threadless

Angry Birds T-shirt design gives rise to cakes

Having the ability to create an extraordinary cake is something you'll never see on my resume. That doesn't stop me from living vicariously through those who can bake something that looks like art, like an an almost-too-realistic Angry Birds cake.

The "Furious Fowl" Angry Birds cake is originally inspired from a T-shirt design by Brian Cook that is sold at the artist-driven Threadless clothing store. Jamie Masterson and her husband are self-described addicts of the popular smartphone game, and decided to create the cake as an entry on Threadcakes, which is a Web site that encourages … Read more

Gowalla: We're still in the location race

It's been fewer than four months since the much-hyped "location wars" of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, where eager onlookers were quick to pit rival "check-in" services Foursquare and Gowalla against one another to see which one dominated the social-media-crazed nerdfest. Yet, by most accounts, Foursquare has emerged victorious.

Earlier this week, a set of statistics made the rounds claiming that Foursquare is now five times bigger than Gowalla and is growing 75 percent faster. A source in the location space added a tidbit in a conversation with CNET: not only is Foursquare winning … Read more

'Tron' T-shirt glows just like it should

Online apparel store Threadless has a new T-shirt called My Other Ride Is a Light Cycle. Clearly inspired by the retro Disney movie "Tron," it features a glow-in-the-dark print that will make it look like you have a glowing printed circuit board on your body when the lights go off.

This tee is perfect for those who love the old movie and are looking forward to the upcoming sequel, "Tron: Legacy." The shirt is available now online for $20 and will probably go well with the Adidas Adicolor Tron shoes and tracksuit from 2006.

(Source: Crave Asia … Read more

ModCloth crowdsources vintage fashion

Most online retailers keep a safe distance from their customers (unless they're asking for credit card information). ModCloth, an e-retailer of vintage women's fashion founded in 2002, is deviating from this model by creating a community of fashionistas included in almost every part of the company.

Without the customer-company separation, ModCloth is more like a best friend who gives you fashion advice, shares her favorite recipes, and joins your book club. Wait, we're still talking about a clothing store, right?

Right. In October 2009, Modcloth launched its "Be the Buyer" program, an initiative that lets visitors vote on clothing samples. If an item gets enough votes, ModCloth will sell it. Sound familiar? Threadless was founded on a similarly democratic principle, but Modcloth is the first to add crowdsourcing as a supplement to a traditional storefront.

ModCloth takes its customers' fashion advice to improve its buying decisions, but it's also about building community. Customers leave comments on clothing samples and vote, but can also share their views with friends via Facebook or Twitter. It results in a group of people who may not know each other, but share in common an interest in fashion and a desire to talk about it.

These fashionistas are a part of a community more complex than garments, though. ModCloth's blog, ModLife, covers everything from fashion to recipes, and provides "cool links" on the Web. There's even a link to a Flickr account where customers upload photos of their favorite ModCloth outfits.

On March 8, ModCloth announced its reading contest, in which users who share the title of the book they're reading on the social-networking site GoodReads enter for a chance to a win a copy of ModCloth's book of the month. It's unclear whether ModCloth has officially partnered with GoodRead, but the partnership represents a significant shift in online retailing.

Online shops generally have a narrow frame of thought, assuming their customers came to them for only their products. But Web 2.0 is about community, and ModCloth was right in assuming that its shoppers have more in common than clothing.

I caught up with ModCloth founders Eric and Susan Koger via e-mail to find out more about the community they've built. … Read more

Threadless: The ups and downs of selling cotton

Threadless.com founder Jake Nickell and chief creative officer Jeffrey Kalmikoff on Friday chatted with TechWeb's Jennifer Pahlka about crowdsourcing design and feedback from a user-base that's buying up more than 100,000 T-shirts a month. Despite darkening economic times, Nickell says the site is still getting 150 to 200 user submitted designs per day, a number that the Threadless community whittles down to just nine that get released as new shirts on a weekly basis.

Kalmikoff said one of the things that keeps the designs coming in is how much designers are getting paid. According to him, … Read more

Web Shirts: 20 rad T-shirt sites

Internet commerce is becoming the new pastime for many in my generation. Generation Yers like to buy interesting T-shirts online, and there's no shortage of sites out there that are putting out an absurd amount of user-generated designs. Here's a list of more than 20 quality sites that put cotton, and inspiration, on your back.

Readymade: These services sell shirts that are designed by users and professionals.

Threadless is one of the most popular shirtmakers out there. It started out with user votes to pick out which shirts would go on sale, and have since moved on to independent designers. When shirts sell out, they're typically not for sale again unless the demand becomes great. They're also set to open a retail store in Chicago next month.

Glarkware, a small Canadian shirt company, is based out of Toronto, Ontario, and has a fairly eccentric line of humor-related shirts. They've also got a line of T-shirts on the way for toddlers.

Shirt.Woot. From the same bunch that does good ol' Woot.com and Wine.Woot.com, is Shirt.Woot.com--a one-shirt-per-day service that rolls out a new design every night at midnight Central time. Every shirt is always $10 with free shipping, along with the option to get it delivered in two days for another five bucks. While a good deal of the shirts are designed by professionals, the service also runs a weekly "derby" with user-generated designs. The most popular design goes on sale, and the designer gets a cut of the profits.

Bountee is a hybrid service that offers both professionally designed T-shirts and a build-it-yourself solution. Bountee features a variety of "Web 2.0" features like tagging, user ratings, and commenting. It's also got a really slick, easy-to-use design.

Split The Atom is a U.K.-based T-shirt company that's pretty much exactly like Threadless, but with a smaller selection. It also takes user designs in return for a one-time cash prize.

Design by Humans has a very small collection of shirts, but offers some pretty decent prize money for winning designers with a daily, weekly, and monthly design contest. Each designer also gets their own profile page for listing any background information and to showcase some of their other works.

BustedTees and Defunker are two very different Net T-shirt services from the same company. Bustedtees is more about humor, while Defunker offers more designer solutions akin to Threadless. Both sites are really slick, but between the two, Defunker feels a bit snappier. There's also a pretty large price gap, with most Bustedtees topping out at around $16, and Defunker averaging in the high-$20s and mid-$30s.

T-ShirtHell. There's a reason this site has a warning page and a hellish name. These shirts are the kind that will get you stares in public, and usually not for a good reason. Definitely not for the faint of heart, or workplace.

The Cotton Factory doesn't actually make cotton, but they have a very solid selection of designer, and humor T-shirts. There's even a section of T-shirts less than 10 bucks. There's some real gems in this place, especially if you like "ninja" apparel.

… Read more

Threadless to open Chicago retail store in September

Online T-shirt retailer Threadless has announced it will be opening its first brick-and-mortar retail store in its hometown of Chicago next month. The store will open its doors on Friday, September 14, and will celebrate the launch with two free concerts that night (one all ages, one over 18).

Threadless has been hailed for its innovative business model, which it calls an "ongoing T-shirt design competition." Creatively inclined fans can submit their own T-shirt design ideas, and winning selections can rake in $2,000 in cash for the designer. There are plenty of quirky features, too--if you submit … Read more