redvinegar dry t-shirt contest!
Posted 28 May 2003 at 14:44 UTC by pedro 
Do you have what it takes to design the first redvinegar t-shirt?
We're planning on making t-shirts and having them at the July 2nd Taste of Chicago show, and we're taking submissions for t-shirt ideas. Please submit your ideas within the NEXT WEEK -- and we'll have an online voting thingie to see which you think is the best t-shirt design. (And by best t-shirt design, we mean, "vote on the t-shirt you would actually consider buying.")
Email your image designs to pedro@tastytronic.net as an image or get your sketch to me somehow and I will scan it. (Hint, if you design it on a computer, get a blank tshirt from Cafe Press or something to show what it will look like.
Please at least sketch your design or have someone else sketch it. If you have an idea but no artistic ability, discuss it in this entree, and I'm sure someone (myself, phil, hernando) will be happy to sketch it up.
Time is of the essence, so get cracking!
The winner gets a free t-shirt.
no,, posted 29 May 2003 at 08:50 UTC by BigJ »
I don't have what it takes.
I don't have what it takes, posted 29 May 2003 at 09:31 UTC by Cinnamongirl »
either, but I gotta get OutsideInfluence in on this. He is lucky to see the Diner once a week nowadays, but I'll tip him off on this.
cool,, posted 29 May 2003 at 17:27 UTC by pedro »
please do.
can i make one suggestion?, posted 29 May 2003 at 18:28 UTC by baggins »
whatever you make them, make them with dark material. black, blue, green...
dark, posted 30 May 2003 at 09:51 UTC by inkblot »
yes
the first submissions!, posted 2 Jun 2003 at 13:22 UTC by pedro »
Alright folks, we so far have submissions from ConeyIsland81 and now andronicus -- so get cracking!I've set up a gallery for the pictures, and when submissions are closed, I'll have some kind of a voting mechanism.
Keep 'em coming!
from phil, posted 2 Jun 2003 at 15:42 UTC by pedro »
A new entry from phil
Cool!, posted 2 Jun 2003 at 22:00 UTC by dex »
Those're really cool! I wish I had the mindset to be able to do this...
another new one from phil, posted 2 Jun 2003 at 22:29 UTC by pedro »
t-shirt gallery
train pr0n, posted 2 Jun 2003 at 23:33 UTC by crackmonkey »
This one has my vote!
full color may not be a possibility, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 01:30 UTC by pedro »
We should be careful -- full color printing may cost too much...
full color?, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 01:35 UTC by dogmanphil »
which one has full color? the doors one isn't if thats what you where talking about. it is white, dark green and maybe black.
you can't lose, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 01:43 UTC by twoply »
DANCE MORE!!!
my choices, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 02:03 UTC by baggins »
i like the 'dance more' one, although i'm not craaaazy about the color. and i'm not down with tank tops. the one with the 4 guys on it just rules. and the car one is pretty dang cool.
full-color, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 02:28 UTC by pedro »
In printing and stuff often has more to do with blends of color than it does how many "pure" colors are in that image. Try picking those 3 or 4 colors and telling your image program to convert it into 4 colors -- you'll see how it will dither to try and match the colors, or get very blotchy. Because of the photorealistic gradients and the nature of screen printing, to make that picture look nice, you'd need to do a "full color" process on it.
dithering examples, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 02:39 UTC by pedro »
I put some examples together. Check them out for reference.Dithering and color reduction can create some cool effects -- but it can't truly mimic full color printing.
also,, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 10:58 UTC by pedro »
You can post comments on the t-shirt designs directly to the gallery! Please go ahead and check it out, and check often.
blank shirts, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 11:47 UTC by pedro »
I added a gallery of blank shirts in a variety of colors for you to work from. COlors aren't set in stone, so if your favorite color isn't there, either find it somewhere, or don't worry about it.
this is so fun, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 18:03 UTC by dogmanphil »
i love doing this. i wish that more kid would make some and post them. come on guys.
how do you make them?, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 18:04 UTC by baggins »
im doing it a really crude way. so bear with me while i save the files then upload them.
ok, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 18:27 UTC by baggins »
see if this works.
uh, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 18:31 UTC by baggins »
that's really just an idea, since i don't really know how to go about designing the shirt. i don't know what tools to use, or anything. anyway, the idea is the skull&crossbones with 'redvinegar' underneath it on black print. maybe a pirate ship on the back.
coolio!, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 18:33 UTC by pedro »
I'll upload it.
mine, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 20:03 UTC by lukas »
I uploaded a few i threw together after work. comments encouraged.
oooh!, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 21:23 UTC by baggins »
i like lukas' ideas.
pirates, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 22:45 UTC by lukas »
I also added a sub-album of three pirate themed one's I did for you baggins.
nice job, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 22:53 UTC by dogmanphil »
looks good lukas. what about one with the picture of ake like the poster. ya know all 70's looking. with the out lines i like could look cool.
yeah yeah, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 22:57 UTC by lukas »
I started on one of those but I lost motivation to work it into a tee-shirt. I'll futz with it tomorrow night and see what I can do.
where was that picture, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 23:17 UTC by dogmanphil »
e-mail me the uploaded pictures of that shot.
lukas,, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 23:21 UTC by pedro »
Where did that robot come from? I'm a little concerned about plagiarism issues with images and whatnot... let me rephrase: I don't want to steal someone else's images for our t-shirts. I could draw a similar robot though... it's not like robots are copyrighted.
i'm talking about, posted 3 Jun 2003 at 23:22 UTC by pedro »
this shirt
ok folks,, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 01:13 UTC by pedro »
If you need decent image editing software on your windows computer, look no further than here.Install the GTK one first, and then the GIMP one. It should all be fairly self explanatory.
The gimp does almost everything with the right mouse button -- right click on an open image file to get a popup menu with your options on it. Use the tool palette to select what you want to do.
The gimp works like photoshop, where you have "layers" of images that stack on top of each other.
So when you're making a shirt, it makes sense to have a "layer" of text on top of a blank shirt. Then you get to move the text wherever you want it before you set it down. And even then you can always move the layer again, because it's not set in stone.
Most image files, like jpegs, do not support layers -- so to save your layers in a file, you need to save your files as .xcf files -- a special format for gimp files only. If you tell it to save as a jpg, it will automatically "flatten" the layers and save it as a jpeg.
One cool trick is to use the magic wand to select an area in a layer (that's not the background) and use cut (ctrl-x) to remove that "paint" -- now you can see through to the next lower layer!
Likewise, you can cut and paste, and floating selections will either get a new layer (if you click the "new layer button (like a sheet of paper)") or will be merged into the next lowest layer when you deslect them -- hence, when putting down text, you want to use the text tool to put the text into the "floating selection" and then immediately create a new layer for the text to be in -- then the surrounding space by the text will automatically be "see-through" to the shirt below.
Feel free to ask any gimp or photoshop questions here -- I think we have enough people to answer.
oooh, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 02:33 UTC by baggins »
coney's is damn cool, too. the cow works for me.
lukas, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 02:36 UTC by baggins »
your pirate ones rule! 'specially the jug with the XX on it.
re: dingbats and copyright, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 08:19 UTC by lukas »
The rocketship and the robot both come from a dingbat font that was distributed freely. The readme does not indicate any restrictions re: use. He does request that the dingbat fonts not be used as part of a corporate logo just because they are small and don't size well, but that's why I like them on the shirt, they get all chunky and cool. The guy's site is active so if you wanted to use that one we could email him and get permission. Plus he lives in N. Riverside so you could send him a freebie. The microphone image is from a postcard åke sent me from London (it was one of those freebies you get in bars and clubs) so I'll check that and see if it has copyright information. I don't see a problem using it since it's so stylized it's almost not recognizable from the original, but I'll leave the final decision on that issue up to you guys.
first round of elimination... keep the ideas flowing., posted 4 Jun 2003 at 08:26 UTC by pedro »
Hi all -- we moved some pictures out of the main gallery because we didn't think they'd get made for one reason or another. See my diary post about it.But please keep the ideas flowing.
If you have any questions about why we chose not to do a design, see the comments for that design or email me directly.
Thanks to everyone for their great ideas so far... keep 'em coming.
re: two of mine, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 09:13 UTC by lukas »
the rocketship and the robot are both on forest green shirts, but on my work monitor they really approach black. just an fyi
wow thios is gunna be hard, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 09:40 UTC by dogmanphil »
i don't want to just pick one or two i want allot of them. ya know? it will be hard to narrow it down. we should talk about when we need to have the contest end in time to go have them printed.
yeah, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 10:08 UTC by pedro »
I feel the same way.
ok, so..., posted 4 Jun 2003 at 10:22 UTC by pedro »
If people have more ideas, please feel free to post them, but let's start discussing what we have so far.Phil and I have been reordering the shirts to sort of reflect our favorites -- not in order from best to worst or anything, but jsut putting our favorites on the first page -- which means generally that the second page our our next favorites, etc... but it's not a strict organization.
I noticed that Phil moved the ascii art shirt up to the front and the "rocked off" shirt to the back, although I've gotten a lot of positive comments from the rocked off shirt. But would people actually wear it? Is it how we want to represent the band? I'm not sure. If we had other shirt designs, I would totally want to make this one, but if it's the ONLY design (I'm trying to think in terms of one shirt for the purposes of narrowing thigns down), I'mnot sure that's the best one.
I also like the ascii art one (of the four dudes with phil on the right, ha ha), and it totally appeals to my geeky side, but would people actually wear that if it was made? I think it really appeals to some people (myself included, and apparently phil), but I've seen other people kind of go "eh" about it.
This would be a great time for people to chime in with their thoughts. (And not just the artists who've created shirts.)
That said, I think my personal favorites are probably the red tree, the space shirt, and lukas' robot, then probably the microphone and then the alleyman... although I like EVERYTHING on the first page a lot... in fact, I like everything that's out there... it's too bad our friends aren't creative or anything.
I'll try to find out when our cutoff date should be -- I'd like to give people some time, especially for those who would submit but who might be slow movers... we really have only been doing this for a couple days, and some time and circumspection will only improve the end result.
some preferences, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 12:09 UTC by inkblot »
personally, i don't like wearing t-shirts with stuff printed on the back. i have some... i almost never wear them.of the rest, i like the robot, my ascii art band (but not in red), and the salt shaker best and would definitely wear them. i also like the radio guy, and the mic. i'd probably also wear a few of the others if they were chosen, but these are my picks.
emad had some serious ideas, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 12:55 UTC by pedro »
emad sent me two ideas that I don't have time to realize right now -- if someone wants to give them a shot, I think they're worth seeing. I just don't have time to do it.
also,, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 12:56 UTC by pedro »
I like either the old man or the salt shaker, and would be completely happy if we made either one.
oh yeah, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 15:35 UTC by inkblot »
this one is also on my a-list.
ok, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 17:39 UTC by dogmanphil »
ok, i really like everything on the first page alot. but, we need to cut back the options. so, here is my 7cents.
i like the space shirt
tastytronic radioman
the rest here would be easy to do in differant colors too. my ascii art band
the first red tree- would be easy to do in differant colors
the celtic fish- maybe a differant font(green)
the robot
i like the alley man as well, but, it's not one of my top ones. really i like most of these shirts and would be happy with most of them. i also really like <"http://tastytronic.net/gallery/album23/darkbandshirt">this one</a>. maybe it doesn't have to have the band shot on the back but i like the font and redvinegar big across the top.
whoops, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 17:41 UTC by dogmanphil »
this one was supposed to be linked.
a new one, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 17:49 UTC by pedro »
Hey, I really like this -- and it's only four colors
cost, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 17:57 UTC by dogmanphil »
i think that will cost too much.
Microphone..., posted 4 Jun 2003 at 19:40 UTC by dex »
I dig the microphone and the salt shaker most of all. But I also think the space shirt is rad, I'd be more likely to wear one of the simpler ones myself :)Oh and the geeky one is pretty groovy too. I posted my thoughts over in the gallery but it doesn't hurt to post them here as well.
addendum, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 19:41 UTC by dex »
County Trunk P.... I just saw that one. If it's not too expensive, that one's my new favorite.
addendum, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 20:31 UTC by lukas »
I added some updated microphones, a half-assed attempt at a shirt with the åke outlines, a weak effort with the drumset pedro drew me.I liked the space shirt, but the front is way too apple-store-genius-bar-joy-of-tech-mac-geeky but the back is super cool (I love those drawings) So I yoinked some other frames from pedro's work-in-progress and made my own space shirt.
The updated microphones are just variations on the font. I think I like #5. But my new favorite is the new space shirt I did today. Mostly because I love pedro's drawings. So cool. So now three of my shirt designs use pedro sketches. Thanks dude!
also, posted 4 Jun 2003 at 20:39 UTC by lukas »
after I did some of those I think some of them might look better on navy or forest colored shirts. But I need to rest my hand so you'll have to imagine them in different colors.
ake shirt, posted 5 Jun 2003 at 00:14 UTC by dogmanphil »
i reallly like the ake jumping one. it's in my new top five. i also like the new space shirt. pdro and i were talking about doing one like that and maybe the atom small way up on the back with the web address in it.
i also really like, posted 5 Jun 2003 at 00:32 UTC by pedro »
lukas' drumset shirt.The deal with the COuntry Trunk P shirt is that because it is four colors, that is four screens. Each screen has a "set up cost" associated with it. Since it's four screens, the CTP shirt would cost about $70-100 before even one shirt was printed.
I was just thinking we could cut down on the cost by using three colors, green, yellow, and white, and leaving the road blue (or printing it on a black shirt)... but unless everyone really thought this was the best and were going to kill each other trying to buy it, it's probably not cost effective. But I think it's really, really cool.
I like the new "space shirt" (see above link), too. If I had to pick two right now, it'd probably be the new space shirt (or something like it) and the red tree #1.
I like the new Ake one, but it's probably not in my top 5. But that's just me.
ok., posted 5 Jun 2003 at 01:38 UTC by baggins »
i like the jumping silhouette one, the drumset, and the one entitled 'a-wing'. that last one looks good on the green (or whatever) but i always prefer black.
slapped-together, posted 5 Jun 2003 at 08:39 UTC by sneakums »
once, twice, three times redvinegar
re: ake shirt & ink, posted 5 Jun 2003 at 08:42 UTC by lukas »
I like the åke shirt, but I think might not make sense if you hadn't seen the original poster / photo. I originally tried versions with outlines of the cliff, clouds, and water but I didn't get a version I was happy with, so I went simple. It's cool, and I think it would fun to make them just with the outlines, but I wouldn't put it in my top three for redvinegar shirts. Or maybe I would--I dunno--it's so hard to rank so many cool designs.I know little about printing shirts, but I thought that sometimes for colors on dark shirts you had to run to passes or even put a lighter color down first and print on top. The drumset is a duotone of black and a blue ink, so if it was green, it would require two screens. The microphone is b&w, but I'm not sure if the just print with white ink or if the do multiple screens with grey inks. </ramble>
drumset, posted 5 Jun 2003 at 10:15 UTC by pedro »
If we wanted to do the drumset, we could do the design in grayscale and "colorize" the grayscale (for the paint color), and then the duotone would actually be whatever the shirt color would be underneath, so long as we printed the paint like a halftone.Ultimately, one thing that will affect shirt designs is whether it costs more (and if so how much) to do halftone printing as opposed to just solid paints.
Certainly the "one screen" designs, like the red tree or the ake outline would be the cheapest, but halftones may not actually cost any more -- this would mean that the space shirt, or the salt shaker, or the radio man, or the microphone would all cost the same as the "one screen" designs . (Unless there was color print on them as well, like the radio man.)
Designs that require two colors will require subsequent screens, with a setup fee for each screen.
This is all from the hip though, until we get real sales information from somewhere.
$.02, posted 5 Jun 2003 at 15:03 UTC by baggins »
i never saw the original poster and i liked the Akeoutline design.
MICROPHONES, posted 5 Jun 2003 at 16:42 UTC by instantcofi »
are the best
new shirt, posted 6 Jun 2003 at 14:51 UTC by dogmanphil »
new drum shirt i did with lukas' drum idea.
irrelevant?, posted 9 Jun 2003 at 19:10 UTC by barefootjumper »
i was just thinking maybe these t-shirts could be printed on t-shirts not made in sweat-shops. i'm kind of impractical sometimes, because i know that would cost a little more, but... good cause?american apparel has comfy non-sweatshop shirts.
site, posted 9 Jun 2003 at 20:56 UTC by barefootjumper »
www.americanapparel.nethtml will never be my thing...
American Apparel, posted 10 Jun 2003 at 07:47 UTC by ConeyIsland81 »
I have 4 shirts from American Apparel....they are awesome.
Act now! Act now!, posted 12 Jun 2003 at 15:25 UTC by pedro »
Make your voice known and help us pick a redvinegar t-shirt design! Log in and vote!
whoops, posted 12 Jun 2003 at 16:01 UTC by pedro »
Please log in and make sure your votes are still there, or re-vote.
ROUND TWO SHIRT VOTING, posted 17 Jun 2003 at 00:29 UTC by pedro »
We culled out the obvious top five from the previous election, and now we're onto the second and final round. Please go and vote now for your favorite choice.Thanks!
Any verdict?, posted 23 Jun 2003 at 09:12 UTC by dex »
Enquiring minds want to know.
please stand by..., posted 23 Jun 2003 at 10:02 UTC by dogmanphil »
soon and very soon.
and the winner is..., posted 24 Jun 2003 at 11:06 UTC by pedro »
See Roasted redvinegar for the answer...