made a few more changes to make it easier to buy. now you don’t need to add the number of tshirts you want per size (as many people told us they didn’t realise they had to enter a number).

now you just click the “plus” button, and it adds one to your shopping cart, and pops up a message letting you know there is one in your cart. you can then either carry on shopping or go straight to checkout.

hopefully it’s now straightforward - if you pick up any issues, let us know?

I also would like big real shots of the shirts.

And an auto-login for Safari browser pls b0$$ tanks b0$$ plz.

Where’s e Sempowenis by the way?

looking really good guys!

Shop is fine, I still think you guys should worry about showcasing the designs and the printed tee.

I think you need drop downs menus for sizes
and REAL PHOTOS OF THE TEES.

I think you should get away from the “silly” photo like threadless and focus on showing nice photos of the prints, then when you get a following you can start doing the silly ones again, but I want to see the design printed not some silly girl making a face. Just my .06 cents

The shop is a lot better but I have always thought your photos of prints need some work.

great point Tu. we’re going to leave it like it is for a few weeks and get feedback and then start making changes. there are lots of things we already want to change, but we’re first going to hear from everyone. but maybe just a drop down box with the sizes to add to the basket rather than all the boxes - perhaps will work better

Great improvement :)

I wonder though, is it really necessary to put 8 number boxes next to each shirt? You could fit a lot more into a page AND get bigger images if you don’t do that. What IS the liklihood of people buying more than one shirt of the same size and style at a time? (I know you want people to but that’s not gonna make ‘em :P)

why not put the t-shirt preview image? Photos are iffy, IMO.

should we replace the preview images - the thumbnails - with people wearing the springleap tshirts, or pictures of the actual tshirts?

Cool! will try them out.

Have u guys taken a walk up roodebloem rd yet? Its got the coolest places to chill, or have a full meal if ur hungry.

oopsie - my bad in the last post - it’s 8 Gigabit - not Gigabyte NDRAM.

iPhone 3 2009 FACT #1

What I can tell you for sure : Apple has been on a MEMORY BUYING BINGE this year - they have bought up ALL THE FLASH RAM at one of the major world manufacturers and hitting 2 of the other large ones for more - they can’t seem to get enough!

Specifically Apple seem to have been buying about 100 MILLION 8GB NAND RAM units from Samsung alone and still looking for more. To put this in perspective - this is DOUBLE the amount they were buying same time last year.

That means we can VERY likely expect 32Gb iPhones this year - in fact I would say it’s a certainty. The possibility of more than one line of iPhone could also be a motivator for the Apple memory buying spree.

One other major motivator is the move to video recording in high quality which is supported in the code of the new Apple iPhone OS v3.0 which is also coming out June 15 2009. (more on that just now)

Apple iPhone 3 2009 RUMOUR #1

The first and most popular rumour surrounding the* iPhone v3 in 2009* is that there will probably be 2 models. Until now the iPhone trend has been to follow the iPod Touch product line strategy - one with a smaller amount of memory and one with double that.

Analyists seem to think that there will be a change in this strategy - there will still be a lower memory capacity version but there will also probably be an iPhone and an iPhone Pro - much as there is in the Macbook range.

The lower versions will include basic functionality as we find it now or in a more“nano” form. Some people believe there will be a smaller nano version. I am not totally sold on this.

I believe that if there is more than one model due this year in the iPhone range we will see it as more of a specification difference.

Where that difference could lie - that remains speculation at this stage, but most likely we could see the more advanced CPU and graphics processors being ported over from the current iPod Touch range as well as top end memory capacity (the normal range going to a top of 16Gb and iPhone Pro range hitting 32Gb). The Pro might sport the AMOLED screen and the current screen will feature on the basic version of the 2009 iPhone. (More about that just now).

this is the post the convinced me to join.

i want to start a tshirt website but i don’t want to break the law. all the ‘cute’ phrases i want to print - where would i find the person who created them? so do i not print the shirts (i dont’ like this answer) or do i print and hope that it’s okay…. what do you guys think?

Here is another interesting link on how to deal with design copycats and how to know and protect your rights as a designer.

Check out Design Indaba’s mag article

Design Indaba are AWESOME -they have an incredible magazine with awesome content and are very much behind protecting the rights of designers.

The Design Indaba fair and the Design Inaba magazine are incredible vehicles for the empowerment of designers in South Africa - to know their rights, communicate and learn.

Know Your RIGHTS! That’s the first step - I think every designer should - it’s a fundamental piece of knowledge you should not only acquire, but constantly upkeep if you are going to be involves in the design trade in any country.

No remember that your rights as a designer change from country to country - so FOCUS on your rights that protect and serve you in the place you live and trade.

The design community is also fairly tight so when you copycat a design or infringe the rights of designers - EVERYONE FINDS OUT QUICK.

The link I provided above has a nice quick article to peruse centered around protecting the rights of designers in South Africa. It’s a good place to start.

I think an excellent place to start understanding these issue better can be the internet medium - sites like Springleap.com are always full of amazing designers chomping at the bit to help one another - that is the power of a community.

A great place to check about the t-shirt manufacturing and design industry worldwide is T-shirts Forum

The above link actually contains discussions of recourse in the event of copyright infringement.

T-shirts forum is one of the oldest (if not the oldest and most recognized) t-shirt forum on the internet. People there are really helpful. So that’s a good one.

On the issue of suing people in South Africa - good luck. The best you might bea able to get is perhaps some sort of exposure for bringing the matter to light - think of it as a marketing exercise - Big guy rips of little guy.

Sad but true.

I have lots of friends in the designer community. The Holmes Brothers are amongst them - a few years ago Laurie Holmes called me over to show me some new designs he had made for his store in Gateway (I always got the pick! - Laurie you’re a gem!)

He showed me these awesome palying card design button up shirts - this was before the whole playing card thing got huge - they pretty much started the trend in South Africa -he was really pissed off - he popped into one of South Africa’s LARGEST RETAIL CHAINS - and hanging on the shelf was and exact replica of his shirt!

So it really does happen to the best of us - The Holmes Brothers fought tooth and nail - there as a settlement, but Laurie and Gary could not disclose the details.

But they fought hard.

Even Andrew, the owner of Cape Storm, showed me apparel and designs of his that had been ripped - copied identically!!! And by the same chain of stores!!!

He wound up taking the garments and sabotaging their AGM, showing everyone the rip off - he was arrested and escourted off the premises - but this is the extreme measure that could ensue if you want to take the matter of copyright infringement all the way.

WOW - I never knew that Jay Jay was said to be involved in copyright infringement scandals!!!

That’s hectic - I have been seeing a lot of Jay Jay’s t-shirt stores popping up everywhere - people always describe them as the “MR Price” of cool t-shirts to me - personally I think their stuff is OK.

Jay Jays definitely appeals to the teenagers and early twenties revelers who are looking for a cool t-shirt at a cheap price. I am just blown away that there seems to be a copyright issue involved here - but it’s pretty hard to deny - I went to your link and saw the designs.

Ouch.

I wonder how this played out - did Jay Jays get away with it or did T-shirt Hell send them cease and desist letters or sue them for copyright infringement?

I mean stealing a design is really just a pathetic thing - there are tons of great artists you can either commission or hire to make amazing work for you - also that work becomes part of your company’s IP - but taking bread straight from an artists mouth is disgusting. I hope these sort of cretins get their just desserts

Yeah Eran, I know what you mean - I got a bit interested and started looking at the whole “t-shirt design rip-off” thing, cause there’s this series of stores called Jay Jays in South Africa.

Well - the thing with Jay Jays is that the stores are pretty funky, right and the tees there are cheap with cool stuff on them - all sorts of designs and they use foils and puffs as well sometimes - so theres a lot going on the t-shirt design.

I bought this cool robot t-shirt from Jay Jays and in a couple of washes the t-shirt faded and the foil stripped off! SUCKS! I mean - I know it was like R99, but in 3 washes to go from hero - I felt like the zero.

SO I felt pretty ripped off and started looking into t-shirt designs and Jay Jay and scope what I found :

Jay Jays rips off t-shirt designs

You know the site T-shirt Hell? Check it out

They make all those really low brow t-shirt designs centered around beer drinking, some pop culture, really in your face stuff. You can usually find them at wheelbarrows at markets and some shopping centers.

Turns out this guy found out that they were ripping t-shirts (sorry - allegedly ripping off -COME ON!!!!) from this fellas site.

Man I don’t care what planet you’re from - ripping off other people’s work is totally shameless and disgusting. GET A FREAKING ORIGINAL IDEA!!!

It also just blows me away that so many consumers just don’t seem to care that much either! - really appalling stuff!!! Where’s your feeling of social responsibility - what if it was you? I be you wouldn’t dig having your cool ideas, inventions and concepts stolen. Why is the law so lax on this sort of thing? Also - the average poor schmuck doesn’t have the cash to take this to court. It’s a messed up system.

I know that at Springleap.com we have a very strict policy on copyright infringement - David and Goliath kind of issues are bound to happen and we are committed to taking it _all the way.

No quarter will be given.

An example of this actually came to light earlier this year when we were informed that one of our most respected community members and contributors “TokyoGoGo” had his winning design Ares (property of Springleap.com) ripped off by a sordid Spanish set of scoundrels.

Within 48 hrs the flick page and site were shut down.

Who was responsible - The artist community all over the world.

Power to the people.

Interestingly : Recently Rihanna procured seven of Todd Goldman’s paintings for US$35000 - all of them are viewable on Mike Tyndall’s page and are there for you to peruse and draw your own conclusion about.

Apparently the other artists were not successful in pursuing the matter legally :(

Sad day indeed for them.

For a good overview on the entire case history of the David and Golath contraversy involving his alleged infringement of several artists’ copyright rights to their art (t-shirts and otherwise) :

Go to Mike Tyndall’s website here

Quite revealing and it goes into a lot of depth.

It seems Mike Tyndall’s site got a very serious letter from Todd Goldman’s attorneys SHUTTS & BOWEN LLP to cease and desist references to Todd Goldman’s David and Goliath t-shirt label allegedly infringing artists’ copyrights.

The letter not only insisted on cease and desist of continued talks regarding the matter, but the removal of all postings, references and comments to the matter.

…and they were not the only ones! Even magazines as established as Wired had to remove postings and such to the t-shirt scandal.

It does seem that one of the artists : Shmory settled with Todd and was give the full price of all sales related to the alleged theft of his art. TOdd gave a formal public aplogy claiming “an error in judgement”.

I strongly advise you look at the link posted here and see what when on from there…

Check this from Finkenstein’s page - this was a comment someone made after the matter was brought to light

User Stevenkramer (t-shirt designer) said this on Jess Fink’s page :

“I worked for David and Goliath as a freelance artist and later as an employee, who quit shortly after I was threatened with termination for being a loose cannon, which I have never been. Here’s the clincher, my brother who works at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas called me today and said he saw one of my cartoons on the wall in the art gallery with the name Todd on it. My cartoon is FRANK LLOYD WRONG and it has been stolen by Todd. Yes, I gave Todd permission to use my cartoons, but only if I got royalties. When I quit working there they told me my royalties were going to stop, of which I never got any anyway. So I would be happy to join a class-action lawsuit or I will sue on my own. Whatever it takes for fairness and justice to be served. I’m so mad. I think I should be entitled to my royalties if they are still using my artworks. Don’t you? My FRANK LLOYD WRONG cartoon is all over the Internet today relative to Todd Goldman scandals. It’s great free publicity for me, but I’m still annoyed that I was working for minimum wage and threatened with termination for being a loose cannon. A truly creative environment should be loaded with loose cannons for goodness sakes. Your thoughts are appreciated.”