Sharing Your Big Ideas
Once you've submitted your amazing idea it will be reviewed by one or more of the Team BS knuckleheads. Due to the volume of submissions received we regret that we cannot provide feedback on every idea submission but if we like your idea, you will be contacted by pit radio (tune to channel 46) or failing that, email.
YOU LIKE MY IDEA! Uh, NOW WHAT?
Once we've responded that we like your idea, we'll share it with either our internal art team or select members of the artist community that we work with. There will likely be some back and forth with the artist as we work to develop the idea into something shirt-worthy. The resulting design may or may not look like what you suggested in your idea submission -- assuming you even included a visual, as it is not a requirement by any means -- but we'll use your idea as the creative spark in the design process. The following is one example of what that process might look like.
EXAMPLE: THE LIFE OF AN IDEA CONTEST SUBMISSION
During the Apex 240 Hours of Everything Idea Contest in early 2014 we asked for ideas to develop a new "Apex Everything" design. We were overwhelmed with awesome responses! One in particular took a unique perspective and was ultimately awarded as the winner by the BS judging panel. (Congrats, Matt!) Why? The judges liked how it showed how one might adopt the Apex Everything credo into a daily routine. Any drive could be fun with the right attitude, even your daily commute. It was selected even though the judges knew that the accompanying visual could not be used as is. But the story behind it and the passion it represented was there. That's what we want to see in an idea submission.
FROM IDEA TO SHIRT
The art team took the idea and went through a number of permutations of a design based on this idea. Some were more literal interpretations of the idea and provided visual than others.
While perhaps successful as a single panel visual or cartoon, this was deemed to be too busy to work on a shirt. Others alternative treatments of the same theme were explored and rejected for similar reasons.
Perhaps it was the orientation that was the problem? Nope.
Could the iconography of a map search be reduced to just a few location pins? Perhaps but this was not a good implementation of that idea.
But there was something here. Could one possibly depict the action of mapping out your intended route with the goal of enjoying the drive, simply (safely) apexing every corner on the way to work? What if we looked a few seconds earlier in the mapping process? Now we are getting somewhere. This variant was selected for final refinement because it depicted the story well, used simple and hopefully relatable iconography, plus who doesn't like 8-bit?
A few tweaks for color (We've done too many silver shirts recently! Don't make it the same color as the last Apex Everything shirt in case a fan already has that one! Etc), alignment and scaling and the design for "Route Options" was made ready to offer for sale.
Not sure where your design fits in or have more questions? Check out our Artist FAQ or Contact Us.
