The What.CD Online Store Design Contest

About the Contest: We're pleased to announce the inaugural design contest for The What.CD Online Store, What.CD's upcoming one-stop shop for What.CD-related merchandise and apparel! This will be the first in what will become an ongoing tradition of design contests aimed at forging collaborations between What.CD and its incredibly talented body of designers and artists. We encourage anyone interested to take part!

For our first store design contest, we're asking users to create the next What.CD t-shirt! We're hoping for some wildly inventive, classy designs for use in promoting the site and generating donation funding. Design criteria will be listed below. The submission period will begin at the time of this posting, and submissions will be closed on February 8th, 2012. Just remember: this is your opportunity to become a part of What.CD history, so let the creativity flow!

About the Store: The What.CD Online Store is What.CD's official (upcoming) storefront designed in conjunction with Port Merch, a full-service merchandise company providing solutions for bands, artists, record labels and your favorite private tracker. Initial inventory and pricing for the store is TBD, and pricing concerns will never have a bearing on our design contests. Additional details on the store will be given at a later date, but it's worth noting that overhead and labor aside, most of the profits earned via The What.CD Online Store will be put toward the costs of running and operating What.CD, and Staff members will not profit from store earnings.

Introducing the Contests & Designs Forum: In order to create a new space to house official and approved unofficial contests, we've created the Contests & Designs sub-forum. Please be sure to read the Guidelines. Contest ideas can be submitted in the Contest Suggestions thread, and non-specific What.CD-related design work can be submitted in the What.CD Design Thread.

Introducing MrBoston: Before jumping into the contest details, we'd like to give a warm welcome to MrBoston, our new t-shirt manager! While customer service questions should always be directed to Port Merch, MrBoston will be around to help co-manage contests, offer design advice and more. Thanks for all of the help you're offering us, MrBoston.

Design Eligibility: In order for a design to be considered eligible, it must meet the necessary criteria for t-shirt printing. While designs may be used in other ways beyond just apparel (see the legalese below), we expect all valid submissions to be suitable for placement on a basic t-shirt or other simple article of clothing.

Winners, Runners-up and Prizes: The first design contest for The What.CD Online Store will result in a single winner and up to three runners-up. The winner and runners-up will be selected internally via Staff jury. A public vote will be held after the contest concludes in order to determine the community favorites. The prize breakdown is as follows:

• The Winner Receives: Three t-shirts of any size printed with the winning design.
• Runners-up Receive: One t-shirt of any size printed with the winning design.
• Future Guarantee: Whenever a design runner-up is used for any purpose in the future, the creator of any design will be entitled to one free item bearing the design (upon request).