Okay, I didn't quite like Robot Attack, but I thought Design By Humans deserved a second chance, so I decided to check out their latest design submissions. And I was pleasant surprised to find pretty nifty stuff in there, despite my initial doubts about their ability to attract good designs. Here are 5 designs I absolutely loved and voted for. Don't forget these t-shirts still don't exist,  so don't forget to vote (teeocracy..).



#1 - The Ultimate T-shirt

This was my first idea for the header of Teelovers, a design that synthesized almost all of the most iconic t-shirts and tendencies. The problem was and is, I'm not a designer, so it never left the drawing board (thankfully, Isa was around and agreed to design Teelovers).

Anyway, here's the description of the shirt: "Irony, nostalgia, skulls, robots, 45 degree arrows, Che and a smoking unicorn wearing aviators - this tee has it all."

That's why you are bound to like it. The design is called The Ultimate T-shirt and it needs your vote to get printed. If you like it (how can't you? seriously?) go for it.

Oh, look, it even has a "Vote for Pedro" in it... oh, I think I might be in love with this t-shirt...

(Joe, it has a robot too!)




#2 - My Hood

This one is My Hood and features a bunch of strange but cute creatures. I like everything about this design. It even gets the background color right.



#3 - Crayola Disparity

I don't know if I qualify as a "sophisticated surrealist", but if wearing this t-shirt turns me into one, I'm definitely having it :P



#4 - 3-D! Lightning storm

It's 3-D, people! How much cooler can it get?

4-D?

(it even comes packaged with a pair of Design By Humans branded 3D glasses for "extra awesomeness!" Yeah!)



#5 - Bow Master

You can always spot an awesome design at first sight. This is it.





This is Snake on a tshirt, which Sa' d Khorsid submitted to Threadless two months ago. The design was scored a mere 2.40 out of 5 points by more than 2000 people, who left a total of 55 comments. I just can't understand how this amazing tee wasn't voted for printing by the Threadless masses. It's been on my wishlist since the first day I saw it. Oh, teeocracy, you disappoint me.





Threadless was the subject of the Times column Consumed, Mass Appeal, which discusses the workings of the Threadless tee-ocracy and its appeal:

"The casual viewer of Threadless.com cannot help being struck by the surprising degree of consistency — maybe even similarity — in the designs. “It’s a barometer of what’s going on in art and design right now,” Kalmikoff suggests. He likens it to a school of fish moving in a particular direction until a new leader suddenly emerges, everything shifts in that direction and somehow the crowd arrives at something close to an aesthetic."