Hi there guys and girls .

Its time for another thrilling Springleap OPEN THEME competition!
NO specific theme , only regular guidelines apply! You know the drill NO OBSCENITY, NO HATE SPEECH…all that jazz.

This is your chance to show us your creativity on your own terms. Don’t be shy – just put it out there! Let the world be your inspiration. We wanna see what lives within your artistic mind.

You can submit up to 5 designs so go wild! The more designs you submit the greater chances you have of winning!

So, get designing peeps. The time is now to show us what you got!

One winner will receive

… 4 printed t-shirts, a cash prize – US$500 (R4000)

DATES TO DIARISE:

Submissions for designs open: 07 September 2021

Submissions for designs close:  27 September2011

Voting starts: 29 September 2021

Voting ends: 16 October 2021

Winner is announced: 17 October 2021

You could be the next winner on Springleap.com and gain exposure for yourself! You also stand a chance of winning amazing prizes and loads of cash .

Winners will now be chosen using votes as an indicator. The top 10 voted designs will get the golden stamp of approval and go in for review . The final verdict will come down to our esteemed design panel here at Springleap . For those that don’t win, you still stand a chance to have your designs printed! We’ll be keeping all top 10 designs in our re-seller catalogue and who knows we could be printing and selling your designs nationwide!

Everyone WINS!!

In order to get started on your designs download the Springleap t-shirt Submission Kit and get started right away!

Confused or uncertain about anything?

Post your questions about the OPEN THEME competition below or click our online support button to the left of our header.

Good Luck and Happy Designing!

The Springleap.com Team

On your marks…get set…GO!!!

No matter what kind of corporate printing solution you need, Springleap is here to help you out!

We had to pull off an emergency printing solution for a contact that was running the Cape Town Marathon with three of her friends.

This was not going to be your average screen-printing job, because the client needed us to print onto their synthetic performance New Balance running tees, which he running group were going to compete in. This meant that traditional methods would not suffice and in-fact would make the print look absolutely terrible.

The solution - we would use a special vinyl printing method, which because this was a 1 colour job, would be perfect for the situation.

This was a smaller print run that we are accustomed to making, but hey, we didn’t want to leave them out in the cold and end up having to deal with some other substandard crew.
Springleap…TO THE RESCUE!

We absolutely love the concept behind their design. The design reads: Running – Cheaper than therapy.
That is absolutely classic, so clever and appropriate for their running club.
We tend to agree! There is nothing more uplifting than having a good run. Whether it be a jog along the Sea Point promenade, or accomplishing a full on marathon, there are few things that get the blood pumping and chase away all your negativity, quite like a run.

We are delighted to say that not only were the tees a complete success, but the clients running club also managed to finish the 42km run in less than 5 hours, which qualifies them for their ultimate goal, the Comrades Marathon.

Congratulations to the team!

Check out this great feedback from the client:
All four of us are very happy with the shirts! Thanks again!
I'm telling you, it's already started a "I-also-want-one" buzz. I'm certain that this is just the start of it!

We love to hear this kind of thing from our clients :)

If you would like to find out more, please take a look at our corporate printing page.

It’s time to choose!

We have received so many requests to do another run of our super cool Springleap hoodies.
It is definitely about time, but which design to choose?
It really is a tough choice!

After much deliberation we have decided to either go with Spirits of the Forest by Sebasebi, or the very funny E.T. Help from Trabe.

Both of these designs will look absolutely amazing on our hoodies. It just depends on which one you think will work best.

Help us decide!

Get involved and you could be one of 3 lucky people to win a ‘Green’ tee by Vomaria, as well as 3 very slick Moleskine diaries and Watermark pens, courtesy of Lexus South Africa.

All you have to do is ‘share’ the design you like most on our Springleap Specials Facebook page and leave us a comment about how you feel about these two very worthy designs.

Spirits of the Forest was created by one of our most well respected designer ever, Sebasebi. His awe inspiring talent shines through in this explosive natural design. Spectacular illustration and remarkable color come together to produce a design which was good enough to scoop our Return of the Roll-Over grand prize.

E.T. Help is a fun and quirky design by French Springleap veteran, Trabe.
He is very well known for creating hilarious designs which appeal to people from all walks of life. In this design he combines 2 popular science fiction movies to pull off a design that will make you laugh so hard you will be rolling on the floor.

So, what will it be guys and girls, Spirits of the Forest or E.T. Help?

Either one is going to be perfect for our hoodies!

These hoodies will be part of a limited run, so grab em while you can :)

Before we get started, have you used the Springleap share bar??

Tip #1

Email your friends and ask them to vote on your design

- Attach the image of your design in your e-mail – tell a story underneath and give people a call to action!
-If they’re not a Springleap.com member tell them to register and provide the link:
http://www.springleap.com/register

-Give them easy directions where to vote for your design by providing the link to the voting page:

http://www.springleap.com/designs/vote

-Include the closing date for the voting process
-Add your own personal note

Tip #2

Make use of your Facebook page

-Upload your design to your Facebook page and ask friends to comment on it. This way you can hear their feedback firsthand.
-Add the link of your design on the Springleap voting page

Example: http://www.springleap.com/designs/view/my-design

-Tag your friends in your design so it comes up on their profiles too
-Send your friends to your profile page
-If you’re really serious about designing, create a fanpage for your work and get as many people involved as possible. Be creative!

Tip #3

Social media groups

-Create groups or write blog postings on various sites about your design
-Network with different types of people to gain maximium exposure for your design

Here are some networking sites you can make use of:

Blogger
Delicious
Digg
Friendfeed
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
MySpace
Netfriendships
Ning
Stumbleupon
Secondlife
Reddit
Yelp
Tumblr

Tip #4

Upload your design to photo sharing sites

Photo sharing is the publishing or transfer of a user’s digital photos online, thus enabling the user has to share them with others (publicly or privately). This can be loosely applied to the use of online galleries that are setup and managed by individual users, including photoblogs.

Here is a list to get you started, remember to include the link to your design on the Springleap website and the caption “VOTE FOR THIS ON SPRINGLEAP”

Flickr
Fotolog
My Opera
Picli
Zoomr
Fotoki
Linkinn
Photobucket
Tagmee

Tip #5

Get onto an existing blog

-Send the administrator a quick email about yourself and your design
-Be sure to include:
1. An image of your design
2. A link to your design on Springleap.com
(include the name of the competition you entered)
3. All the important competition dates

You can also target blogs dedicated solely to t-shirts.

Here’s a list of a few:

T-shirt review
Print Liberation
Busted Tees
T-shirt Legends
Shirts on sale
T-shirt Casserole
T-shirt Advocate
T-addict
Pop culture Tees
Cottonable
T-shirt Talk

If this isn’t enough for you here’s a list of blog directories. You’ll find thousands of sites where you can submit your design to and ask them to do a write up about it.

Blogorama
Top rank blog
Blog catalog
Bloggapedia
Bloggingfusion

You can also try sites like:
iFashion
iMod
2oceansvibe
SA Rocks

Tip #6

Tweet about your design

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets).

If you don’t already have a Twitter account, you can join and ask a whole lot of people to follow you, send out a message with a link to your design on Springleap.com, asking people to vote for your design
OR
If you know somebody else that is already on Twitter, ask them to tweet your design for you!

Tip #7

Social Bookmarks

Social bookmarking allows internet users to store, organize, search and manage their favourite web pages on the Internet. Users save links they want to remember and/or share with specified people or groups.

Check out some of the sites below, tag your design and say vote for this. Ask your friends to do it too, the more people that tag your design the higher it will be ranked.

Backflip
Delicious
My Bbookmarks
Chipmark
Zurpy

Tip #8

Be creative – upload a video

-All you need is your phone or a digital camera to get crazy and creative by
-Find some inspiration and make your own funny catchy video
-Post it on Facebook and Springleap.com’s website.

Here are some popular video sites on the web - you’ll be able to use them to find all sorts of free videos, movies, and documentaries, as well as short films and viral videos.

Zoopy
MySpace Videos
LiveLeak
Break
Daily Motion
Metacafe
YouTube
Video Sift
MegaVideo
Yahoo Video

Tip #9

Keep trying and designing

Carry on designing, submitting and sharing your work on the Internet and amongst friends and family!

Tip #10

Keep your profile page updated and comment

Springleap is a place where people come to discover amazing designers – so take good care of your profile page –show it some love! This is where people get to see your work. Post links, add your facebook details, stay current and comment a lot.

Commenting and keeping your profile current makes for great content and engagement. It’s the perfect way to discuss, learn and share.

GOOD LUCK!

The Springleap.com Team

Hey designers!

This is a list of all the design-related blogs that have been, and will continue to be posted right here on Springleap

These posts are aimed at helping our designers to become the best they can be. We hope that you will use these tutorials and advice blogs to keep up your game so you can make lotsa $$$$$!!!

1. Apply a Vintage Effect to Several Images Using Actions
2. Examples of transparent screen trick photos from Smashing Magazine
3. Preparing and talking about your graphic design portfolio
4. Create sparkling, animated text in photoshop
5. Create metallic text on a concrete background
6. Design a print ready flier with photoshop and illustrator
7. Colour Variations
8. Custom Fonts
9. Design Write Up
10. Colour Separations
11. Illustrator Brushes
12. Vector tutorial
13. Distressed Effect
14. Christmas Fonts
15. Custom Photoshop Brush
16. Illustrator flourish tutorial
17. Blending Modes
18. Balanced t-shirt design

Keep your eye on Springleap for more cool specials, tutorials, advice, competitions and MORE!!!

Hi Impish, Good questions! Regarding the Templates, you can use any of our T-shirt Templates available in the downloadable Submission Kit. Check the resolution on your original design for the Thumbnail. E-mail me at chloe@springleap.com with the thumbnail image and I will see if I can spot the distortion problem. shoutBack on 12/1/11 by cloMO

@Impish for all design related queries please email chloe[at]springleap[dot]com and she will gladly assist you. She will also post an answer on this thread for everyone to view :) shoutBack on 9/1/11 by amyabrahams

Hi just wanted to find out a few things, can i use the mock up templates to submit a design? about the small thumbnail view, when i decrease the image size to what is requested it looks distorted, how do i do the thumbnail image? shoutBack on 2/1/11 by Impish

Glad to hear it Kayo! If there is anything in particular that you would like to know about, drop us a comment and I will see what can be done ;) shoutBack on 16/9/10 by DuncanBoxie

This advice is the best thing you guys have given to us ,i really hope i can use it to fulfill my dreams. shoutBack on 16/9/10 by Kayo