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New competition format

shoutOut on 30/11/08 by EranEyal in wordUp

From the 1st January 2009, the main Springleap competition is now fortnightly rather than monthly.

The main change is that there is ONLY 1 WINNER every 2 weeks.

All the details are on the prize page.

If you have any questions ask below.
shoutBacks

I totally agree that if you don’t try you don’t win and that the common clutter is getting excessive… But right now I’m seeing a new form of clutter – people who think that their one idea will definately make it, and then churn out five variations of it thinking that (need crit forum!) one of them is bound to hit the mark or something.

And the thing is we’re not getting more good quality tees, rather we’re getting much fewer. Sure there was some half-baked tees when it was 10 tees a month, but there was still a lot more good stuff than bad. And personal tastes vary, so not everyone likes everything – having one winner kinda suggests that everyone gotta love the same thing.

In the same vein, it’s a bit concerning to see that the output of the Springleap system diminished by one fifth – unless you think the winning tee will sell five times as well as any other before (unlikely cos everyone has their own tastes), it’ll dent the springleap platform in terms of commerciality.

2 cents + 2 more cents = 4 cents :)

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by Tu

King> Soz man, but if you don’t try, you don’t deserve to win. Stiffer competition leads to more awesome shirts. I think it will push guys to rock it on. Its still open to the common man completely, and there’s no reason he CAN’T win. If he doesn’t, he’ll check all the suggestions and comments and he can tweak and improve his design, getting better himself.

Eric> Yep. TBH if I spent spam hours on a shirt concept and it got printed and I didn’t get bucks for it and couldn’t enter it again in any other comps or improve it and re-enter, I’d also feel a little bleak.

Anyway, I really think this new format will breathe a breath of fresh air into the site, clean out the cobwebs, and get people thinking twice before thinking that their 5 minute doodle is print-worthy! And when I browse the shirt gallery in shop mode, I don’t have to wade through half-baked (sometimes) runner-up shirts and hopefully I’ll be looking more at the cream of the crop, AND Springleap can focus on getting the shirts out faster and focus more on quality control on a smaller batch and get the winning shirts printed LEKKA. Mmm mmm mmm. Tasty.

Then if you DO win, it sounds like you’ll really shine. All the more reason to put in quality time on design work! Hopefully this will attract more professional designers too.

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by mikdog

Tu – one of our ideas we thought of when starting springleap was that we wanted to help designers get their designs printed. But we’ve had quite a few UNHAPPY designers, who weren’t happy that their Tshirt was being printed, but that they weren’t winning any major prizes or money.

So this way, if we print the designers tshirt, they’ll get cash, lots of tshirts, exposure & royalties.

It is a change, but it does mean that everyone printed should now be happy, and we can focus on promoting the winner in a massive way.

But I totally hear what you’re saying. Perhaps later on we’ll have a comp, where there is only a small prize of a few of the winning tshirts for designers that are more interested in having their designs printed. And perhaps we should launch a section where designers that don’t win can get springleap to manufacture their tshirts for them, and we can do a cafepress type section :) Future Ideas :)

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by Eric

yeah, you realize that you will get fewer submissions.

People will weight up their chances and realise the odds are now even tougher and subsequently not even try.
Well, that’s just the weekend designers. You know, the dudes that do it as a hobby. The big dogs will keep on trying their best.

I am sure that this move will increase the general quality and give you a sleeker, more profitable T shirt producing machine. But i will miss the accessibility to the common man.

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by kingslip

I’m just looking forward to getting more quality designs that I might actually want to BUY! I’m CRAVING for a good t-shirt, but haven’t bought anything in ages! Last time I bought is when I went to COMICON in San Diego in 2006 and found a stall that sold awesome shirts. I bought one, then liked it so much I ordered more off their website. ATM there’s maybe 2 shirts on this site that I’d consider parting with my money for.

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by mikdog

The thing is, it would seem that people are forgetting that getting printed is just as cool as being the numero uno winner. The only difference is 7k, which is quite frankly, to me… Not the end of the world.

I love that there’ll be a tighter comeptition overall and more updates more often, but I did like that guys could get printed without “winning” – I always thought that was as much an allure as the cash prize. It’s not easy to get one’s idea to print in this country, so to me, I’d much rather have a bigger chance to be printed than to have a smaller chance to win 7k.

Other things I see in my crystal ball:
1) Guys are more likely to enter and re-tweak the same work over and over, believing that “that’s the one”… Which means less variety but possibly more quality (which should rather be addressed by the crit forum)
2) The tightening of the number of printed tees could discourage entrants too – because the perception is that to get printed would be very difficult – considerably more than before.

My 2 cents :) of course I’ll “keep LEAP-ing!” :)

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by Tu

Fantastic.

I truly think this is a step in the right direction and I can’t WAIT to be rating designs and seeing winners every 2 weeks. Awesome awesome awesome. Thanks guys, 1 winner fortnightly, its gonna make the quality super awesome and the shirts will move units faster. Nummies! Game on! A Spring and a Leap in the right direction fo’ sho. Should keep the site more active and sprightly and avoid much of the slump that happens 1/3 to 5/6 of the way through the month. Flippen great.

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by mikdog

we’ll be printing 2 tshirts per month to start off with, but:

1. because there are less tshirts, we’ll print MORE of them, which means more royalties for the designers

2. the winning designer will get a lot MORE recognition, as they’ll be the only winner, we’ll work our best to get them PRESS and feature them prominently on the home page for 2 weeks etc

we spent ages brainstorming and working out what we thought was best – i hope this makes everyone happy

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by Eric

So in essence you will be printing 2 tee shirts a month? And as you grow this will increase.

I like.

shoutBack on 1/12/08 by SilverSabre

bold move, no runner up’s, its gonna do wonders for the quality submissions, good idea

shoutBack on 30/11/08 by DustyRich