Naked no more. Original t-shirt designs at Threadless.com (threadless.com)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	threadless.com
Date:	14/03/07 (1430 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good quality t-shirts that very few other people will own.

Disadvantages: Potential import duties, threadless newsletter avoidance.

Threadless.com is a clothing website with an interesting difference. Instead of offering you plenty of designs you can find elsewhere from big name designers, Threadless offers designs by people like you.

Yes, that's right, you too can design your own t-shirt! Not content with the kudos that your very own designs could soon be sold across the world? Well, Threadless will also reward you for your designs. If selected, Threadless will give you US$2000 as reward for your hard work and design skills. This is split between US$1500 in cash, a US$300 Threadless voucher and membership of their club, worth US$200.

Of course, it's not as easy as that, but it's the general principle. If you're a bit of a dab hand with Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Flash, you can download the t-shirt templates and design away. The design you submit is the design that they will use if it proves popular enough on the site. If, like me, you have the artistic skills of a two year old child with no hands, Threadless do not tidy up any rough ideas. I think Threadless could possibly lose out here. I reckon I've got a few good ideas in me for t-shirts, but lack the ability to express these in digital form. Ideally I'd like to be able to submit my rough ideas and let Threadless tidy them up for presentation.

If, like me, you have absolutely no drawing or Photoshop skills you can still take part by entering slogans that might yet make it onto a t-shirt and by rating these slogans. In the past, there have been some gems like "Fractions speak louder than nerds" (very witty, but I'd never wear it) and the completely awesome "I'd give my right arm to play drums for Def Leppard" which was the greatest t-shirt in the world until Threadless pulled it from circulation due to bad taste and before I could order one. The reward for a successful slogan being printed is US£100 in cash with a $100 Threadless voucher for your own use.

Coming up with a popular slogan is tougher than I thought. I have five current submissions, each with around 47 votes. The most popular has a 32% approval rating while the poorest has around 13%.

If you want to submit designs or slogans or take part in the site, you must sign up for membership, but this is hassle free, and there's no fear of spam, but you might get the Threadless newsletter. Advantages of membership above submission of designs or slogans are the ability to rate other people's submissions and, if you've previously ordered from Threadless, you can upload pictures of you wearing your spiffing t-shirts. It's possible to gain points by submitting these photos that will, in turn, enable to get money off further purchases.

One of the negative aspects of the site is that you're bound to end up subscribing to the newsletter at some point. If you submit a slogan, you're prompted to sign up, if you place an order, you're prompted to sign up. Eventually, it's likely that you'll forget to untick the 'subscribe' box and a Threadless newsletter will find itself in your inbox before long. Other than that, the site itself is easy to use and navigate. As the site is quite graphic heavy (showing the t-shirt designs), it can slow down a little if there are lots of designs onscreen, but that's a very minor issue to me.

The ordering process is extremely simple and you don't have to sign up to order, which is quite unusual these days. My experiences have shown that from order to your doorstep (if you live in the UK) is approximately three weeks. Of that, it takes Threadless roughly a week from order to despatch. Once despatched, delivery is then approximately two weeks. That's because Threadless is based in Chicago, Illinois and delivery is by US Post. One aspect of the process I'm not entirely happy with is when an order has not been processed, but changes are made. You have to delete your existing order and resubmit a new one, which means your new order still takes a week for despatch. It would be preferable if orders could be updated within the queue, after all, if they've not been processed, why delete them and resubmit a new one?

Prices are extremely favourable, even including international post. T-shirts vary in price, but are around US$15 for a guy's tee and $17 for girly or kid's tees. If a design also has a hoodie, this is more expensive again. My last order included three t-shirts at $15 each and postage was $15, a grand total of $60. That worked out to be approximately £30 with the exchange rate at the time, meaning the real cost of each shirt worked out to be £10 each.

The designs are printed on Fruit of the Loom t-shirts that are good quality. My shirts have been through a few washes already and are still holding their shape and the designs are not showing any wear and tear from use. As far as my own t-shirts are concerned, I was apprehensive about differences in American and UK sizes, but the Large t-shirts I've ordered seem to be the same size as most Large t-shirts I've bought here in the UK.

I've been really happy with my experiences of Threadless. The t-shirts are good quality and at a tenner each (including P&P), they're good value. The ability to submit slogans and designs is intriguing, but nothing I've really investigated fully due to my inability to draw. The order process is decent unless you want to make late changes and the delivery time is acceptable given the cost. Signing up to the newsletter is annoying, but really a minor inconvenience. If you're looking for interesting t-shirts that aren't widely available in the UK, then Threadless is an excellent place to start.

[Note: as Threadless are based in the USA, there may be issues with import taxes and whatnot. I am not sure what the import rules/duties are, but be warned that they may apply.]

Summary: Try your hand at t-shirt design and buy designs by other users.