Question: Is there a company that combines the crowdsourcing of Threadless, customisation of Spreadshirt, and the artist rewarding attitude of Oddica?

Answer: No, but soon there will be, when when innerTee finally unleashes itself upon the public.

I’ve been looking forward to writing about innerTee (IT) for a while, mostly because they’ve been in development for a rather long time, but also because I think they’ve got a really promising model that could prove to be very popular with both designers and consumers.

The preview is pretty big (and laden with many pics) so please click through to read the rest.

I’m going to break IT down to three simple steps:

1. Users upload their artwork to the website

2. Then they mix artwork (your own or from the catalogue), tee colours and styles, to design their own tee

3. These tee’s can then be saved and shared with the community

On the face of it, you could say that IT is a bit of a Spreadshirt clone, but that’s only because I haven’t told you about some other features and details.

• Artists who upload their images (known as ‘elements’) put a value on the use of their image, and every time that image is used in a purchased t-shirt design, the artist receives 100% of the price of the element.
• IT charge a base unit price for their t-shirts, which presumably includes the tee stock, printing costs and all the other costs associated with running a business. The cost of each element is then added on top of the baseline price. During my testing there was a maximum of 3 elements per side but this is going to be removed, to allow people to be more creative.
• Users browse through uploaded elements and then add them to their favourites list, these favourites can then be used when mixing a design in conjunction with elements recommended by IT. This ensures that there aren’t too many elements to load into the mixing tool.
• There is also more traditional shop created from tee designs that have been shared by site users (though sharing a design is not compulsory).
• Unlike Cafepress and Spreadshirt (who use digital transfers and cad-cut materials, though I do rate Spreadshirt), every tee is screenprinted, ensuring that each product is of the highest quality.

The execution of the site is very slick (plently of web2.0 rounded corners and pastel gradients), and in the main everything worked. So it isn’t just the theory behind it that I like.

That said, I did have some concerns with how IT would grow. I wondered what would happen when there was a large user-base constantly submitting elements, but this was because I was unaware of changes that were afoot at IT HQ, the submission process is going to become much more selective (they’re getting together with their favourite artists) to ensure high quality.

I would like to see categories and tagging added to these sections of the site, and an expansion upon the ‘popular artwork’ feature on the front page, perhaps with ratings for elements and tee designs. This would ensure that it would be easier to create better tees, and find better tees that had been pre-mixed. I’ve spoken to the guys at IT and they are actually working towards implementing these kind of features, which is great, since it’s what I presume most people would have wanted if they looked at the beta version.

Overall, I’m very impressed with InnerTee and they show a lot of promise for the future, so sign up for their newsletter to find out when they open for business.

If you’ve found my explanation all a bit confusing, I’m pretty sure all the pictures will clear things up for you. Click on each image to see it in it’s full glory..

Frontpage

The mixing tool in action

A sample artwork submission

Browsing submitted artwork

Artwork submission screen

Browsing around the shop (that’s my submission top right!)

Find out what innerTee is all about