ShirtPrize was founded and maintained through a collaboration between REVUE, West Michigan's most comprehensive free entertaiment guide; CitizenShirt, a Grand Rapids based tshirt design & printing company; and local designer, Chris Koens. ShirtPrize2010 is sponsored in part by Twisted Rooster and supported by Grand Rapids Social Diary

Revue Magazine Chris Koens, Designer Citizenshirt
Twisted Rooster   Grand Rapids Social Diary

At ShirtPrize we believe that a t-shirt isn't just an undergarment, it's a human canvas.

At ShirtPrize, any artist - from pro to newbie - can get his or her design out there for the public to see. Anyone with an Internet connection can vote. The voters decide who will take the top honors of ShirtPrize 2010, with the winner selected during the first week in October.  

Here's how the competition works:  Participants can register and submit a design at anytime during the contest. Anyone who wants to vote can register, too. The competition has four roun ds and two qualifiers will be chosen by online vote in each round (first round of voting begins Friday, August 27). A ShirtPrize panel of experts and people we like will also select two designs to compete in the final round.

So let's do some math: Voters pick two qualifiers in four rounds and the panel picks two qualifiers. So by the time we get to the finals there are 10 designs that will compete for the grand ShirtPrize. The finals round will start on about September 24 with the grand-prize winner announced on Wednesday, October 6. The winner gets fame, fortune and t-shirts.  This year's grand Shirtprize winner will walk away with 2.5 million in prize money plus two dozen high-quality t-shirts with his or her design.* 

You can keep up with each week's contest and find out who the ultimate winner is by checking back in here at www.shirtprize.com and by keeping up with our posts on Twitter and Facebook.

KEY DATES:

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    • Call for Entries: Aug. 15
    • Voting Begins: Aug. 27
    • Round #1 Ends: Sept. 1
    • Round #2 Ends: Sept. 8
    • Round #3 Ends: Sept. 15
    • Round #4 Ends: Sept. 22
    • Jury Selection: Sept. 23
    • Finals Begin: Sept. 23
    • Events: Sept. 24 to Oct. 3
    • Voting Ends: Oct. 5
    • Winner Announced: Oct. 6

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW: ShirtPrize is an Internet competition, but centers Grand Rapids, MI The goal of ShirtPrize is to give artists an opportunity to showcase their art. Four rounds of qualifying competition; one final round. Anyone can vote. Voting is online at www.shirtprize.com

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    • -Each qualifier winner gets his/her design on some t-shirts.
    • -Artists must be at least 15 years old.
    • -Artist design cannot infringe on any third party rights.
    • -Submitted designs must be owned by the artist.
    • -Artists may only submit one entry per week.
    • -Bodies are needed to promote the finalist designs.

ARTISTS:

HOW TO COMPETE: You must register as a user and submit your design, then share it with your friends and their friends, and anyone with an Internet connection can vote on it. We have four qualifying rounds, and the top 2 vote getters in each round will advance to the finals. Plus, we're going to have 2 designs chosen by a group of people whose opinions matter to us. So in the finals, there are going to be 10 designs competing for fame, fortune and t-shirts. The winner gets two dozen t-shirts with his/her design and a $500 cash prize.

THREE IMPORTANT THINGS:

1. Read the rules. As boring as that sounds, when you register, you agree to them.  

2.  Check out the art requirements.  If you don't follow them, you may get ousted.   

3.  Oh yeah, and you need to be in the Grand Rapids area during the first week of October.  

HOW TO GET OUSTED: All designs submitted must be approved and printable on a t-shirt. As for content, we're pretty liberal and we're not going to be the thought police; that said, we're also not going take a very dim view of something that could be considered liable or put us in harms way with the law.

BODIES:  The point of ShirtPrize is to showcase art.   In order to do so, we need hosting bodies to serve as walking billboards during the finals phase of the competition (Sept. 23-Oct. 5).  If you want to host a t-shirt, register here or send us an email to ShirtPrize[at]gmail.com with your shirt size and tell us what you're willing to do to promote the artists, their designs and Shirtprize.  

We're working on some special events in the Grand Rapids area, including a ShirtPrize fashion show, a ShirtPrize bar crawl, and some other fun stuff that we can't talk about right now. We will also encourage volunteer bodies to use social networking (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) to promote the ShirtPrize artists. 

CONTACT US: Questions, comments, concerns, or just feel like chatting with some quirky ShirtPrizers? Email us at shirtprize [at] gmail.com or visit our Facebook and Twitter pages.

THE FINE PRINT: If you win, you'll get a cash award of 2.5 million, but it's actually based on the Zambian Kwacha (ZMK).  Based on current exchange rates and rounding up, the actual cash value of first prize is $500 US dollars plus two dozen t-shirts and we'll probably throw in some other swag, too. It's not really about the money anyway, is it?  It's about getting your art seen.  Check the Terms of Use part of the site for the really fine fine print about rules and whatnot.