Mythical Women T-Shirt Design Contest

The Mountain, a worldwide distributor of high quality, hand-dyed garments is looking to add a few artists to its roster.  If you've ever wanted to enter the lucrative world of licensed products this is the perfect opportunity to get your work seen by the art director of a major T-Shirt and Greeting Card company.    Winners will not only have their artwork seen on the T-Shirts of thousands of people around the world, but will also receive a royalty agreement worth hundreds (or thousands) of dollars over the course of the year with The Mountain. 

Judging will be based upon creativity, visual storytelling, salability, illustrative style, and overall originality and attention to detail.  Please keep this in mind when you design, this is for a product that will be sold to tens of thousands of people (worldwide) so the appeal to the general public must be overwhelming.  Designs that are not easily understood, or do not tell a simple visual story that someone can understand in a moment (walking by), are not what this contest is about. 

The details of the competition are as follows:

The Prizes:
Grand Prize:

• Standard Royalty Agreement with The Mountain
• $750 Cash or 100 T-Shirts with winning design
• CStorm2 Hosting Package from Creationstorm
• EXPOSÉ 1 Soft Cover Edition from Ballistic Publishing

1st Prize in each Sub Category:

• Standard Royalty Agreement with The Mountain
• $100 Cash or 20 T-Shirts of 1st prize design
• Pick of 24 T-Shirts out of Mountain Line

Runners Up in each Sub Category:

• Standard Royalty Agreement with The Mountain
• 12 T-Shirts of runner up design

Stay tuned for other prizes.  We hope to add a few more items to the swag list, and also award prizes in some special categories including GFX Artist team choice, and GFX Artist community choice.

Basic Rules:

1. Contest is open to all registered GFX Artist members.   Not a member yet?  Registration is free and painless. 
2. Up to 5 entries accepted (unpublished work preferred but not a necessity)
3. Artwork must be of your own creation.
4. Artwork must be available at approximately 19"W X 23"H 175 DPI (PPI) (or for the inch impaired :3325 W X 4025 H PPI).   Note: Please don't submit it at this size.  Just have it available on request.
5. For full contest rules, please see below. 

Submission Guidelines:  Submission Guidelines can be viewed on the following page.

Working Guidelines: Working Guidelines can be viewed on the following page.

About The Sponsors:

The Mountain:  The Mountain is a manufacturer of high quality, hand-dyed garments that are distributed world wide.  The mountain lives by the same philosophy in the new millenium, as we did in the last.  That is, people wear their nearest and dearest beliefs on their T-Shirts.

GFX Artist: Formed in March 2000, GFXartist is a community site aimed at the professional and next generation digital artist.  With over 12 000 registered members, GFX Artist is the perfect place for artists to communicate, learn, and expose their work.

Creationstorm:  Creationstorm is a division of Brothers in Art Multimedia based in Hilversum, The Netherlands.  Offering 3 low cost packages specifically tailored to the hosting needs of artists and creatives, Creationstorm is ideal for portfolio or other creative sites.  Creationstorm is firmly committed to the growth of digital art, and as such, supports the community by hosting GFX Artist and Sijun.

The Mountain® Tee Shirt Full Competition Rules

1. DEADLINE ~ Deadline for entries is October 14th, 2003; all entries must be received electronically by no later than 12 midnight.

2. ENTRIES ~ You can enter up to 5 works in the competition.  3D models must be of original design (skins). Please do not submit packaged or poser models unless heavily modified.  Entries may be submitted electronically to http://www.gfxartist.com.

Entrants must be willing to covenant in writing that ownership and copyright of all material used in any or all entries is held solely and exclusively by the entrant, or if not, provide written approval from the copyright owner to authorize inclusion in The Mountain® Tee-Shirt Contest, failing which the entry or entries will be automatically disqualified. Any lawsuits that may arise in the future from copying or using another artist’s work will become the sole responsibility of the artist. Artwork with photographs or images of a person must have had written permission to use likeness). 

3. ENTRANTS ~ The Contest is open to Entrants from all nations. (However, Entrants should provide themselves with some means for written communication in English.) No entry fee is required and all rights in the entries remain the property of their artists.

4. LEGAL ~ By submitting work to the Contest, the Entrant agrees to abide by all Contest rules. This Contest is void where prohibited by by law, rules or regulations. All federal, state and local laws apply. All taxes on prize(s) are the sole responsibility of the winner. Contest winners may be required to sign a document releasing and indemnifying The Mountain® from any liability in connection with the Contest or its prizes within 21 (twenty-one) days of notification. Designs will remain the property of the artist and the artist will retain the copyright on any designs submitted chosen or not. Each category has a first prize and then runners up. First place ties will be honored by multiple first prizes.

5. SUBMISSION GUIDELINE ~ The submitted entry shall not have been previously published in upper body garment licensed products. Original entries are preffered but older works may be submitted.   Artists must want to enter into a licensing agreement with The Mountain® for the publishing of winning works on multiple licensed products.   By submitting artwork, artists are agreeing to all rules and regulartions, and are acknowledging that they are open to license with The Mountain®.

Digitally Created artwork must meet the guidelines specified here:  Images must be available large: 19"W X 24"H 155 DPI (PPI) (or for the inch impaired :3325 W X4200 H PPI).    Works should not be created in any out of CMYK gamut range (meaning the RGB colors that are not reproducible in the CMYK printing process).  For artists working digitally, a layered (a foreground & background) image is appreciated but not required (an alpha (or mask) channel will suffice). Works should remain layered on the artist’s computer for a reasonable time for the purpose of attaining the file for publication.  Images that are blown up and fuzzy or overly pixilated due to size increase are not eligible.  Please work large.  Entries of digital work should be flattened and sent RGB.

6. INELLIGIBILITY ~ Any artist who is already under license for the production of Tee-Shirts and other upper body garments or Greeting Cards, Note Cards and Envelopes (with The Mountain® or Tree-Free Greetings®) is ineligible to participate in this contest. If you are not sure of your eligibility, email artdirector@artguys.org. 

7. CATEGORIES ~ There are 5 separate categories to choose from. 1) Faeries   2) Angels  3) Goddess 4) Mermaids 5) Miscellaneous.  Artists may enter up to 5 works total in all categories.  

8. JUDGING ~ Initial Judging will be done by the online community. Final judging will be done by Tee Shirt Industry Professionals.  Judging will be based upon creativity, visual storytelling, salability, illustrative style, and overall originality and attention to detail.  Please keep this in mind when you design, this is for a product that will be sold to tens of thousands of people (worldwide) so the appeal to the general public must be overwhelming.  Designs that are not easily understood, or do not tell a simple visual story that someone can understand in a moment (walking by), are not what this contest is about.  Please look over the samples provided on the website so you can get into the mindset of tee-shirt design. 

9. PRIZES ~

Grand Prize $750.00 or 100 shirts upon production (retail value $2000) + & the artist will receive a Licensing agreement & the winning design will be printed on Tee Shirts and other upper body garments and sold worldwide. There will only be one Grand Prize Awarded

First Prize Standard Royalty Agreement with The Mountain + $100 Cash or 20 T-Shirts of 1st prize design + Pick of 24 T-Shirts out of Mountain Line.  Designs will remain the property of the artist and the artist will retain the copyright on any designs submitted chosen or not. Each category has a first prize and then runners up. First place ties will be honored by multiple first prizes.

Runner ups will be awarded a licensing agreement and publication of their images on licensed products. Runner ups will also get 12 copies of their image on the Tee-Shirts.

10. PROMOTION ~ All winners agree to grant The Mountain® unlimited use of winning material(s) pictured on finished product for advertisements, catalogs shoots, sale signage and in any way to promote The Mountain® or Tree-Free Greetings™ and the artists work. This only applies to artwork that is chosen for production.

11. Work created specifically for the contest must not be released to the public until after contest has ended.