sit (duh)
- spin around, which is when I spin around
- shake
- down
- roll over
- coming when The Lady calls me
- relax (which I am not very good at)
What was your life like before Threadless?
I was born in the streets on the south side of Chicago, and then The Lady brought me home and to work, too. I love the no dogscrimination policy at Threadless almost as much as I love pig ears!
We stopped by the Gap store on Michigan Ave. in Chicago this week to see the storefront and it looks awesome! The Threadless + Gap tees are displayed in the store window.
Check out the the interior display. The men, women, baby, and toddler displays are right smack center when you walk in. Your work is lookin’ good, designers!
We just launched The Photography Collection. This collection features original photography, including a tee from one of our in-house photographers Hellpanda! The line was curated by octavious , who said he was excited to push the element of photography on the canvas of a tee. He chose photographers he thought had a graphic and witty sense of humor in their work.
And we wanted to give you a chance to put your photography on a tee, too. We partnered with CanvasPop and Photojojo for a new Loves challenge.
Design a tee using your original photography.
Photo fiends and lens lovers, it's time to show us what you've got! Use your original photography to create a tee design. The content is up to you! Snap taco still lifes, city skylines, people wearing life-like moose masks, rare flowers, or whatever makes you happy.
You can modify your photos in any way you see fit to make it the best possible design for the tee canvas.
Ready, set, click!
Up for grabs:$2,000 cash
$500 Threadless gift certificate (can be redeemed for $200 cash)
$250 CanvasPop gift certificate
a Polaroid Z340 + print paper - about a $500 value!
It’s true Katie Campbell aka campkatie is the designer of This is My Life, the chosen Threadless Loves YOU! tee. But she’s so much more than that. She’s a Floridian art student MOVIE STAR! Read all about it.
Tell us about this design (This Is My Life). How did you get the idea? How did you create it?
I originally designed This is My Life as a graphic for my homepage on my portfolio site. I wanted it to be simple, timeless and friendly. It just seemed perfect for the Loves YOU contest.
Tell us about the mediums and process you use to create art.
My best brainstorm sessions come when I'm driving. I have random sheets of paper and notes on my phone with ideas and sketches. Depending on what it is, I'll either dive straight into the computer, Illustrator or Photoshop or start drawing with charcoal and ink. Either way I usually make a mess in the beginning :) My best designs come from a strong beginning concept. I minored in painting in college, but unfortunately don't have as much time to put towards my fine art. Figurative Oil painting was my love.
What’s your favorite piece of art you created? What’s your favorite piece of art in your home?
An oil painting I did in college of my ex-girlfriend. We had to use a limited palette and I finished it in one day. Her hair is all crazy and I wrapped a scarf around her face so only her eyes and above are showing.
My fave art in my home is a print from the Polaroid Kid of a train hopper girl with an arrow in her mouth.
Tell us a little bit about where you grew up.
Tallahassee, FL. The armpit of Florida. Had a wide range of friends and was always busy playing sports and doing artsy things. If I wasn't playing a sport, I was watching my brother, dad or an FSU game. Weekends were spent swimming at either a pool, nearby beach or river.
Ever have a "15 minutes of fame"? What was it?
I was an extra in the Miley Cyrus movie, The Last Song. I'm a "hip shopper" during her musical montage while looking for the perfect dress.
What's something you believed in your childhood that you don't believe anymore?
money grows on trees
How often do you draw?
Everyday
Thanks for chattin’ Katie! We can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
This edition of Threadspotting comes to you with a little twist. Many of you (and I mean MANY) have sent in sightings of Danny Pudi’s character, Abed, wearing various Threadless tees on NBC’s Community. Well, we’ve compiled the majority of them, and now we’re going to play a game called “Name Those Designs!”
The rules are simple: Check out the photos below and, in the comment section, list the names of the designs AND the artist in the correct order. The first person to list the designs correctly in the the right order wins! Simple, right?
What do you win?
A giftcode for a Threadless tee of your choice
20 Street Team Points
Glory... so much glory!
Ready, set, GO!
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6.
7.
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Good luck to everyone, and thanks to all who’ve submitted these sightings! Remember, as always, if you see Threadless tees in the wild, send us a note at sightings@threadless.com and we'll talk about them here... AND we'll give you some Street Team Points to boot! Enjoy!
We love the way you craftily glue words together to make hilarious phrases and pithy sentences. But after much thought, we’ve decided that slogans are kinda hard to judge without seeing them as part of a final design. So, we’re removing slogans submission and voting from Threadless.com.
What does this mean for all you witty wordsmiths out there? In order to judge slogans fairly, we want you to collab with artists and submit your slogans in finished designs so they can go through the normal voting process. This will give those people who score your slogans an idea of what the final tee will look like. (It also means that if you split the tee prizing 50/50, sloganeers get $1k instead of $500!)
Comment in this blog if you are a sloganeer who needs an artist or an artist who wants to bring some slogans to life! And good luck, collab-ers!
In other exciting Gap news, we’ve launched Threadless Loves Vote Bright, the new Gap design challenge! Design a politically themed tee for one of two chances at $5K!
We're celebrating this special day with a little collection of tees that you might be interested in checking out!
After you check those out, watch this Skype interview that our resident comics dude Lance did with Jeffrey Brown, the author and illustrator of the amazing Darth Vader and Son!
And when you're done with that... COMMENT BELOW about something fun you're doing today for The 4th or something you've done on past 4th or something you WISH you could do. Cause we have one of these for you. If you're the lucky random commenter, that is. Pickin' a winner at 4. Use the 4th, Luke.
The kind of question that's only born in the late hours of a coding binge: Does Siricha make everything taste better?
After a quick run to Jewel for supplies, the order of the challengers was set: When the random number is 42, you know it's going to be a good day.
First up was Scott, who chose mango, which seemed like a safe choice: "Absolutely foul"
And a terrible start to our plan.
Dan was next. not only making a brave choice with applesauce, but saturating it: "It has the same effect as Cinnamon. I'd eat it again, but with less Siricha"
Next was Shaun, with a chocolate-covered, creme filled donut: "This is so good!"
Easily the best food of the challenge, Shaun went back for seconds:
Betsy crashed our tech-only party to try the mango/Siricha combo: "Not bad."
I was next, and I had been eyeing the yogurt with Oreo: It tasted like an Indian dessert. Really, really good.
Down to the dregs, Isaac went for the generic frosted wheat cereal: It's like I'm making sushi
"Crunchy with a curious mix of satisfying sweetness and arousing spice."
And finally, fittingly, our newest techie, AJ, went last, stuck with the dreaded "Gel" cup: "Are you sure you took the plastic film off?"
"No. No. No."
The takeaway? Siricha tastes good on anything that doesn't contain fruit. Tell your friends.
We're looking for food items for the next challenge. Drop some ideas in the comments.
Thanks to everyone who came out on April 13 for the CBLDF + Threadless C2E2 party! We hung out, drank Finch’s beer, raffled off prizes provided by CBLDF, did some doodlin’, and had a fashion show to reveal Comics-On Tees: Volume 5! It was a blast and we can’t wait for next year!
Don’t forget, there’s just one more day to submit a comic tee design to the CBLDF design challenge for Comics-On Tees Vol. 6! The script is written by Neil Gaiman and the chosen design will be released as part of a series with tees designed by Ben Templesmith, Brandon Graham, and John Cassaday!
We’re doing a super cool challenge with CanvasPop! You can score a photo canvas of your art! To enter, snap an Instagram picture of something you drew, wrote, or built and tag it #makegreat. CanvasPop will pick one lucky Instagrammer each week, so there are plenty of chances to enter. Click here to get makin’!
CanvasPop prints digital photos on canvases. Using Instagram’s simplicity and built-in filters, CanvasPop gives you gallery-quality photos on canvas, ready to brighten any room...instantly! CanvasPop the first company to specialize in printing Instagram photos on canvas.
Do you have an iPhone or iPod touch? Is it completely naked? Or even worse, is it clothed in a sub par, boring ol’ case? Well you are in luck, Griffin is having a $9.99 sale! You can snag yourself an awesome iPhone case for one cent less than a ten spot! Get over there now and show your iPhone or iPod touch some iLove!
