If you’re into t-shirts, you might have already heard of Design by Humans. But, given that I haven’t been posting lately, I’m a little behind the times, and only now getting around to posting about the new site which may just grow to rival Threadless.
Just like Threadless, Design by Humans has a constant design competition going on, in which users, or “humans”, can vote on their favorite designs. However, Design by Humans differs from Threadless in the way it releases these designs (which appears to be daily starting August 10th, and how they pay their artists). Rather than reword, I’ll just let them do the explaining.
Each day of the week, Monday through Friday, a submitted design wins the Shirt of the Day (SOTD) prize of $750 ($500 cash & $250 store credit). Every week the five previous SOTD winners go head to head for the Shirt of the Week (SOTW) prize of $1000 cash. Then the four SOTW winners compete for the final prize of $1750 ($1500 cash & $250 store credit) and the coveted trophy and title of Shirt of the Month. All in all, a winning design that goes all the way can win up to $3500!
Design by Humans also seems to offer a lot more options in how the shirts are printed. Just check out some of the shirts and you’ll see some of the cool effects they use on all their shirts (not just Selects, like Threadless).
So far, the designs look pretty sharp. Plus, they’re shirts are priced pretty competitively. What I’m really waiting for is the design competition tees to start getting printed, as there are some pretty hot designs in there.
Check it out: Design by Humans
I read on a blog (ehm which one..) that they have pretty aggressive small prints.. But then again if they pay you 750 perhaps they are allowed to..
I think that (even more than the effects that can be applied to the shirt) the thing that will set DBH apart from Threadless is that DBH targets artists while Threadless targets designers. I think we can expect to see a lot more abstract, conceptual work printed at DBH, while Threadless will remain the unrivaled king of silhouetted people and food with faces. I suspect that a lot of the more illustration-focused designers on Threadless will be tempted to jump ship, as their work is so often overshadowed in voting by puns and cute animals.