I am sharing this because the 9fountains.com is currently out to seek more designers and I think all the designers need to know the story beforehand.

9fountains is Singapore based t-shirt company. The company started as competition based website, where you submitted your designs and they print the ones they like and paying a lump sum as the compensation.

Last year the company changed direction. Now they are paying based on royalty, 10%. This program is called 9fountains collective. No more competition. The collective is exclusive to 9 invited designers and the company will extensively marketed the t-shirt designs of these 9 artists (as said in very persuasive email).

So the company founder Andrew Wolf contacted me August 2012 for this so called exclusive deal. I was eventually sold to the idea and include my designs.

Well, you probably able to guess what happened next. The guy went on vacation, no email response… Email responded, told me to wait… Monthly royalty report did not happen…. Emailed the founder, emailed the customer service…. Royalty report happened but no payment….. Again my email was not replied…. I posted on their facebook page… told the company is in transition, etc, etc…. The point is no update or royalty payment made to this day.

After digging the whole story, I found that this happened not only to me, but to other artist in the collective too. No one has received anything so far. Someone told me back when 9fountains was in the competition mode, the payment was also slacking. The information was you need to chase them again and again before getting paid (eventually the artist get paid though). My conclusion: this slacking is not a one off case, but part of 9fountains history.

Now they are looking for more artist to go into the same path by submitting designs to them:
http://www.facebook.com/9fountains

Please consider my experience before you send anything or thinking of joining 9fountains.

If you are looking for company with royalty payment, DBH collective is a good start.