Hey there everybody,
It’s been a busy day here at Rothco headquarters. Partly because we’ve been getting a bunch of new products together for the upcoming fundraiser but also because we’ve been collecting and sorting the submissions for our t-shirt and onesie design contest.
It was tough to narrow it down to just a few options, but we did it. And now, in order for us to get things ready before we launch Geeks Doing Good (on June 5th, just in case you were curious) we’ll need to see which shirts y’all like best.
Here are our top contenders. First a nice combo shot, mocked up shirts:
And individually, so you can check out their individual majesty:
Before you vote, a few polite requests:
- If you don’t plan on ever buying a t-shirt, maybe don’t vote? (It’s not that your opinion doesn’t matter… It’s just that it doesn’t matter in this particular instance.)
- Please vote based on which designs you would buy as a t-shirt. If you like the art, but you wouldn’t wear it as a shirt, then don’t vote for it.
- Let’s not descend into internet jackassery here. We’re better than that. Don’t try to game the system. Don’t vote a bunch of times. That’s not cool.
- You can vote for two shirts. That means you should vote for the shirt that you’d really love to buy. And then the shirt that you’d love to buy if your first choice isn’t one of the ones we print.
- When you’re voting, double check the name of the shirt to make sure you’re casting your vote correctly. The name of the shirt is at the bottom left of the image itself.
- The poll ends at 11:59pm Tuesday, May 30th. So be sure to get your votes in before then…
Which T-shirt Should We Make?
- Questioning Hall (20%, 1,665 Votes)
- Cthaeh (20%, 1,651 Votes)
- Edema Ruh (17%, 1,389 Votes)
- How's the Road to Tinue? (14%, 1,122 Votes)
- The Name of the Wind (13%, 1,067 Votes)
- Amyr (11%, 942 Votes)
- Straight Outta Tarbean (5%, 412 Votes)
Total Voters: 5,542
We also have baby shirts to vote on. I’m excited for these, as it’s been years and years since we made a onesie.
Here are our onesie/baby bodysuit/baby shirt contenders, mocked up first:
And then individually for you to see all the juicy details:
Most of the same rules apply for the baby clothes:
- Again, please only vote if you would genuinely consider buying a onesie. If you vote for one because you think it’s adorable, but you have no interest in actually buying it, you’ll skew our numbers and it will make it harder for us to actually get people a product they would like.
- You can only vote for one baby shirt. That means you should only vote for the onesie you would most like to buy.
- Again, double check the name of the design to make sure you’re casting your vote correctly. The name of the onesie/shirt is at the bottom left of the image itself.
- The poll ends 11:59pm Tuesday, May 30. So be sure to get your votes in before then…
Which baby shirt should we make?
- The Moon (43%, 1,101 Votes)
- Golden Screw (27%, 687 Votes)
- Taborlin the Cute (19%, 498 Votes)
- An Apple Who Thinks it's a Pear (11%, 271 Votes)
Total Voters: 2,557
Thanks for participating so far, folks. Looking forward to seeing what y’all are going to vote for.
pat
68 Comments
These designs are great! Will they all be printed on a black base, or will there be some grey/tan options? I love me some nerdy t-shirts, but “black” and “clothes you wear in the sun” never really mixed well for me.
I was just about to ask the same thing.
A lot of the more subtle designs without a great deal of contrast, like the Questioning Hall shirt in particular, (which I love, will get lost on a fully black background.
Sorry, the colors we’ve shown in the mock-ups are the only ones we’re offering.
We occasionally try different color shirts. But they just don’t sell very well. We end up losing money on them….
I also would like tshirts other than black. teal for the road to tinue and light pastel green for the questioning hall would be much better than black. I never buy anything black, it’s a depressing color.
I love the golden screw onesie! That is beautiful!
With the Amyr tshirt, could it be a long sleeve shirt with little stylised flames on the sleeves? That’d be pretty awesome.
Also, I really want a name of the wind tattoo. The last blog has got me dreaming.
1. Questioning Hall
2. Edema Ruh
(psst – there’s voting buttons in the post.)
(Points to what they said.)
But I’m right with you on the votes!
I will not be buying a onesie, (so I didn’t vote for any) but I just wanted to say I *love* the golden screw one. It made me laugh. Big props to all the artists! All the designs are great. I look forward to buying a t-shirt and hope my favorite will be available.
I was thinking: I need to find someone, and have a baby, so we can vote for that golden screw onesie. But voting will be closed before 9 months.
If you’re sure you’re going to procreate at some point, you could buy it for your layette. Or maybe you have friends or family who are about to become parents?
I hear you. It’s my favorite. Though it doesn’t look like it’s going to win….
I mean, you are the boss. There could be an executive decision to make two onesies instead of one…
Also curious if there will be other color shirts before I vote. I generally don’t buy black t-shirts anymore.
he answered that a few comments up. Just the colors you see in the mock ups
Is the “Arliden’s Troupe” graphic specifically designed to look like a target? Cuz that’s co-o-o-o-ld.
I believe it is w wagon wheel.
Am I the only one who can no longer see the larger image of this design? Where’d it go?
I would definitely rock the Cthaeh, or the name of the wind…If I could of vote for 3rd I would have picked the Edema Ruh!
Going from left to right 1-2-3, these are my humble opinions about fav top 3
3 (hows the road) : Love the design and the colours but the sentence doesn’t immediately create an image for me. Would love it if it was a different one maybe? Something like “You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.” hits home more
4 (cthaeh) : Love the design, not sure about colour. Maybe darker blue? maybe darker another colour (green to represent the forest we are in? Or Dark black night and a bonefire in the middle that gives light to this picture? Every travelers best friend is fire and every storytellers best friend is the group that gathers at fire right?)
5 (name of the wind) : Love almost everything but i feel like it is missing the Talent Pipe somewhere. It is rather cool as is though, i just WANT to see the pipe i guess :D
Thanks for the unsolicited art direction? I guess?
I thought they were under design and this was like “so what u guys think?”. My misunderstanding, i guess i hastily gave my opinion without reading clearly:)
I voted for ‘The road to Tinue and the Edema Ruh one.
My reasoning is that I only buy shirts which look awesome in a conventional sense, but are also easily recognizable by fellow fans; things like nice quotes (the Tinue one) or cool factions and/or groups (the Ruh one) For me it needs to be wearable for different occasions, I don’t like those bland shirts that just scream ‘I am a massive nerd’ I want it to be nuanced. -I am a closet nerd, bite me.-
You make a great point here, and I agree with you on Tinue, it’s a quote that is recognizable and it makes me happy so I’ll be sad since it doesn’t look like it will win.
I even decided to vote for Questioning Hall over Cthae because I thought about describing it to someone who isn’t familiar with the books. I’d much rather describe something fun and quirky over something kind of terrifying. But both are beautiful!
1) Questioning Hall
2) How’s the Road to Tinue?
Any thoughts on what the demand would have to be to make the top 2? Seems like getting 1600 votes in just a few hours means the demand is going to be pretty high…
All y’all need to be voting for the tees I like, yo! Also, the Cthaeh tee winning right now smells like foul play. Foul fairy play.
I do not have children or plans to have children, but if you make that golden screw onezie I will buy it anyway. I’ll put it on a baby goat instead.
Why oh why can’t adults have the moon one? I am considering buying the moon one and cutting out the design and sewing it onto my own shirt. Is that nuts? I just love it so much!
I actually did that with a kid’s tee to make myself a Perry the Platypus hoodie!
If you need an Auri shirt (well…everyone needs an Auri shirt), we have a similar design available already (https://thetinkerspacks.com/products/unlock-shirt?variant=7033526979). That would also make a cool design for the back of a hoodie….hmmm….
Voted for the “Questioning Hall” one! Is there any way that it could be in the same position as the “Amyr” logo? I typically don’t wear shirts with large graphics, but would definitely buy one if it was an accent logo on the black shirt (or tank top!).
Seconded!
Agreed
I want the Edema Ruh one so bad it hurts! <3
Will the shirts be available in women’s cuts? I’ve had poor luck with “unisex” cuts in the past.
I second the women’s sizes. I almost considered not voting as I would definitely buy a women’s cut shirt in the Ctheah but I already have too many il fitting men’s shirts that while awesome, don’t fit well so I rarely wear them.
PS. If you had a women’s shirt with Fela on it I would already be sending you money!
I would buy a shirt regardless of cut because, come on, it’s Name of the Wind! But I’ve gotten shirts both online and in-store that are unisex and they fit weird, or I’ve bought shirts online that claim to be women’s cut but are clunky and bulky and actually men’s; I end up not wearing them. Here’s to hoping the Edema Ruh wins, but I wouldn’t mind the Questioning Hall one, either…
One family.
And here’s to hoping some posters are in the works. :)
We have women’s cuts! No worries there, they’re great shirts too :)
Thank you! :) And we can purchase them with credit cards? Sorry for all the questions, I just don’t want to get my hopes up if I can’t get one!
You can! Both the fundraiser and The Tinker’s Packs take credit cards.
I desperately want the golden screw onesie. My four year old really liked that mini-story when I read it to him (and remembered and asked questions later), and we’re expecting a sibling… so much so I created a WordPress account to ask:
Is there any chance it’ll get made if it comes in 2nd?
Who is the artist of The Name of the Wind shirt? That’s phenomenal work.
I love so many of these designs (god, those onesies are precious), but I am curious — why only vote on 7 t-shirt designs and also reuse two that were finalists in a previous year but got outvoted? Were there not as many submissions this year?
This is kind of crazy because I was brainstorming ideas back when you announced this and also came up with the idea “Straight Outta Tarbean”. It made me chuckle but I didn’t know if it would really work as the best T-shirt for this. Was really odd to click here and see it! Great designs all around though. I think the “You have died of Chandrian” from last year is still my favorite though.
Wanna here something else crazy? I designed BOTH “You have died of Chandrian” AND “Straight Outta Tarbean”— Haha. You must be my twin in taste. ;)
I actually had a similar thought on “Straight Outta Tarbean” not really being the best choice- I figured the more artistic designs would fare better, but I’ve learned to trust ideas that make me chuckle when I think of them- Oh well. Maybe next year.
All of my best ideas are either huge successes or huge failures. They’re sides of the same coin in my opinion….
Checked two boxes for shirts. Got:
Invalid Answer to Poll ID #6
Hopefully that means something helpful
Me too. It seems, that something inside broken and now you can actually select only one box.
Same here. I could only vote on one. Questioning hall was my #1 pick. My #2 would have been “How’s the Road to Tinue?”
Thanks for bringing this up you guys. I’m not sure what broke, but I made a few adjustments, so hopefully it works now!
Hi, Amanda. Unfortunately, the same issue is still happening. I was only able to vote on one shirt.
Okay, it should be resolved now. If you can, go through and vote on the second shirt you wanted!
Questioning Hall idea is really good!
But this thick orange circle around the picture… It is just a border, but it is too heavy, too bright, gets too much attention. Whole picture looks like a big round stamp.
Without it I will definitely prefer this one.
– It is from your book, and it is obvious enough for reader (unlike Cthaeh one — beautiful picture, but almost without connection)
– but it is not so obvious as BIG BOOK TITLE on my chest (obvious is not bad, I just prefer a little more subtle things)
– it has some meaning even for people, who have not read your book yet (and yes, there are still a lot of them, poor souls).
But with this orange circle… I choose Amyr and Edema Ruh.
Please consider redesign Questioning Hall if it is still possible.
And anyway, for me these designs, all of them, are much better then previous. Much much better. It looks that if you choose to make any three of them, I will buy at least one.
Hiiiii,
Just wondering whether your ever going to make any hoodies, that would be absolutely AWESOME.
We have 2 different hoodies in our store, one zip-up and one pull-over! You can find them both over here at The Tinker’s Packs :)
Will the onesie design also be available in Youth T-shirt sizes? (Please) My six year old needs some KKC merch.
Don`t know why I was drawing and sending my art. In voting a lot designs, that was in previous year.
Hello, I just tried to vote and recieved this error code: Invalid Answer to Poll ID #8
I had the same issue. I re-loaded and was able to vote for just one, so I’m frustrated that only one of my two shirts got voted for. No one else has commented about this prior to today so I’m wondering if it’s a recent change in coding, allowing only one shirt to be voted for at a time?
I think that you have to vote for both designs at the same time in order to get your two votes counted. Marking one, clicking “vote” and then try to vote for the other will return the error code
Ignacio nailed it, if that’s what folks are doing. Ping me an email at blog (at) patrothfuss.com and I can help you out fixing your specific issues, and I’ll keep tending to the poll as a whole and see what happens…
No, I got the above error message when I selected two shirts. I then selected only one, voted, and it shows the results. I am unable to select another to vote.
I got an error code when voting for two, so I did the one, I’d rather have one vote than none.
Good to know.
Both of you can email me at blog (@) patrothfuss.com and I can manually add your votes to your second selection while I try to troubleshoot this thing.
Please, please, can we see the other drawings you didnt’ select for the vote ? I am very curious to see all the fanarts made for this art contest ! :-)
My vote : I like Taborlin the cute, even if it is mostly only text. I could choose Dream big, but the drawing is not enough cute according to me (friendly appologies for the artist, just my opinion/taste ! ).
For adults, no vote. Too much text/logo t-shirts and no crush on. Maybe I was expecting more drawings. The only which one which is really an drawing one is cthaeh and i don’t straightaway think at the name of the wind or Kvothe when i saw it…
Maybe next year ! But this art contest was really a great great idea, please do it again !
And show us all the drawings, please. It would be great to see all the fanart born from these books ! :-)
Have you ever checked DeviantArt groups? There are plenty of fan art there for you to delight yourself.
If you haven’t, I’ll drop you a link: http://thekingkillersallys.deviantart.com/gallery/36252657/Featured
There’s a lot of good stuff in there =)
And of course, I would love to see the other submissions as well
Thank you very much for this link ! :D