Why Was My Design Rejected? UPDATED w/ TEMPLATES
Posted By
jimiyo
We don’t intend to offend anyone by declining their work for voting as we want to give all artists an opportunity, but due to our increasing traffic and submissions, we have now adopted a more stringent quality control guideline. It is difficult since alot of art is subjective, but when viewed in the context of apparel designs there are some definite metrics on which the art can be judged.
This is intended to spur artists to try pursue a higher level of craftsmanship. As an artist myself, I am in full agreement with this decision. An artist’s journey is not one of little resistance, in contrary, it is a difficult road of overcoming constant hurdles and challenges. ;j
Let’s cover the basics.
MORE TEMPLATES BY ODDETI http://www.designbyhumans.com/forums/show/579293
DOWNLOAD Model Template: http://www.designbyhumans.com/downloads/easy_template.psd
Just a basic drag and drop for creating mockups for entries.
DOWNLOAD Sizing Template: http://www.designbyhumans.com/downloads/size_template.psd
This one’s somewhat important. When you build a design, you want to ensure that the size of the design will fit well within the compositional space of all sizes of shirts. If you use this template, every 1 cm = 1 in. So the moveable 19×25 tile represents the space your design would take up at a maximum without going to an allover print. The placement of the placeholder can only vary slightly as well. If you use this while designing, it will ensure that it will look good spanning all the sizes. The sizes shown are small, to XXL.
DOWNLOAD Flat Shirt Template: http://www.designbyhumans.com/downloads/flat_template.psd
More realistic than dropping on a model template as when you drop a flat jpeg on the 3D model template you actually dont get to visualize how it is on the shirt.
Ideal art sizing
RGB 8bit, 300 DPI,
Standard 17.5×19
Oversized 19×25
All Over 40X33 (includes sleeves) base central imagery refer to oversized
Pantone Color Approximations – WIll probably add to submission/design guide page if I ever get time, until then:
Kelly 362
Light Purple 2577U
Burnt Orange 1595
Burgundy 492
Mint 621 (slightly more white)
Red 1797 or 200U
Yellow 7401
Oatmeal 406
Navy 5395U or 296U
Silver CG4U or CG5U or 421
Lt Blue 290C or 7457U
Turquoise 7466U
Grass 7489U
Hunter 5535U
Olive 448U
Taupe 410C 411C 437U
Chocolate BlackC 412C
Lead 419U 433C
Before you submit, please review our Design Guide: (Click Here For More Info)
- We are a PG-13 website. We have young people and families surfing. Sexually overt imagery is typically rejected immediately.
- Please save your work in RGB mode jpegs. Some browsers have issues in showing CMYK saved images, so they will not show up properly depending on the viewer’s browser. This is not DBH specific. If you intend to be a graphic artist, make sure your portfolio images are in RGB mode. Google “CMYK images browser issues.”
- If your submissions, whether it be the art or mock is low quality, as in pixelated, distorted, etc, we will reject your submission.
- Low quality filtered images will be rejected. ie) Cutout/threshhold filtered photos with no effort to clean up linework. Some artists will do collage work in this manner, provided it is aesthetically appealing, there will be some exceptions.
- Not using our shirt colors – If you use a shirt color that we do not have, there is a chance that your design may get rejected.
- If you do not use a model or shirt template of some sort to show placement on the 900 × 500 jpeg submission image, you will get rejected.
- If the design is a rectangular image pasted on the chest without concern for the t-shirt canvas, it will be rejected, unless it’s intentionally made to work compositionally as a pasted image.
- If we cannot print as mocked, and it cannot be reduced in size or altered to fit our printing ability, we will reject it.
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No more front and back hit designs will be approved for voting unless the designs specifically requires a back and front print conceptually. There will also be a more stringent level of judgment for those designs.
- The following are general guidelines:
We can print all over, but there is a limitation on how many colors we can print on an allover. Currently we prefer to choose designs that are 3 or less. Allover prints are hard to register and keep lined up so images with tight line work typically gets passed over.
Designs that are grungy and tonal are easy to print all overs.
Great examples:
http://www.designbyhumans.com/product_images/0001/6537/thenNow_m_f_detail.png?1241550580
http://www.designbyhumans.com/product_images/0001/6521/thenNow_m_b_detail.png?1241550575
We do not prefer designs with:
Bleeding hearts, emo hearts, or similar.
Wings pasted on the back of the shirt, although conceptually interesting, has been done and done.
Designs depicting violence is typically frowned upon.
Our market is predominantly male, so although we love feminine designs and may eventually cater to that market specifically, an overly feminine design, ie) flowers, might get allowed into the voting pool, but probably has a significantly reduced chance of winning.
We do not prefer TEXT shirts specifically slogan tees. Text may be incorporated into a design, but if it seems as if the text is part of the brand name, we reject it as we do not want brand confusion.
ie) A shirt says, Live Strong as a main focal point with some small doodle. A person seeing the shirt may think the brand is Live Strong, not DBH.
If we can tell what Photoshop filter was run on a photo, it’s indicative of art created by somewhat inexperienced artist. These typically do not print well as it’s very Photoshop-y. We reject those. This also applies to smudge tool, gradient tool (used incorrectly), and other various entry level design methods.
Typically, although this does not get rejected, but a person’s face as a focal point, do not sell well unless its a famous person, caricature, etc.
More to come…
Comments
jimiyo said: 5. If you submit multiple color versions of your design, we will approve the most favorable.
If you like, you can represent multiple colors on one entry/mock up!
CollisionTheory, one of our favorite artists, is really great at doing this.
http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/26235
http://www.designbyhumans.com/designs/placement/26235.jpg
Jimiyo! Thanks for the mention. =)
Great idea for a topic, and thanks for helping me with my submission issues.
All that does help a lot, didn’t know about the all over print restrictions.
damn so thats why my design didnt get up there. I choose a shirt color you didnt have. I was really proud about that design too, it deffinately would have added something to my DBH portfolio even if it was un-printable. Alot of why some folks are so popular on this site, such as “collisiontheory” is because they have an impressive porfolio which symbolizes their potential and consistency. Now i have one less design that i worked extrordinarily hard at that wont be able to help my building a reputation on this website. I was really stoked about quiksilver too. This was a frustrating rejection i suppose.
i followed all the restrictions and rules, and mine didn’t get picked, it was a fairly nice design considering others.
glittersuperstar said: i followed all the restrictions and rules, and mine didn’t get picked, it was a fairly nice design considering others.
Can we see?
My two latest designs have been rejected and I cant understand why! They do not break any of the rules as far as I’m aware. I got a rejected email about 1 minute after I submitted the design. Could someone have viewed it and rejected it so quickly? Please let us know exactly why a design gets rejected. Its extremely frustrating when you work on a design for a long time only for it to be rejected without a definitive reason. Thanks
I haven’t had one rejected but I do imagine that would be frustrating to not know why. If they give you a reason at least you can maybe fix the problem and resubmit.
If you email art@designbyhumans.com with jpeg attachments of what you submitted, typically we can give you a specific reason why it was rejected.
Thanks Jimiyo. I have sent an email of my rejected designs. Hopefully I will know soon why they were rejected which will, as thestray says, allow me to adjust the designs and resubmit.
Thanks jimiyo :)
but please can you tell me the actual size of the design in pixels?
Updated Rules.
Designs_Maker said: Thanks jimiyo :)
but please can you tell me the actual size of the design in pixels?
200-300DPI is preferable. Typically size for a minimum of 16×20 for standard sized front chest, larger if it is oversized, even larger if it’s to be an allover.
does that mean this can’t be printed? because of the detailed shapes?
If approved for print, it could probably be modified slightly to compensate, so it didn’t get rejected. For example, we could print the middle three guns with just an oversized print and still maintain a fairly decent look. The only difference is we wouldnt print on the sleeves.
does that mean this can’t be printed? because of the detailed shapes?
If approved for print, it could probably be modified slightly to compensate, so it didn’t get rejected. For example, we could print the middle three guns with just an oversized print and still maintain a fairly decent look. The only difference is we wouldnt print on the sleeves.
“If approved for print, it could probably be modified slightly to compensate, so it didn’t get rejected. For example, we could print the middle three guns with just an oversized print and still maintain a fairly decent look. The only difference is we wouldnt print on the sleeves.”
ok, great. thanks for replying! im working on a placement for just the middle section of the shirt w/o the sleeves
Perhaps this question is straight out stupid, but here it goes anyway:
Is there a maximum limitation of colours on prints that aren’t all overs?
novus said: Perhaps this question is straight out stupid, but here it goes anyway:
Is there a maximum limitation of colours on prints that aren’t all overs?
Not really. BUT take into consideration, if you design something with 30 colors, with gradients that essentially cause more colors, that design will have to be reduced to 12-16 colors, and so it will lose subtleties. But in general, not really.
Cant you rejection guys at elast tell us why ours was rejected in specific reasoning? I just got rejected, and it gave me this same list. I have to figure out why it got rejected? And i sent it to a friend and he said it would be fine
jimiyo said: Updated Rules.
Designs_Maker said: Thanks jimiyo :)
but please can you tell me the actual size of the design in pixels?200-300DPI is preferable. Typically size for a minimum of 16×20 for standard sized front chest, larger if it is oversized, even larger if it’s to be an allover.
when you said 16 × 20 where you referring to inches i guess?
with the resolution what is the best for over all prints? i would like a number to work off, i don’t know how much “lager” it need to be??
marcatalyst said:
jimiyo said: Updated Rules.
Designs_Maker said: Thanks jimiyo :)
but please can you tell me the actual size of the design in pixels?200-300DPI is preferable. Typically size for a minimum of 16×20 for standard sized front chest, larger if it is oversized, even larger if it’s to be an allover.
when you said 16 × 20 where you referring to inches i guess?
with the resolution what is the best for over all prints? i would like a number to work off, i don’t know how much “lager” it need to be??
RGB 8bit, 300 DPI,
Standard 17.5×19
Oversized 19×25
AllOver 28×35 (includes sleeves) base shape refer to Oversized
Updated Sizes
RGB 8bit, 300 DPI,
Standard 17.5×19
Oversized 19×25
AllOver 28×35 (includes sleeves) base shape refer to Oversized
you still didnt answer whether those were in inches terms. It used to be 900 by 500. Same thing>?
zebra4 said: you still didnt answer whether those were in inches terms. It used to be 900 by 500. Same thing>?
900 × 500 is the pixel dimensions of one of the submission files. The files you upload with the submission should not be your original files. Web view is low resolution so that the files are small enough to view and download quickly. The files that you create the art in should be in inches at the dimensions that Jimiyo provided. That’s the quality you need to print it. You submit a low-res copy for voting.
It should be obvious, but if there are curse words in the design, it will get rejected
If there is vulgarity, as in someone flipping a bird, biting their thumb at thee, and the like, it will get rejected
If there is nudity in the image, it has a 50-50 chance of being rejected, unless its being done in an artistic manner
If you spam submit several designs at once, the action will typically make you target for a mass rejection.
Thank you so much for all of the info: Jimiyo.
just downloaded Model shots from the link..Now i can map my design to them :).
Hello Jimiyo.can you answer me Please…I just downloaded that sample named "White_M_F " it was around 7.9 MB.. But i could find only 1 image from it.. all of the other images in that zip file were not opening…did i miss something? :(
& mapped my design to the Model…but couldnt find the backside for T…
I haven’t investigated the model sheets from the Design Guide as I have made my own set.
You are free to use anything in http://www.jimiyo.com/downloads/
Specific to DBH is
http://www.jimiyo.com/downloads/Male_DBHJimiyo.zip
http://www.jimiyo.com/downloads/Female_DBH.psd
Cheers ;j
Thank you so much Jimiyo, templates of yours are very cool!, models are with tattoos.downloaded all ,Thanks again for sharing your private templates.All are awesome.Now i have back,front,side all views with Tattoo guys.
Just now mapped my 2 designs to a model .
subscribed to the selected mailing lists to the your site too. all of your designs are fantastic.
Specially “Gather Ye rose buds” is my favourite’
Cheers :)
So rule # 6 about the t-shirt template, is it possible to use the image of the t-shirt that is already here?
Is it only in my profile I upload my designs or do I upload them another place?
Unless incredibly handled like never before, grounds for auto rejection:
Lens flares
Thresholded photos
Designs with text that seem to denote they are the manufacturer of the shirt.
So when we create the file for the design, we should be in RGB? I ask because I was wondering if you print in CYMK.
Cause I think it looks different when you switch modes. I’ve had the issue before. So I save my PSD/ai file in CYMK and then save the JPG in RGB.
I’m new to designing prints.
We typically dont print in CMYK. Even if CMYK, it seems to be simulated process.
Please use RGB.
Wow…didn’t really know there were so many restrictions! I do realize lines have to be drawn somewhere but… kids visiting dbh?… well, why not go about it like deviantart and just have a PG-13/R section or something? Last time I checked, kids do have the power to whine, sulk, cry their parents into buying their tshirts…but they don’t have a credit card to buy it themselves…
A lot of these “restrictions” are, I think, kind of common sense. They just wanted to write them all, just in case. Personally, there are very few things that are PG-13 that I would wear.
jimiyo said: Unless incredibly handled like never before, grounds for auto rejection:
Lens flares
Thresholded photos
Designs with text that seem to denote they are the manufacturer of the shirt.
Hahaha, I cracked up at lens flares.
Oops. There are very few things that AREN’T PG-13 that I would wear.
I’m kind of confused as to what PG-13 stands for in the first place. Something about 13 years old.
Oh okay, that makes more sense, haha.
PG-13 means parental guidance for kids under thirteen.
On my next order of shirts can I buy a perfect white blank to take photos for a mockup?
what comes to mind when I think of PG-13/Rated R stuff…stuff that school’s will send a kid home for wearing…but I do understand there needs to be some sort of “line” that needs to be drawn…but just don’t draw that line thinking of “the kids!”…I do like the fact that nudity is okay as long as it’s tasteful…take that! you little thirteen year olds roaming around this site! hahaha! I remember this one shirt that had alot of controversy…it was a shirt that was being sold at Urban Outfitters, fairly simple design…vector work of like a horizon line with the sun and had the slogan:
“New Mexico
Cleaner than old mexico”
I thought that was a funny shirt.
Well, jimiyo said
“If there is nudity in the image, it has a 50-50 chance of being rejected, unless its being done in an artistic manner”
So nudity is still okay.
5. If you submit multiple color versions of your design, we will approve the most favorable, and reject the others.
If you like, you can represent multiple colors on one entry/mock up.
CollisionTheory, one of our favorite artists, is really great at doing this.
https://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/26235