Threadless is a creative community that makes, supports, and buys great art. It has evolved from an online t-shirt design company into an international community-driven design platform featuring merchandise designed by and for its fan base of nearly one million users.
Created in 2000 by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart with $1,000. Threadless began as a t-shirt design competition on the now inoperative 'dreamless.org', a forum where users experimented with computers, code, and art. Nickell and DeHart invited users to post their designs on a dreamless thread (hence the name Threadless), and they would print the best designs on t-shirts.
Fast-forward 13 years and Threadless is one of the most successful online communities that supports great art from around the world. Revenues for the privately held firm have been widely estimated at $30 million last year. It’s an amazing accomplishment for any entrepreneur, especially one who isn’t cranking out computer code like Mark Zuckerberg. Nickell and DeHart built their empire on T-shirts—not exactly a rare commodity. Considered the poster child of crowdsourcing, they capitalised on a key insight before most anyone else: the power of crowds.
"Threadless boasts a diverse community of designers, artists and general consumers from around the world who submit and vote on designs for ongoing competitions. Everything we do gives you more opportunities to make great art. We started printing on tees and then we realized tons of products make great canvases. We seek out these canvases, so you can continue to make and pick the best art. The weird art. The geeky art. The beautiful art. And when you buy from us, you support great art."
I've asked around the office and had the team find their favourites from the website. We spent hours on there finding great designs! We even found some of our Creativepool users on there!!
Check it out for when procrastination strikes! Visit threadless.com.
