The Threadless Assignment of Doom

[ferrumaeternum]

My design is finally up for voting on Threadless! It was just posted today, since there was some downtime on the site over the weekend.







I wish I had more time to work on it, but it’s still one of the best out of all the Intro to Design classes, so I’m satisfied with that much. We also were only allowed to use the pen tool in Illustrator for the project, which didn’t help in terms of time management or the rendering of the illustration. I would rather have included some more painterly elements by using the brush tool or directly scanned parts of the drawing or watercolor. The next time I submit something, it definitely won’t be as cartoon-y or flat. Most of the other students just had solid shapes with an outline, while I at least tried to add some shadows in the style that Brian Ewing uses for his poster art to give it some more dimension.

I was also not happy that we were told we had to use Threadless’s 640 x 640 template with the background image as the design and a smaller version of it PhotoShopped onto one of their model's shirts. Our original designs were done in a very vertical format, so I would have liked to extend the template down further, which is allowed by Threadless. We also weren’t allowed to use the Flash option or display our designs any other way, which I’m worried is going to hurt this in the end because a lot of the detail is more difficult to see this way. We also could not submit our designs for a critique first. This would have been fine if we actually had a proper critique during class. His idea of a critique was to put up all the designs for five minutes, and point out a few things he liked in some of them. WTF! That is not a critique!

This is just another reminder why I switched my major from Graphic Design to Painting and Drawing. When we started the project, the teacher told us not to worry about deadlines. So, two weeks ago on Thursday evening, he said that the Illustrator file would be due next week and the actual printed and mounted project would be due the Tuesday after that. When we all showed up to class last Tuesday, he decided that the project was going to be due two days from then instead of the following week. I had a one-on-one critique with my Advanced Drawing teacher the next day, so I couldn’t work on it Tuesday night, which left me with Wednesday to pretty much do the entire project. This would have been fine if we were allowed to use the brush tool, but no, the whole thing had to be done with the pen. I was up until 4:00 AM playing connect the dots with every curve on every line you see here. I also worked on it the following morning and afternoon and still didn’t have time to get all the shadows and detail in that I had in my drawing, but I could live with what I had.

I got to the print lab half an hour before it closed, thinking I had plenty of time to get my project printed. There weren’t any open computers. Twenty minutes later, I’ve got my paper in the printer and my file ready to go when the hipster bitch monitor tells me I’m not allowed to print. WTF? I did not just stand there for twenty minutes listening to her blast that Interpol shit and not get my project printed before class. Considering how much the university charges for lab fees for studio classes, I should not have been asked to leave while the lab was still open. Yet another reason I will never donate money or ever give a talk to this institution.

After accomplishing nothing, I went back to the dorm to cut my matboard before class. When I got to class and told the teacher what happened, he said I’d have to print it later and if that happens again, I should quickly go over to Kinko’s and get it printed there. Too bad that’s not an option, since I don’t have a car here and if I took the bus I would be very late for class. I ended up not making the critique (if you could even call it that) and went down to the lab during the break to print my project. I missed an additional hour of class because once I could finally get on a computer, the printer ran out of ink. After the ink was replaced, it still wasn’t printing correctly. The entire time I was there, I kept getting hit on by some French or Spanish guy that was also trying to help me with all the technical errors and trying to manually fix things for me, which just screwed everything up more. In the meantime, I was trying to ask the lab monitor who actually knows what he’s doing. He also gets bonus points for playing Apocalyptica in the lab and being nice and helpful. ;)

Once I finally got something printed, the colors were a bit too dark and the dull blade on the box cutter messed up one of the edges of my project. At that point, all I really cared about was getting it in before the end of class so I didn’t get a 0 on the project, consequently failing the class. Luckily, I got it printed and mounted by the time class ended. I just hope I never have to go through anything like this again and that I will get a passing grade on the assignment. I also didn't have time to add a couple different t-shirts to my illustration with the design on them to show placement, so who knows what I'll end up with on the project.

After class tonight, I learned that most of the students’ designs were rejected by Threadless, which makes me feel a lot better about the whole thing. If your design isn’t even accepted to be in the running, that’s a good indication that it totally sucks! ;)

Comments

[ferrumaeternum.livejournal.com]

In that case, a report button would definitely be useful! I think the reason why there isn't one is because Threadless is a small company and probably doesn't have an extra employee (or doesn't want to pay an extra one) to deal with that. Was the design in question the Andy Warhol banana, by chance? If it was, I could see it getting approved just because everyone knows what it is and it's been used so much in pop culture that it wouldn't really be a copyright violation. In the real world, any photography used that isn't yours has to be cited, otherwise you could be sued. Hell, you can even get sued for using stock photography in your work nowadays! Anyway, any design that's photographic-based isn't going to get printed anyway, so that kind of takes care of itself. People have been stealing others' work before there was the Internet, and will continue to do so for the rest of human existence - even someone who was a close friend! Just look at the whole Manet/Monet painting scandal. Whenever you put your work out for public viewing, you're definitely taking a risk, but you have to ask yourself what's worse: not putting it out there at all or putting it out there taking a chance someone else might steal it. If someone did steal something and made profit off it, you could easily sue them or at least get the product pulled from wherever it was from. I know it would suck, but the whole ordeal could make you famous or at least get your name out there so you would be the one who profits in the end. ;) I know of a lot of illustrators and tattoo artists who have had their work ripped off and I actually hadn't heard of them until something like this happened. It totally sucks, but I guess it's just a fact of life when you're an artist. Sometimes the only thing you can do is make them get rid of the work they copied off you and just move on.

I wish Threadless had its own section for critiques instead of throwing them in with all other kinds of posts. That way, I think more people could see the work up for critique and actually critique it before you submit it. With the way it's set up now, the chances of people seeing your post among the ridiculous amount of others that are constantly pouring in are slim. Your best bet is probably to just post a work in progress here and/or at DeviantART and ask for a critique, unless you know of any sites that focus on critique.

Your design did really well, especially considering it was your first attempt! You should be really proud of yourself! :) I'm just hoping I'll get something above a 1!

[seafoamgreen.livejournal.com]

Haha, there's always a silver lining! Way to stay positive about it :D , I totally know what you mean. I guess the only thing that will ever really bother me about it, is the persons lack of trying to work for themselves. I think we've all been lazy and copied at some point, but there's a point where you have to get up and do things yourself!
It wasn't Andy Warhols banana, just some sort of stock photo. I'm pretty sure it was taken down, and then put up again after the guy ran it through a few filters in Photoshop. Then people thought he had actually drawn it. It was all bizarre, I feel sort of bad for the folks at Threadless having to deal with this stuff.

So do I, and I had thought of that (which is why I posted it up here in LJ, but not DA -- I don't know why, now that I think of it) , so I was pretty appreciative of the critique I got (yours was actually the most helpful!), and I had a friend sit there and nit pick my design as I went along. I hated her for the week, but I really love that she kept kicking my ass in the long run. I would have never done as much of that stuff as I had without the help of others.
I think conceptart.org has a great critique section (though I haven't visited, just hear things about it), and a lot of people either love the section or hate it, due to it's harsh and nit picking critique. I'll check it out sometime, though I can't guaranty that what people say is true.

I already have a few ideas and will work on them and see how they do, you should definitely put in another design when you have the chance :), and I'm pretty sure that your design will do well!

[ferrumaeternum.livejournal.com]

Man, that's really weird! Hopefully incidents like that are few and far between.

Thanks for letting me know about that site! I'll have to check it out, since I'm not a huge fan of DeviantART because of their sexist policy against male nudes and the insane amounts of anime art that plague the site.

Awesome! I can't wait to see them. I'll also try to do some more over summer if I have the time.