Fantastic Blognanza!

Maybe you’ve heard of this little t-shirt company called Threadless. They have this crazy idea where the users submit and vote on designs, and then they go ahead and print the most popular designs. Will it ever catch on? Who knows!

I’m just joshin’. I suspect everyone reading this blog is already deeply familiar with Threadless, and many of you probably already know that they’ve just opened a real-life store in downtown Chicago. However, unless you currently reside in the Chicagoland area, you probably have not visited the store yourself. Never fear! We Bonanziers are not only intensely devoted to our readers, but conveniently, we also hail from just north of Chicago. And so, without further ado, I give you: the Threadless store!

Throughout this post you can click on any image for a larger picture.
This inconspicuous storefront conceals many shirtish delights. Actually, it’s so inconspicuous that I drove right by the place on my first pass down the street looking for it. I’m assuming that they’ll eventually install a sign to help passers-by identify the store.

You might be wondering about all that stuff you see in the window. Here’s a closer pic:

Sorry about the flash. Also, sorry about my face.
Yep—that’s my ugly mug, right there in the middle! How’d that disaster happen, you ask? Well, inside the store you’re able to use a computer to take a picture of your face. That picture subsequently gets displayed on one of the monitors in the storefront window. It’s all a part of Threadless’s community of participation.

Inside the store!
The store is by no means enormous, but what it lacks in size, it makes up in niftiness. Around two-dozen of Threadless’s most recent designs and reprints are up for sale. Each design has its own stack of shelves, topped off by a monitor that cycles through a series of product photos and has a crawl of comments from the website.

The shelf for Roadside Picnic.
Upstairs, there was an unfinished gallery area that the staffers said would be opening soon. Here, I was told, they plan to install a cluster of desks and workstations for the purpose of holding Digital Bootcamp sessions. It seems as though a handful of lucky Chicagoans will get the opportunity to learn graphic design right in the Threadless store!

Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a “gallery” without pieces of art to hang up there. Fortunately, the space lives up to its designation, and I’ve got the pictures to prove it:

Shirt design as Art.
Appropriately enough, all these wonderful paintings are amalgams of Threadless designs that won the weekly competitions. Impressively, Threadless plans on creating three of these paintings every week, and of course, they’ll be based on that week’s newly-printed designs. Now you might ask yourself, But Greg, how on earth will they find enough room to display all those weeks worth of art?!¹ The answer: they won’t! Instead, they’re going to find a way to sell, auction, or give away these paintings to the community. Rest reassured, any and all proceeds from such sales will go to charity (which one, specifically, remains undecided).

Behind the counter: an impressive tower of shirts and hoodies.
What about my own personal experience at the store? Well, I didn’t hang around too long, but I did enjoy myself. The store is cozy, bright, and modern (my pictures don’t do it justice, as it was raining outside and I had crummy natural lighting). All the workers were friendly and helpful. The patronage were exactly the sort of people you’d expect: college-aged and twentysomething hipster-types—Threadless junkies who were pleased as punch to actually be standing in a real-life Threadless shop. I met one girl who seemed especially thrilled to be there, and she was totally psyched after I gave her the two Grand Opening party tickets that came free with my purchase (I’m leaving for school the day of the concert, so I didn’t want the tickets to go to waste).

While I was there, I nabbed one of their newest designs, Deus Ex Machina, which is easily one of my favorite Threadless designs of the past few months. The print is beautiful, and it came in this really snazzy bag:

A bag! What thrill! What excitement!
Here, I’ll help you out with the blurry, pixelated text at the bottom of that photo: “We’re striving to reduce packaging waste by providing reusable bags for our customers. Bring this bag with you each time and receive $1 off each non-sale garment you purchase!”

I’d definitely recommend stopping by if you live in the area, or are visiting the Windy City for a few days. I’m also very curious to see how the upstairs gallery will look when it’s completed, and how the design classes turn out; I’ll have to drop by the next time I’m home, and maybe even sign up for a class myself.

Here’s wishing Threadless the best of luck in this new venture! (Though they’ll probably do just fine without it

¹ And yes, I know the interrobang was included in your thoughts. Don’t deny it.