12: Caves a-Caving

Threadless does it yet again, printing an excellent former contest watch mention with "Found Anything Yet?" by Tang Yau Hoong. You may remember it from my classic blog, "Contest watch: Week of November 20." Yet again, Threadless is getting speedy with its wins, taking about 2 months to print the shirt despite many shirts taking twice the turnaround time to see a print. Here, I fear it was a costly speed... I maintain that this design would have been even better placed lower, with the "tail" wrapping around the side, as displayed in the original mock-up. Still, the concept is brilliantly Threadless in all the best ways, and if for nothing else, it deserves its print for that reason. It gives a wonderful picture of not being able to see the forest for the trees, or in this case, the cave for the dinosaur. It really captures the thrill of exploration, I think... that idea that there is something bigger to find. In this case, the payoff is beyond expectation.

Also worth discussing while we're on Threadless: the 2008 Bestees. Last week, Threadless held voting among every shirt they printed last year, and the 20 finalists are up this week. The winner will snag a cool $2oK, which is not bad at all for one design, especially considering the cash and prizes it already won this year upon originally printing. Each user has a single vote: mine is being sunk on Fail, by Radiomode, based on two factors. First, it is what Threadless does best, a solid joke with an attractive style, and to me a Threadless Bestee winner should be classic Threadless. Secondly, though, it's out-of-print. It is, therefore, a selfish vote in many ways: there is a hope inside me that winning a Bestee might contribute to a reprint. It is important to note, however, that fully half of the Bestee nominees are worthy of that 20-grand, so it won't be an easy choice. If "Fail" fails to grab you, my next best recommendation is polynothing's "Attack of Literacy." Come for the pulp-art feel, and stay for the literary "who's who" guessing game.