Threadless is an online community which selects and prints hundreds of new t-shirt and poster designs each year, awarding over a million dollars to artists around the world. The idea behind Threadless is that anyone can design a tshirt which will earn them $2000 and global recognition. Each submission is judged by anyone who has registered to their site, and each month the guys at treadless chose their favorite which will be mass printed and sold worldwide. Along with this there is themed competitions and critique sessions on pre-submission.
The idea to give something back to the designer and give them something that they want to design for, is great and something we would like to mimic. Perhaps in a different situation, it could be a good way of recruiting and finding students with good work ethics and talent.
