So, this is us, the two mass customized tourists, sitting in the middle of the “William H Gates Building” in MIT, Boston.
Me looking a little bit like a pumpkin waiting for halloween, adam in his usual pose, being English amused and quite interested in this very inspiring surroundings. We have held our little presentation today, and rated it ourselves with 75% - it was a nice crowd and the right questions afterwards .. the only problem was we finished our presentation at 2 AM last night. But we have also shown some of your entries and the reaction was great. More fotos to come later - for now, it is time to announce the week 6 shortlist. You definitely want to continue to read, since it has some “no brainers”, and some kniffeliger ones - plus a handy surprise at the very end.
But, let’s start from the beginning, and like we said before - you really striked us this week! A lot of great designs came in, some of them improved versions from before (like eyeletman, Think Spreadshirt, the lovetab, or the “hero series”) others are brand spanking new. And a couple of these we want to put through if you like. To make it short, here is the week6 list:
Spreadshirt TM by Japasa
A draft that came in early last week, and was improved by end of the week. A winner by votes in the internal seeking and sharing. Congratulations! Together with:
Pop your collar by netweight
An outstanding idea, a simple shape - and lots of comments and props. Well done, netweight! The third one in this row, also with the same amount of woohoos as the collar and the TM is
UP THE BRACKETS by schimanski
A very cool concept - flexible and playful - a nice bracket to fill with all we have to offer. Disclaimer: this submission is by spreadshirt’s own carsten ullrich, but as you can see from the comments, we have no issue here that we smuggled him through I’d guess (we didn’t even know until this afternoon since he did it in his holidays and uploaded undercover).
Universal Language by bean
We have been a fan of this since bean submitted his first version - now he improved it and we like it even more, since it is more readable but still kept it’s charme.
Play with forms by Lufograf
We already praised it in the last blog post - now it’s on the shortlist and we would love to see more playing around with it!
Find your own! by Laurent
This one came through altough we wanted to step back from too much tags and lables. I guess it’s because Laurent found a very playful way to deal with this - just add some more and play with it.
Necktab by kimlarsen
Very well executed, and despite netweight was the first to come up with the collar theme we like how the collar and the tab are picked up and work together in this draft.
Now, for the end and the surprise - some lines on a discussion we had earlier today. We thought about bringing a last weeks’ design on this weeks shortlist. As you maybe have seen already, Alexander Wende had a huge output and we feel we still owe him a place on the shortlist for such entries like “you are the key” or “Against Nudity”. So what we decided today was to not bring a design by last week in this weeks shortlist since this would be against the rules, but that Against Nudity will be the first design which goes into the “Wildcard Shortlist”.
So, sorry Alexander for not making it in this weeks shortlist, and congratulations for being the first wildcard for our wildcard shortlist!
Appendix: How does the wildcard shortlist work?
We’ve talked about this before - and tomorrow we will reveal more information on this. Basically we would like you to go back through all the weeks as you’ve already did for week1 and week2, and make notes on the designs you think are worth being reviewed again. From all the entries you propose we will conduct an additional shortlist and pitch the best designs into the finals.
Congratulations to all who made it & props to the ones who didn’t - don’t give up and have a good final week7!
wait a minute “up the bracket” was made by a spreadshirt employee. is that fair? or isn’t that against the rules?
Sorry, I don’t understand your choice. Perhaps “Find your own” is the worst logo I have drawn during these 6 weeks. You can cut out it of this shortlist, I give my place.
Nevertheless, congratulations to all others. Japasa and Lufograf have done a very good job.
I will not submit any other logos from now , because I’m tired . It was great to be here , I saw some great logos and designers . Anyway , good luck to everybody . . .
ohhh ohhh, give me her spot ;)
my entry: Spread Your Label
congrats everybody ;
my logo are not selected ; i’lltry this week once again ..see you !
Thaks a lot ! I’m really proud to be shotlisted, especially among such awesome design ! I know that I have to play again and again with my forms ! ^^
Congrats to all and especially to Japasa and bean whose designs are great !
>laurent, I agree that “find your own” is not one of your best entries, but please don’t give up ! Tastes and feelings are so subjective that you can’t go beyond. But you can try to make this one better to your eyes and thus reach an interesting compromise ?
Oh boy! I would give everything to only once be part of your discussion what logo makes it or not…
I can understand you picked Japasas, this tells the right thing and works.
Pop your collar is well executed and an original idea but it is a collar and does not tell about your business, or are you manufacturing apparel? netweight did a good job, but i cant see it telling anything you wanted.
Up the brackets communicates creativity and personal branding?
Universal language is very nice and it tells a lot about fun and personal creativity but I cannot see it working as what you want to have communicated. I kinda like it, I just can not see it really working somehow.
Play with forms looks really just nice but do you want a logo that does only work in big size? Its a awesome looking ad but no logo. (sorry lufograf cause I know how much work it must have been)
Necktab looks fancy but it appears like a few centimeters thick necktag, because the eye always sees light coming from the upper left corner. What does this necktab tell you, anyway?
Honestly: Do you have a print of your briefing and compare it to all picked logos while reviewing for the weekly shortlist? I really mean like a checklist, what requirements of your briefing it achieves and what not?
Sometimes it seems you are tending to chose those having just many comments. If so, this one of mine did not have 30 comments but 10 only positive ones:
http://olp.spreadshirt.net/entries/2007/10/05/pricetag/#comments
This is not necessarily telling about fun but it does tell more about what your company deals with than many others, I am just curious what you thought about it since I got no feedback from you guys on this.
Honestly, dont you guys think I am crazily jelous or only mad with you. I would be fine if e.g. japasas Spreadshirt TM wins, cause it is a good working logo, but so many of your weekly picks are not at all matching your designers brief and it is so frustrating while putting so many nights in this and seeing you - in my eyes - not following your own rules.
We all want you to be happy with your new logo for a long time, get out your briefing, guys!
And thanks for being so honest Laurent… how can some so complicated things be expected to be a logo?
I’m pretty surprised (in a positive way ;)) & a little bit confused now.
Don’t know which logo should I improve? Against nudity or u are the key because “u are the key” was an improvement of against nudity imho. More feedback on that would be nice & helpfull, because I have just a few comments on this two entries. That’s pretty confusing.
Don’t know which logo should I improve? the one selected on w4 had no feedback and to me the two best i made were not selected :)
…
azzoui - I really like your “make it yourself” design. very nice executed - but not too sure if it is exactly representing what we do and if it works on a small range, plotted (2 colors, no blending), inside a shirt label.
alexander - develop further the “against nudity” concept, since it will be on the upcoming shortlist.
pascalphilly - nothing mysterious about the process, it’s pretty much a normal process: we ask the panel, the board, the employees, take a look at the comments. we conduct a shortlist with votes, if someone has a strong preference and good arguments for or against a special entry its discussed by the steering group, so it’s pretty much an open and easy thing to follow - the only difference to the OLP is that we use quite a bunch of personal meetings, exchange via mails or wiki pages.
taking a look at your comment there is a lot of “I think” in it, and of course there is different solutions, because it is not math — but different imagination, ideas and so on. sorry that your pricetag hasn’t been picked .. but again - as you know we have a lot of great entries but only can pick a few. And I can tell you that some of your designs and ideas still are around and referenced in discussions, so maybe we take the chance to have another look on some earlier drafts that you submitted.
jefferson - really a great presentation .. but I think the font is maybe a little bit too edgy, and the main logo looks a little bit like a sawblade. but the idea with the posters and the spread is really cool. regarding schimanskis/carstens entry: we want to be as open as possible and actually we motivated our employees to get involved at any stage. btw. there are quite some more entries from employees, now this is the first one that makes the shortlist - but like I said, because we think it is worth it, a nice draft that also got quite good feedback by other participants.
green - I though about your entry when we did the shortlist and I would be very happy if you rethink your statement because I think your draft is very well executed and very special. A great piece of visual art. But to be honest, I think it lacks from the concept side and it feels a little bit like “just a replacement” for the fingerprint - I guess this might be a reason why it didn’t get the necessary votes in the end.
laurent - hmm, too bad :/
of course it’s more about the concept than the actual logo - same as with lufograf’s draft. You took a variable set of shapes and staged them in an outstanding and playful way - and what we like about it is the life in it, the variability and that the shapes represent pretty well what we and our partners offer. But, no doubt - If I had the money, I would maybe pay the rolling stones some millions and take the jagger-mouth :)
guys, again - there were plenty of great designs, and we had a tough choice this week .. which is of course good on the one side, but on the other hand we feel sorry if we’re not able to appreciate every single entry because at some point we just have to make a choice. and sometimes it’s maybe just a very small nuance that decides if an entry gets on the shortlist. but overall I think the level and the standard of the entries has become very high and I hope you appreciate the competition.
Actually I think the first to come up with the collar idea last week was pmd with this:
http://olp.spreadshirt.net/entries/2007/10/04/the-neck/
Just to be fair, I know you can’t remember all the logos..
I also had my try with that concept but it didn’t even get in the wk6picks and that’s the fourth time now…you can’t understand how frustrating this is! Now I know I can’t complain with anybody about it but i just need to relieve my feelings sometimes…’cause designers have feelings too! Don’t you know it?!
oh, the world is so insensitive…
congrats to everybody who has been selected, it’s must been a superb feeling…i’m happpy for Lufograf who has been nice in the contest. I think that’s in tiny prints, the logo will not succeed, but anyway ;-)
i think that’s Japasa’s one is good too, and necktab pretty interesting.
pop your collar is for me the same concept, but far less interesting, and not matching the concept of spreadshirt well, sorry…
Alexender and Laurent made outstanding works in week6, but were selected for one of their so-so logos, so what?
well, i agree with Laurent and pascalphilly…and others.
In fact, i’m pretty disappointed, for week6 i don’t understand….i just dont ‘understand the choices, because pascalphilly said it all: you gave directions, but when we see the choices, it’s not at all what you said you wanted…
personnally, i really worked hard this week, like a lot of people, but why the logos who had the most comments and positive feedback like my “Carry On Carry It” weren’t in the shortlist…
i also agree that people like Alexender made works that were far better than their own pick, it’s not about subjectivity, it’s about power of concept, and ways of use of those logos…and for Laurent, it’s the same, how can you prefer this one instead of Blue Connect?
well, i sent an update yesterday of Head Label just because you talked about it in the blog…but it’s useless. we’ll see later, right now, i’ll do a break.
i repeat that i’m pretty happy for the others, that’s how works a contest, a few picks, and a lot of deceptions…but IMO, you are picking finalists that are not matching your initial brief…but pascalphilly is right, i won’t repeat what he said…
congrats to everybody! the works from kimlarsen and japasa are very nice.
Thanks for listing me! I’ll work on my entry as soon as I get out of this friggin’ shirt. ^^
Thanks Mootsie, but I think the first to come up with the collar idea was Jana in Adam’s video about the contest, asking for neck-tags ideas…
By the way I made an improvement with The neck 2 .
Did you have any votes or comments about The affixed internally ?
Congrats to everybody… especially Japasa (with spreadshirt tm), Laurent (The Tong Mark and the Tag Hanger are awesome !), and Lufograf for their creativity.
pmd> the affixed is pretty good IMHO , you should rework it, making other variations… ;-)
my disappoinment is not as high as when i discover the shortlist and commented it.
In a few words, at least, it would be useful that Spreadhsirt staff speaks about the other logos that caught their attention, even if they are not in the shortlist, and why they didn’t make it…i mean, if they like some other works, but think that they need improvment to be a finalist…why dont you tell us about them?
I’m totally agree with Jebs and Laurent comments. Throughout the competition I note than there is not chancefor pure typographic brands or crazy stuff which should work also as icon but brand at sametime. Most concepts and executions IMHO are terrible evident, I mean “ask for a label, draw a label”, “ask for t-shirt, draw a t-shirt”. Most “SpreadShirt” are single line so don´t fill-up briefing or -for me- useful Janna’s suggestions. By example, I got some feedback from Jana about my “Kinetic threads” entry but finally I didn´t update caused by limited design time and it shouldn´t get any “week pick” because lack of icon label, tshirts, necks and so on. However if you look at brand designs from other related business you will hardly find more t-shirts and labels representations. I mean e.g. LaFraise, OMG or Threadless; they don´t use them. I recognize that’s It’s an hard creative process where usually less is more though typography should be match the symbol, not just getting lost in the outer space. I hope to see this final week more typo brands not just shirts & labels icons glued to a text saying “spreadshirt” at a single line. And Green don´t give up, please! Send us more designs. We’re learning a lot from each other. Congratulations to all finalists and week picks!!
i have another question for the staff (yes i’m full of questions today eheheh) i looked at the first shortlists…and?
well, spreadshirt staff says that this week was really a good one with a lot of good designs, a level up, and high quality…and you put only 6 drafts in the shortlist, instead of the 9-10 in the initial weeks, which in my opinion, were not as good as the final weeks. that’s frustrating…
i took a lot of pleasure playing in the contest, i think everybody had a lot of excitment, but, it would be nice to have answers at our questions, what do you think?
> ami : thanks for your explanations, but for me it’s a joke. When I see all my entries, “Find your own” is the most ridiculous design, so far ! I see it here, with no chance to be in the Grand final, thinks to me than the logo has been choosen to complete the shortlist. That’s all.
> lufograf : thanks ;) but OLP is a contest, not a FREE work of communication agency. I hop you understand what I mean.
> Jebs : I’m agree concern Alexander’s designs. SpreadShirt team has not choose the best design of him…
thanks for your support @grafismo , but I don’t see any future to myself on the competition , because my “best” work didn’t even make the shortlist (as you remember , my other two logos made it , but I think they weren’t so good as this one)
http://olp.spreadshirt.net/entries/2007/10/08/look-what-youve-created/
I know , re-submissions have the chance to be selected , but I don’t see any point to be improved/changed on it .
Grafismo:
I agree. Due to the brief it has to have a standalone icon. But yeah, I totally agree that the focus on the symbol is both boring and less creative. On the other hand there are restrictions that you have to consider for a company that works with printing. I’d like to see ppl spend more time on the typo. Myself included.
PS. the typeface “DAX” that I’ve seen been used a lot is F***** awful and to common DS.
hey guys,
too much here to give you all a detailed feedback atm .. give us a little time.
just for the moment:
you are right we should try to give you feedback about specific entries that you submitted, but I’m not sure if it would be helpful if I give you just one short statement which has a lot to do with taste and personal imagination. And as much as we wished we could because you deserve it - it is impossible to us to comment each design .. you have to help us .. and that’s exactly why we would like you to just give us your thoughts about entries that didn’t make a shortlist (or the staff picks) and you think are worth a second view.
@ami , I’ve just seen your comment , I guess the typo made you think that it would be “just a replacement” , because I used a similar typo layout to fingerprint .
I was thinking that you didn’t like it . OK then , I’ll submit some different variations . . .
Interesting discussion, I was reading a book on Interaction Design and there was a key quote that i really found interesting, because it had happened to me so many times and I think it has happened to Laurent now. The qoute was this :
“Never show a design approach that you’re not happy with; stakeholders just might like it.”
@ Grafismo: I feel the same way. I created the typeface myself for my entry but i guess they felt it was too edgy. For a clothing company looking to be the “world’s creative platform” and to be “admired by DESIGNERS, consumers, stockholders and creative industry”. How can you be afraid of being edgy? And your right, threadless, OMG, la fraise, all have logos that take chances and are not too didactic. I think this whole venture is heading towards a sans serif typeface next to a fairly circular icon. Which is unfortunate, because that’s such a common formula. Speaking as a consumer, designer, and someone who’s fairly picky about shirts, I’ll stick with threadless in that department. They have a great sense of design, fun and community. Everything I’ve experienced from spreadshirt so far doesn’t even equal that. Oh, well maybe we’ll all have better luck on OLP3, lol.
hmm, dunno if threadless and lafraise are good examples for way ahead *logos*, I think I’m more thrilled about their brands and their presence in general. And I understand if you are disappointed for not making the shortlist, however I would like to point out again that we think all of the selected entries do have a level that is outstanding - may it be the composition, may it be the concept, may it be the typo.
And even if we didn’t pick more designs that were discussed internally and externally, even if we didn’t give a fair amount of feedback to all the great designs that are out there in the meantime, I think it would be fair enough to appreciate and respect the work of the ones that were picked.
sorry if I sound too rude . But please note than I never loose respect at all for any entry or concoursant and I’m support them and congrat every pick up, grand finalist or just single participant. There are great logos and enough very poor logos like some of mines. We’re talking always about design. When I mention -as a rough sample those logo companies I’m pointing out that are business related to SS but evidently have different targets. Of course, there is a required brief and we must compliment it to participate and maybe get a pick as award to our efforts. But this is an open design discussion to argument about entries, isn’t? And finally as I said before, I’m here to learn from each other.Regards.
Are you kidding? What’s that shit? a logo contest or “express-whaterver-you-what-cuz-i-have thousands-friends?” contest?
…
:’(
ok guys,
first id like to say that i had concerns about entering the competion, but hey guys 3000 cash and a notebook, thats half of my salary a year i get from spread (just kiddin). i can understand that you might think i’ve cheated, being smuggeld into the contest. but it’s not true. last two weeks i was in holiday, where i worked on this shit, and i entered the contest in stealthmode, without telling the whole bunch that this is mine. as ami pointed out, they did not knew, it’s mine. you might be right, if you say that i have more insight into the company, but does it make it easier to create a logo. i don’t think so, because you have so much things in mind it needs to work with, you see discussions about other logos and you see what the board likes and what not. any ways i did not followed this direction, i followed mine and created a logo where i think this works for a company like spreadshirt.
@jeffersonb: mh hope you got it now. and no its not forbidden for spreasd employees to enter. and yes i think it’s fair, because i used the same template stuff somethings i found in the www. and i did not asked everybody to comment my design. other way round. is it fair that the lafraise community guys who entered push and love each design some of them enters. is it objective? i don’t care, because thats part of the contest, but it’s not fair.
@pascalphilly: “Up the brackets communicates creativity and personal branding?” if you connect personal branding and creativity to heads where tshirts flow out, then maybe not, but as long as spreadshirt is offering a “white label branding” solution for me my logo works, because as i pointed out the brackets are just the frame for the stuff the community creates.
and guys it’s not always any time about creativity. this only covers 10% - 20% of our customers i guess. we try to enter mass market with personal branding, so this has to work for so many targetgroups, ages and tastes, that i think it’s fairly not enough to create an icon/ web2.0 look a like which is only admired my designers. also comparisons to threadless and lafraise are weak. they have totally different targetgroups and aimes.
one point i would agree in this discussion is that we haven’t been straight enough picking the entries, but for that reason we have the wildcards. and maybe at the end we have a surprise winner nobody has on the list, like last times tarzion.
cheers and lets bring this to an excellent end and let adam sweat releasing tons of designs. yeah dude i guess this will be a hard week for you. ;-)
@schimanski: I’ll take your word for it. Didn’t mean to target your personally, it is a competition, you have expect tantrums to be thrown once in a while. That especially applies to me ;) It’s like in sports when a player doesn’t get the calls he wants, he yells at the referee. He may not get the decision reversed but at least he blew off some steam. But the game doesn’t end there and he keeps playing, and so will I. Look for my entry real soon :)
i will. and i got what you mean. but i really wanted to make clear and point out that i don’t want to rip of the others, neither the olp guys will.
Schimanski, I think its hilarious that in one sentence you defend your entry in this competition an in the next you talk about “we haven’t been straight enough picking the entries”.
In all serious competitions I have seen so far it was the rule to except own employees and it definitely makes sense to me. Can you imagine to increase Spreadshirts trustworthiness if one of their own employees would win their competition?
I do not say you or spreadshirt is cheating I just say the rule exists for a certain reason and not a minority will take you as cheaters no matter what you say.
Since you guys make the rules we are again not supposed to question them, and I will not. And I do not blame you in person if the rules do not exist here. I just wanted to point out the facts and let you know how I think people will react.
ok. you’re completly right that people might be frustrated if some spread employee wins. but what is this all about. is it about spreadshirts trustworthiness, not to blame the others, give away nice prices for something we might not like or is it about finding a logo for spreadshirt in an “open” competition. and where is it written that spreademployees are forbidden to take part. we decided to keep it as open as possible. it would be ridicolous to choose somebody else, IF the design fits and everybody likes it, what is not state of the art. so everybody should calm down and get this “he is a spreadintern” out of his mind. i just work for spread and i’m not married with them. if i would freelancing for them would this be a problem as well?
one example. if burton is hosting a snowboardcontest and one of their driver wins. nobody would say “hey he wins because he rides for burton”. no there is an jury with members from burton and hosts from somewhere else, like in this competition. and the riders win because the jury liked what they did, or? same like here.
what i meant by saying that we might failed by picking the best entries, is like i said. it has nothing to do with my design. i just wanted to mention that most of you were right when they say that there are better designs then in weekpicks or finalists. but in the jury it is also a democratic decision where many “cooks” are involved and at least only some of them have a design background. what is good and bad. but sometimes it is like that. god bless the wildcards.
Schimanski, although I think the comparison to the sports contest is not really a striking argument I am still wiling to accept this issue (I said I do not blame you in person if the rules do not exist here, I never said it is written somewhere.)
Furthermore I would like to thank you for being a spreadintern and honestly agreeing on the ‘too many cooks and some weak weekly picks’, so I can stop feeling completely insane.
Good luck.
i did not take/ took it personal. i like to discuss with all of you guys and just want to make it really clear that we don’t want to rip you off. all the best for all of you guys and i wish you happy painting..ähm drawing. god bless my friend.