....and the winner is:

Hello ShirtPrizers:

We have a winner, and American Idol’s Ryan Secrest will be stopping by to make the announcement soon, but first a word from our sponsors, REVUE Magazine and Citizen Shirt.

Here’s the word: Thanks.

We appreciate that you took time to vote and to acknowledge the work of these four artists and all the other artists who entered Shirtprize. Plus, thanks to the bodies who modeled, bedazzled and art-ified the shirts during the finals voting.

Now, back to Ryan Secrest and the announcement of the winner, which we’ll get to, right after this word from Coca-Cola….

Okay, seriously, here’s the deal: Doves>Guns won Shirtprize. Artist Scott Gundersen’s peace-loving design nabbed 34.26% of the vote, edging out Amanda Zechar’s cupcake-loving robot, the Cupcakerator, which earned 30.56% of the vote. Aaron Strelecki’s Scream nabbed 27.30% of the votes and Davie Torres graffiti-inspired Got Soul got 7.88% percent of the votes. Congratulations to Scott and to all finalists. The last day of voting was wild, with about 800 votes pouring in, right up until 11:59 p.m. Well done!  Here's a press release. 

BODIES WANTED: We’re looking for 20 STDs (social transmitters of design) to model the winning shirt tomorrow at the ArtPrize final announcement. You can get a free t-shirt by meeting Chris Koens at the Biggby Coffee on Monroe Mall at 6:15 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009). The first 20 peole who show up and ask Chris to be a body, get a shirt to wear at the ArtPrize announcement.

Thanks again to all of you Shirtprize people. You did Grand Rapids proud.

We’ll talk to you soon.

The Shirtprize Team

Finalist Davie Torres says "Yo!"

Davie Torres was born and raised in West Michigan. Growing up, he moved frequently which gave him the opportunity to see different areas of this great state. From small farm towns to the Big Little City of Grand Rapids, Davie has seen different peoples ideas of art and that has helped make him a well rounded person and artist. The piece "Got Soul" came from his idea to "add some flavor" to the competition. Also to give people something that they would wear and truly appreciate. Not just wear because their friend designed it. Graffiti IS an art form but sadly is seen as a crime and vandalism. Through Shirt Prize, the only crime in his piece is not rockin' his shirt! 

Meet finalist Aaron Strelecki

Aaron Strelecki, Is a 17 year old high school student who attends Jenison High School. He has lived in Michigan his whole life.  He spends most of his time just hanging out with friends, and having a good time.  His shirt "Scream", was made in an attempt to design a shirt that he thought people would like and actually want to wear. There is no secret or meaning behind the shirt, just that it would look cool on a cotton canvas!

Meet Shirtprize finalist Scott Gundersen

Scott Gundersen, a resident of a lively southeast Grand Rapids neighborhood, earned his BFA in Art Education from Western Michigan University in 2002. For seven years, as a full-time high school art instructor, he has been using his knowledge of and passion for art to inspire the next generation. In that time, he has had the opportunity to teach over 2000 students. Scott's artwork is held in many private collections around the city and he is a top 50 finisher in this years ArtPrize, with his work currently on display at San Chez Bistro. When not teaching or creating, Scott loves to read, bike, and travel the world with is new wife, Jeanne.

Nick Zyskowski is a fresman at Central Michigan University.

About the Design:
The design doves>guns was birthed from a collaboration between a teacher and a student in the fall of 2008. After a lesson and discussion on the work of the popular street artist, BANKSY had ended in Scott Gundersen's high school art classroom, Nick Zyskowski a student and Gundersen began a brainstorming ideas of their own, which they began screen printing for their friends and family. The doves>guns shirt was a big hit with sly yet serious social political message. The collaboration continued and a limited run of parody shirts followed, including "buffalos&bombs", "penguins&pistols", and "John McCain does the Robot", however nothing could match their early success of the doves>guns design. Their collaboration seemed to be all but over when shirtprize was announced. Can doves>guns make a comeback? Will the collaboration continue? Only time will tell.

Finalist Amanda Zechar says hello!

My name is Amanda Zechar and I'm a 23 year old lady who loves baking, biking, and theme parties.  The Cupcakerator is the mascot for my blog of the same name.  He's a fun-loving robot who dreams of opening a bakery one day so that he can reach everyone with his delicious treats. 

I really feel that my design should win.  It's all about having fun and not taking life too seriously.  That, and it would look mighty fine on a t-shirt.  If you love cute robots who bake cupcakes, do the right thing - Vote for The Cupcakerator!

Body Spots

Any bodies wanting to pick up shirts this morning can find us at Kava House in Eastown until 9:30 and at the Revue offices (Breton and Burton) After that until about noon.

More pickup locations gathering spots announced later.

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Shirtprize bodies alert!

Going to be hanging out at Kava House tomorrow morning between 8:30 and 9:30 for any registered bodies that want to stop by and pick up a shirt! More events on the way.

Shirtprize featured on FOX 17

Emily chats with Shirtprize co-founder and REVUE publisher Brian Edwards about West Michigan's largest contest for artists who work on the cotton canvas.  

 


Check out Emily as she highlights Shirtprize finalists and talks about STDs with Shirtprize founders:

 

STDs ready to break out!

We've sent an email to our social transmitters of designs (STDs), who signed up to serve as a hosting body for the designs of the four bodies. Shirts are being printed as we speak, and we should begin distributing them tomorrow and Saturday.   Check back on the Blog for the next few days for updates. 

In the meantime, vote for the Shirtprize winner if you haven't already! It takes about a minute (not including the hours you'll spend looking at the amazing designs by the four finalists).  You can vote at the official Shirtprize Website. 

The final four of Shirtprize is set!

It was a back-and-forth competition, but in the end, the graffiti-like Shirtprize tag by artist Davie Torres emerged as the final winner of the preliminary rounds.

Now, it's on to the finals for Torres and the three other preliminary round winners, whose designs are pictured below. The voting in this round will be done by secret ballet and can be completed at the Shirtprize website, where the final four designs are exhibited. They're also shown below.

Plus, we'll be printing designs of the final four and putting them on shirts, which will be modeled by people who applied to be "bodies." We'll be reaching out them and letting them know plans later today.

Thanks to all the artists who entered Shirtprize. We'll be in touch later today to thank you personally and tell you about our next Shirtprize contest. And thanks, of course, to all the people who visited the website and voted for the initial rounds.


Thanks to all who voted in the prelims, and be sure to vote in the finals. You can vote here: http://shirtprize.com/vote.html

Got Soul? by Davie Torres

Scream by Aaron Strelecki

doves > guns by Scott Gundersen

The Cupcakerator by Amanda Zechar

Three down and only one to go

Congratulations to Scott Gundersen for his design doves > guns that was created in conjunction with Nick Zyskowski!

Their design came in with almost 50% of all the votes. Great job guys! You can view their work by clicking here.

The last round of voting has begun and we are no longer accepting any artist entries. If you are still interested in getting involved with ShirtPrize make sure you apply to be a body. Our bodies will take the streets during the first week of October to show of our four weekly winners designs.

RollerDerby Ain't Nice by Larry Kole

Belly Dancing by Paul Budzynski

616 Pong by Adam Beasley

Pop Star by Danielle Storey

Scandalous by Nicola Fester

Ogre in Progress by Kyle Hilla

Primary Intersection by Nick VanKeuren

Love Wins by Brent Taylor

Chipping In by Anna Campbell

be cool. by Danielle Storey

Peaches & Dragons! by Jane Lovett

Velvet Dan by Corey Ruffin

The Sickness by Leo Hernandez

Old World by Aaron Rossell

Elfing Holidays by Mary Hettmansperger

Somewhere Over My Rainbow by Michelle Fox

Ice Princess by Jason Nelson

Peace Yo! By Matt Duve

Let's Shirtprize! by Michael Tracy

Turf War by Brian Cook

Pick. Them. Up. By Danielle Storey

Congratulations are in order!

Congratulations to Amanda Zechar! Now let's pause to let Kanye steal the spotlight from you...









Just kidding! All jokes aside, great job! We are looking forward to seeing some bodies sporting your design around Grand Rapids during the first week of October!

Check out the winning design by clicking here.

Thanks to all of our entrants, we apprechiate your participation!

We only have two days left until our last round of voting so get your designs in quick before it's too late!

The People have spoken

Congratulations are in order for our first ShirtPrize finalist: Aaron Strelecki!

His entry "Scream" came in with 269 votes. View his artwork here.

A big round of applause and thank you to all our other entrants, the competition was tough and the designs were amazing.

New entries will be posted today, and voting starts immediately! So put your voting hats back on and get ready for round two.

Artists, don't forget that even though voting is underway, we are accepting entries 24/7, so if you haven't already, send us your design.

Thank you everyone for your participation, you are what is making ShirtPrize fun!

We all make mistakes... right?

We made an oops.

As some of our loyal, good, rule-reading, fans have pointed out, we have a couple entries this week that have too many colors in them. We allow only 8 unique colors, because if they have more, we can't print them on a t-shirt. These designs with too many colors that are included this week will have to be disqualified, so if they do win the vote, we will award the winning title to the second-place design.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience.

The designs that have too many colors are:
-Awe and Wonder
-The Hard Life
-Michigan

We are leaving the designs up, because even if they can't win, they deserve to be seen. But we encourage you to vote for other designs because these three designs just won't work on a cotton canvas.

Sorry for all the confusion this has probably caused, and we promise to do better in the future.

ShirtPrize Round #1 - Voting Underway

The polls are open on the first round of Shirtprize. There are only 10 entries to vote on in this first round, but we kind of knew that would happen given that we only started promoting this a few days ago. We stopped taking entries promptly at 9 p.m., even though we got a couple entries not long after the cut-off time. Vote away and please feel free to use the comments to make constructive remarks.

Here's the good news: We'll be taking entries each and every day (24/7) for the next round of competition. So if you didn't get in this round, fear not, you can always submit a design for Round #2 of Shirtprize.

Finally, a word about cheating: Don't.

(Okay, couldn't leave it at one word. So here's the thing: even though we joked about giving away 5,000,000 in prize money - asterisk, caveat, stipulation - the reality is that ShirtPrize isn't about the cash. It's about putting your art out there and getting people's feedback. So please don't vote for yourself repeatedly or try to use technology to outsmart the system. That only makes you good at cheating - not at designing art for a shirt. We've installed Statcounter and made it open for public viewing, so if you're trying to game the system, some other smart technie - ie, not us - will track you and out you.)

ShirtPrize Press Conference

The organizers of ShirtPrize hosted a press conference early this morning to discuss the contest and officially announce it's opening.

New Site!

Sooo, we finally finished our new site!

Check it out here : www.shirtprize.com

And keep following us here at our voting blog. As soon as the entries start coming in, they will be up here to view and, starting on Tuesday, September 1, vote on.

If you are an artist looking for a good way to showcase your art go here to apply.

On the other hand, if you may not have the most artistic eye, or even if you do and feel like helping out your fellow artists, go here to apply to be a body (or as we like to call it, a social transmitter of design, or STD for short).