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
hi, i just wondered if this one here would really be printable? and if DBH would even consider printing it… is it to complex? thanks for any answers on this…
ANSWER: If you constrain it to 18×25 it will be printable even with a high color count.
Is 16×20 in cm or inches? I’ve tried inches but when I click to see how the image looks like in print-size on my computer it comes off as strangely big.
Also I had some images made in 74 dpi before I realized that the preferable is 200-300, still when I zoom in at the image it doesn’t look pixelated, it still looks sharp. So can I still send in my 74 dpi image?
I have started on another design with 200 dpi but Photoshop doesn’t allow me to use many of the filters tools something that is a big annoyance, is it impossible to use those tools while working on a 200-300 dpi image?
Sorry that I ask so much but I want to avoid any complications with my design.
Wonderful design Kaysetoaster :)
Ive been checking what kinda work the DBH staff prints and i thougth they can probably print anything, but then i read this thread closely and it says that design that have a tight linework are hard to register when they are allover prints, that pretty much covers all of my pieces, jejeje, the question is, can DBH print the kinda stuff im submitting, cause its got a lot of small details, or so i think, anyways, heres an example of one of my submissions,( is not self promotion, really )….thanks..peace..
Pretty much everything is printable, though they may choose to alter it slightly before going to print.
indeed Odetti, they probably would alter it a bit to make it printable, but im thinking, if they could print the swetness of Bold is Beautiful from the multitalented Jeff Finley ( one of my favorites by the way ) i dont think my little piece would be a problem, thanks for the comment…peace..
PHNX said: thanks BenjaminPhantom, hope your rigth….peace…
I accidentally deleted my post here. What I said was that if it made it to the submission level it would probably be printable.
i didn’t realise there was a thread for this already, but yaa, both my T-shirt designs seem to follow all the requirments and have still been rejected :/ idk what I’m doing wrong.
UPDATE:
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.
Great examples:
MattisGentle said: i didn’t realise there was a thread for this already, but yaa, both my T-shirt designs seem to follow all the requirments and have still been rejected :/ idk what I’m doing wrong.
Post em?
so let me get this straight…
my design was rejected because of the use of a unkown source image?
because that picture is mine, and taken in a kiss concert!
there’s no rule breaking here…
or is it because it is not in the style pack you provide?
because there are tons of accepted submissions that include external images !!!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2824837&l=7d627a564f&id=735649777
I’m not sure, but I think printing color photos in good quality might be extremely hard.
Jugo- I think it may have to do with the fact that oversize designs can only have 3 colors.
On that note, from the current winner would it be safe to say that gradients are OK in oversize designs? As long as I only have 3 hues, I can use gradients of those 3 colors?
UPDATE:
10. We typically do not deal with public figures. Although there may be an occasion we might print a widely accepted/known persona like Obama or Lincoln, we will reject most portraits of famous figures, celebrities, etc. Reason: Most likely the image is based on a photo, owned by the photographer.
11. Seam to seam prints are considered allover prints. More than 3 colors will result in a declined submission.
12. Designs with text will either have to be very compelling, or mostly artistic in nature to be accepted.
hey jimiyo could you clarify whether gradients are allowed on allover prints? Thanks.
ANSWER: Gradients are acceptable on allovers.
13. Designs with political agendas will typically be declined for voting. We avoid most any controversial design. Religious, blasphemous, vulgar, etc
Hi… just a question about why my submission was rejected.
For the Incubus comp, I designed a typographical shirt with Incubus’ lyrics ‘what are you waiting for, a certain shade of green?’
I presume this was rejected because the lyrics are Incubus’ intellectual property, can you confirm this for me, or was it rejected for another reason.
I remember seeing some of the Lil Wayne shirts with some sort of lyrics in the design, how strict are you with this.
Thanks
discodean said: Hi… just a question about why my submission was rejected.
For the Incubus comp, I designed a typographical shirt with Incubus’ lyrics ‘what are you waiting for, a certain shade of green?’
I presume this was rejected because the lyrics are Incubus’ intellectual property, can you confirm this for me, or was it rejected for another reason.
I remember seeing some of the Lil Wayne shirts with some sort of lyrics in the design, how strict are you with this.
Thanks
Post up a pic and we can probably tell you why.
My opinion…
You’re missing a comma (,) after “for”. Without the comma the sentence is incorrect and the first time I read it I thought “uh??”.
Also, and this one I am not sure of, DBH might not have that shirt color.
“12. Designs with text will either have to be very compelling, or mostly artistic in nature to be accepted.”
They are trying to stay away from designs that are simply text. If you do a design with text it has to be used simple to enhance the rest of the image, not be the image itself. That would be my guess.
Or do text in a way that’s really exceptional. https://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/51503
Ok, thanks guys, wasn’t sure if I should steer clear of lyrics all together, because of a copyright issue. But you seem to have cleard it up.
http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/57841
Can actually be printed with three colors.
Don’t point fingers at other people when you feel like you are being judged. You aren’t being singled out. We are rejecting almost as many as are approving. We don’t want to bombard our submissions with a ton of designs.
Although your design might look good comped at the size you show it at, what happens when it goes on a smaller shirt? Or a XXL. It drastically changes the compositional weight which is quite important when it comes to shirt designs.
Also, you have a good concept with the musical note, but you just duplicated all of them. It might have been better to at least have the musical notes form a unified design by mimicking the style of the rest of the shirt. Currently its clean vectorish musical notes combined with a waterbrushy style with a logo slapped on at the bottom. No great effort was put forth to make the design unified.
Jimiyo’s an ass for making unnecessarily rude comments. I’ve deleted my post. Will sub my work elsewhere from now on.
A7 is (so tired of people’s attitude)
Choose your words more carefully. I also was under the impression you were pointing fingers. Specially because of the sentence right before the URL.
Also, when Jimiyo said “No great effort was put forth to make the design unified.”, he was talking specifically about the uh.. unification process. Not about everything.
I’m gonna have to agree with jimiyo on this one. To me it seems a lil bit just slapped together in a quick 5 mins (not saying that’s how it was made though). The concept is there, just needs a bit more work.
I can see you getting frustrated when you work hard on a design your proud of gets shot down as mine (the one you referenced) was actually rejected at first. I simply wrote an email asking to specify what exactly I needed to fix. Jimiyo was nice enough to reply, I made some revisions and tried again. Take this as a learning experience.
Mine has rejected..It hurts and I don’t know why.. DBH should include the exact details why they rejected my design..
It would be nice if we could critique every design, but the volume of submissions is quite tremendous. And even responding with a critique to just one would be quite time consuming as it typically opens up a fairly lengthy volley of questions and dialogue.
It would be best if artists posted their work for critique by our community of artists here.
It’s better to be rejected and to try again than to just let some design go into voting, and not cause an artist to try harder IMO. Being an artist isnt about being loved all the time. It’s about gettin beat down over and over again, getting back up every time getting better and stronger. I personally would not be as good as I am today, if everyone I showed my art to coddled me and praised me for my mediocre work. Always strive to be better.
why not have four templates for your rejection letters instead on just one that would narrow the wondering and I know I don’t mind getting beat down. I will try again if I have some idea why rejected in the first place.
did and do.
look all i’m saying is I can submit said design,you can reject with the template letter you use now, I can email you asking why it was rejected, or you could use four templates and cut down on emails. don’t really matter to me . I don’t get as much emails as you. just trying to help.
The four templates thing seems weird. There’s around 14 different reasons why you could get rejected. Wouldn’t that mean 14 different templates?
If you can’t figure out which of the 14 reasons it is, chances are you can’t figure out which of the 4 reasons they sent you it is. Even if they only give you one reason, people might still ask questions.
Why not just post here or in the Critique section? We might be able to tell you why it got rejected.
The point is they send a list with the four types of rejection. Sure you can guess well my design was PG13 so that’s not it but the other three are harder to say. I just posted an idea to cut down on the email. I have people critiquing all my designs after this first went up. So that’s not a problem.
ChefRAZ said: The point is they send a list with the four types of rejection. Sure you can guess well my design was PG13 so that’s not it but the other three are harder to say. I just posted an idea to cut down on the email. I have people critiquing all my designs after this first went up. So that’s not a problem.
Well certain people (e.g. ME) are a little too thick-skulled even to figure that out. It’s all that milk I drank through my eyes as a kid.
I would just like to clarify something about file type. I recently submitted my design in PNG (a previous design of mine a few months ago was accepted in this format) but it got rejected. Does this mean that only jpegs are accepted now? I hope I get enlightened soon. Thanks.
We’re sorry but your design has been rejected and will not post to our submissions gallery for one or more of the following reasons:
1)Your design has already been submitted or published at another location.
2)Your design contains intellectual property of a third party or otherwise infringes on a third party’s intellectual property rights.
3)Your design was not formatted properly for submission.
4)Your design contains material that is deemed overly offensive, vulgar, sexually overt, crude, or inappropriate by the Design By Humans staff.
5)Your design does not meet DBH quality standards
actually 5 reasons after this post I’ll leave it alone and wont bring it up again. this one is sent out to everyone, and all other sites are probablly the same, so I don’t know why DBH would want to be different, but It would cut down on the emails and posts.
Gee, I’m sad….I just got a “design has been rejected” for a new design for Incubus Contest…And I really dont understand why …:( The reasons in e-mail was:
1- Your design has already been submitted or published at another location. → I must say I made this drawn ONLY for incubus contest..I even show it on my site/or for friends
2- Your design contains intellectual property of a third party or otherwise infringes on a third party’s intellectual property rights. →My design contain Lyrics of Quicksand…Its a Incubus song! as anothers designers has made too!!
3- Your design was not formatted properly for submission. → Help!!!
4- Your design contains material that is deemed overly offensive, vulgar, sexually overt, crude, or inappropriate by the Design By Humans staff. → What?? Has a design with girls kissing running on contest!!
5-Your design does not meet DBH quality standards. → I dont think it was that too bad :(..this one really …really let me sad.
I will try show up the design later…But I’m asking fo DBH Staff how I can make the things “right”? because the e-mail was very “generic”, and i really want make cool stuff for Incubus. :)
OmarO said: Show it to us here. We might be able to tell you why.
Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!
This is the design :(
jimiyo said: 13. Designs with political agendas will typically be declined for voting. We avoid most any controversial design. Religious, blasphemous, vulgar, etc
ok so no brocc-obama(in the shape of broccoli?)
thestray said: I think it’s obviously the nudity.
So i will cover up the “nudity” and everything will be all right .
ChefRAZ said:jimiyo said: 13. Designs with political agendas will typically be declined for voting. We avoid most any controversial design. Religious, blasphemous, vulgar, etcok so no brocc-obama(in the shape of broccoli?)
There is no broccoli…it’s a cloud!
leticce said:ChefRAZ said:jimiyo said: 13. Designs with political agendas will typically be declined for voting. We avoid most any controversial design. Religious, blasphemous, vulgar, etcok so no brocc-obama(in the shape of broccoli?)
There is no broccoli…it’s a cloud!
Haha, he wasn’t talking about your submission, he was making a joke.
leticce said:thestray said: I think it’s obviously the nudity.So i will cover up the “nudity” and everything will be all right .
Presumably. Good luck.
What dpi does the uploaded file have to be? I saw low-res, but you mean 72/100/200?
ANSWER: Please read the Submission page. Specifically states, "Make sure to create your art at a minimum resolution of 200 dpi and to the approximate size that the design should be printed. "