Threadless Plant Life

It's time for a quick design challenge! 

A couple of times a year you will be presented with a design challenge--one that must be completed within the class period it is assigned. 

Occasionally, the challenges will come from the Threadless web site. This one does. The beauty of a Threadless challenge is, that if you come up with something really cool, you can enter it into the actual Threadless challenge and potentially sell your work.

The rules are simple. Within the time allowed, create the most visually arresting, conceptually stirring piece of digital art that you can. The subject is predetermined--in this case the subject is "Plant Life"--and it is open to a vast array of interpretations, as you will see in a minute.

For this challenge, the file size will be 11" x 17" (or 17" x 11") and the resolution 300 ppi. Pay attention to those parameters--most competitions will automatically disqualify you if you do not meet the criterium.

This link takes you to the challenge:

https://www.threadless.com/plant-life/

This link takes you to the 115 entries that have already been submitted to the competition (that ends November 30th). Scroll through these to get a sense of what other digital artists have done, but don't linger--the clock is ticking:

https://www.threadless.com/plant-life/designs

For extra credit 

If you are quickly inspired, focused, adroit and able to finalize an awesome design with time remaining, you can download a silhouette to apply your design to.  Follow the steps below the link for instructions on how to proceed.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ny9gbMA5lvIbyaRwFJ3mCAfBAaGFoHLr

Step 1) Choose an item to apply your design to. Open each folder to see the options within.

Step 2) Download the silhouette .png of the item you've selected and open it in Photoshop. For this example, I've chosen the hoody silhouette in the Apparel folder.

Step 3)  Determine what color you want your item to be and go Edit -----> Fill. In the dialogue box that opens select Color for Contents, Overlay for Mode and adjust the transparency to your liking. 

Your item should appear similar to the image below. You can then apply your design to the item and post the final image to your Blog.

If you go so far as applying your design to one of the Threadless silhouettes, you might as well submit it to the actual challenge and get some feedback on your work. More on submitting for critique here:

https://www.threadless.com/critique/