With new designs coming all the time, I thought it’d be interesting to check out where a lot of these shirts come from. Before you get pictures of factories and machines in your head stamping out thousands of tees, it helps to remember that every shirt starts with an idea, with a person. There’s a piece of human emotion and expression behind each design, much like a song or a work of art.

I don’t think there’s a shirt company out there that emphasizes this more than Design by Hümans. At DBH, the community is king and the designs are user-submitted. The community decides what becomes a shirt and what doesn’t. Let’s take a look behind the scenes.

The Basics
Design by Humans is a t-shirt company whose designs are submitted and determined by the user community. It is a continuous t-shirt competition, where designers constantly submit new artwork to the site. New designs are available for voting for a variable period, as short as 7 days and as long as 90. Designs that show favorably are picked, and from that point it’s 3 to 8 weeks before they become t-shirts and are available to the public.

“We feel like our compensation structure, in particular our rock-star awards are an amazing incentive for the artists. We feel it’s really important that the artists share in the success of their designs.”

A submitted design is selected as Shirt of the Day every weekday. The artist receives $750 ($500 cash, $250 credit) and their shirt is chosen for print. In a given week there are 5 Shirt of the Day winners. Of those, one is chosen as Shirt of the Week for an additional $1,000. At the end of the month, the 4 Shirt of the Week winners compete to become Shirt of the Month, garnering the winning artist an additional $1,750 ($1500 cash, $250 credit).

DBH’s Rock Star Awards are another really cool incentive for artists. Successful designs can earn additional cash awards over the life of the shirt for the artist. When 1,000 tees of a particular design have sold the artist is entitled to an addtional $500, for example. There are 5 tiers, up to $5,000 for 10,000 shirts sold. This rewards timeless and universally appealing designs and encourages artists to really put their most inventive foot forward.

The Artwork
The artists are as varied as you can imagine, with artwork spanning from the abstract to the humorous. The style of shirts was always intended to be more artistic and abstract though, which certainly sets them apart from other t-shirt competitions I’ve seen. There’s nothing wrong with catering to all designs, but DBH serves a particular niché, a more sophisticated artist and consumer, and they serve it well.

Inside the Company
Just twelve people make up Orange County-based Design By Humans, a t-shirt company that has grown at a phenomenal rate since their launch in July of last year. They’re certainly keeping busy, with over 21,000 members in their community now. For reference, I joined in early January and I’m #11,714. They cite the tremendous growth as the biggest challenge they’ve faced since inception. DBH has exceeded every sales and community goal they’ve set for themselves, and continues to grow incredibly quickly.

“I think with any project you expect it to be successful,
but even we didn’t expect things to go so well so soon.”

Jason and Matt Gutierrez started DBH after spending 6 years in the lifestyle apparel industry in Orange County, CA. In this business, the right contacts and the right experience can make the difference between falling flat on your face and jumping to the front of the pack. Fortunately for DBH, they’ve been able to apply the expertise they’ve attained, and it shows.

The Shirts
DBH has leveraged some of their unique abilities to bring to life some of the most imaginitive designs you’ll find on a shirt. Their tees are all 100% combed ring spun premium cotton, and they’ve been able to take advantage of the artist’s imagination by offering specialty inks applied by experienced screenprinters.

“Our print technique and the flexibility with placement and with the size of the design has allowed the artist to be more creative. We also felt strongly that we wanted to focus on the art and try not to repeat what someone else was already doing.”

“We have access to pretty much every type of ink available and what we use depends on the design. We are careful to watch what is going on in the industry and make sure we are always offering the new[est] inks and techniques.”

The designs are true to the artist’s imagination though. With all kinds of effects, foils, suede, etc. it would be easy to get carried away and extend a shirt beyond the original artist’s vision.

“Once a design is chosen we work closely with the artist as we prepare for the shirt to be printed. We do our best to communicate with the artist on the development process and very rarely do we have to make a decision without the artist’s input. We try to have the end product be as close to what the artist envisioned as possible.”

Going Forward
Design by Humans is particuarly excited about their Fabric Edition tee, set to launch soon. It is a super soft, slim fit shirt available in both male and female varieties. The design competition for Fabric Edition will break rank from the contest format we’re used to seeing at DBH.

They’ve also recently launched a “Design For” contest, where artists submit design concepts for a specific musical artist. The first competition, featuring the UK’s Temposhark is just wrapping up. Prizes are given to the top ten designs, and the grand prize winner’s tee will be available to concert-goers throughout the musican artist’s upcoming tour.

Final Thoughts
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this look inside Design By Humans. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for spending a few minutes of your day with me here. If you’ve got suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Many thanks to Jed Seigle, the Gutierrez Brothers and the rest of the team at DBH for their help with this article, keep up the good work!