maybe it's about the font ? i don't know...

I'm remaking it with generic emails instead of Gmail logo-ed ones. So, we'll see. Plus, it gives me an opportunity to make a better tagline. I'm changing it to "my inbox loves conversations" which is a lot better. I'm still pissed though

Is this competition open to citizens outside of the US. I find no mention of age or location on the overly-simple ToS (although granted the prizes are geared towards the US).

Just change the "Gmail-Envelope" to a regular one and change the gear to a "G"...no google logo anymore..but it should still be obvious what is meant ... ;)

Hi guys.

I am a long time reader of the blogoscoped and also happen to be the lead engineer at threadless. Since i am on the engineering side – i can't officially comment on submissions – but i do know that logos are generally not allowed.

I looked over your submission – and i can only guess that they were talking about the gmail envelope logo. I guess do what you mentioned and try replacing the envelopes with something more generic. You might check the blogs at threadless for more ideas (you can set it up as a work in progress). The users are pretty helpful.

Martin: The contest is very much open to submissions outside of the US. Quite a few of our designers are from outside the US.

Feel free to ask more questions – i will check back and hopefully be able to answer any that show up.

Thanks,
Harper

Am I silly for thinking that a t-shirt with the Gmail Envelope alone would be cool?

I did resubmit it with generic envelopes. It hasn't been approved yet, but hopefully no problems.

> Martin: The contest is very much open to
> submissions outside of the US. Quite a few
> of our designers are from outside the US.

Thanks, although that iPhone will take a bit of work to get it to work with Vodafone.

Oh, and another question.

Is there an age requirement to enter the competition?

I think it is just the usual 13. but you will have to check the terms on the site. You need to have an account and i am pretty sure you have to be 13 to get one.

> I looked over your submission – and
> i can only guess that they were talking
> about the gmail envelope logo.

I think the problem is a description on a website. The sentence that "your design is not required to have the theme text or brand logo" very strongly suggests that it's ALLOWED. This was also my understanding of the text when I first read it. Whene you define the terms of a competition they should be very clear, otherwise people will be disappointed.

Is one allowed to use the word "gmail"?

Does anyone else find it extremely ironic that Gmail <3's Threadless, while Gmail's biggest selling point is that its emails are threaded? ...

“The purpose of this competition is to create a stand-alone design inspired by the theme, not a brand tee. Your design is not required to have the theme text or brand logo on it... in fact, we prefer it does not.“

The above is part of the standard rules that are built into all Loves contest pages. Sorry for the confusion, those rules will be updated soon. From what I've been told the rules are pretty strict with this one. You cannot use the word "gmail" or use any images associated with it.

As for there being no competition... The contest was just launched a few days ago so there hasn't been much time for people to work on submissions yet. We have about 35 waiting in line to be approved so you should start to see some go up for scoring soon. I was just going ahead and declining the the designs with technical issues so you wouldn't have to wait the standard 4-8 days before you hear anything.

<<Thanks, although that iPhone will take a bit of work to get it to work with Vodafone.>>

Check it out: http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/18/iphone-dev-wiki-team-gets-closer-to-unlocking/

From the Article:
[...]Well, the team over at the iPhone Dev Wiki is claiming to have made some inroads into unlocking the mysteries of the iPhone. While a complete unlocking solution isn't yet available, they updated the Wiki this morning to let us all know that by using iASign – a bit of software they have created – the phone can purportedly be made to work with prepaid Cingular, AT&T, and AT&T's MVNO's SIM cards. Where's the beauty you ask? Well, this lets you pick up an iPhone sans contract, slap in your current SIM, and enjoy. We're really feelin the love they are tossing about freely, and are looking forward to the full unlocking solution that they reportedly will not be giving up on any time soon. At the request of the iPhone Dev Wiki team, we aren't including the link. Google is your friend.[...]

They accepted it with generic envelopes: http://www.threadless.com/submission/126719/Romantic_Inbox

http://media.threadless.com/subs/big/126717.gif
Why was this allowed?

James,

The Gmail Loves Threadless part of that design is not to be printed on the shirt as you can see in the small placement icon in the lower left. It was just to reiterate to voters that it is part of that competition.

Everyone else,

I'm stunned that people would get up in arms about *NOT* having a logo on a tee. The main purpose of Threadless loves competitions is to create cool, artistic tee shirts based on a theme, not walking advertisements. Is that so wrong?

Jake,

No, nothing wrong with it at all, but I think mostly people were just confused by the original description. I know I was. Really, to me, I thought it was a Gmail competition involving Threadless. But now I guess I understand it to be a Threadless competition involving Gmail.

Putting one logo is OK, but using it as a patern (not respecting it) is forbidden – the same policy used for the Apple logo. (I worked there)

Looks like they're all generic, fits-any-competition designs now indeed. None of these show-cased in the blog post look like they've necessarily been created for the competition:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/192-t-shirt-designs-and-counting.html