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that is awesome, I have always wanted to make t-shirts!

Kick ass! They totally deserve it!

wow. it’s interesting to see companies that don’t feel new get treated novelly in the press and be interpreted for commentary. i remember perusing threadless in highschool ~5 years ago, and adding the first group to thefacebook from my school in 04.

That’s awesome, I hope Jeffrey is learning to breath when he does a speaking event. :)

WOW ! amazing, it is their hard earned effort.

Fantastic – these guys deserve it – an inspiration to all.

I still remember meeting the Threadless guys for the first time at the 37Signals/Coudal offices about 4-5 years ago for a presentation about agencies developing products to sell on the side. Threadless was still this small little thing back then… $30million in t-shirts now! Wow!

But what I think is the most incredible is that they have created a fundamentally different business model that empowers customers to create the products they want.

Great to hear how well thy do with such an ‘old school’ product and completely without a ‘social network’ – amazing

Big congrats Threadless!

Yes, great job using the work of young naive designers and illustrators to make your fortune and disgrace the integrity of their professions.

Artists don’t need to get paid unless they win a competition! ?!? Art isn’t real work ? No one will ever pay for a tshirt design again. And if this “innovative” business model keeps up, no one will need to pay for any kind of design work again.

Michael, I wrote and re-wrote my response to you about 5 times, but now I’m simply content with this: You have no idea what you’re talking about.

If you feel like discussing this, please feel free to shoot me an email: jeffrey [at] skinnycorp [dot] com or AIM me: fancyjeffrey

thanks.

Michael, I see you have at referenced the no-spec site and though I agree with you in a broad way, I disagree in many others.

Art/design suffers much too often by not being seen as a professional pursuit by many. I practice it and of course I run into this all the time when dealing with clients. Though last I checked, i’m getting paid, Pentagram is getting paid and advertising agencies are getting real paid. Nobody is not getting paid, but perhaps you aren’t.

Regardless that their business model seemingly shares a Craigslist logo contest vibe, nobody is forcing the designers to create ideas. What you seem to be saying though is that there are professional t-shirt designers out there. Really? I haven’t met one officially.

Threadless is a hardly the harbinger of death as it relates to creativity or art and design. Some of the winning entries are very quality items that are produced by some very talented individuals. Plus you have to give it up to them for supporting the local artists by having their prints, screenprinted by hand which in turn gives them money to run and build their own businesses.

Why don’t you go after Elance or logoworks, if you really want to fight the good fight.