It is my great pleasure to announce the Free People Design-A-Bag Contest!
Using the colors green & blue, create a design that will be screen-printed on our medium cloth bags, used at all Free People stores and trade shows!
Aside from having their design used, the winner will receive a $200 gift card that may be used at any Free People store or online, as well as 10 cloth bags with your design on it for you and your friends!
A Few Guidelines:
-Use no more than 3 colors in your design, and try to stick to cool colors. Green and blue are what we are looking for most.
-The bags are made from sheer voile fabric in a natural color that will have the design screen-printed on it. Because of this, please keep in mind that it is difficult to have any colors that look water-colory or less saturated. It’s more of an all-or-nothing deal, where the color is there, or it isn’t.
-Please avoid things like landscapes or other things that wouldn’t look good upside down– the design needs to be versatile and look as good upside down as rightside up.
-Please don’t worry about putting the Free People logo or your name on the design. Our cloth bag team will add the Free People logo and a small “designed by Winner Person for Free People” to the winning design.
-The bags will be in use for Spring 2009, starting in January. Try and make your designs kind of Spring-esque!
-The ideal size for designs is 11inches by 16inches. If you are turning in your entry by email, make sure it is scanned at 200 dpi, or a higher resolution.
-All e-mail entries must be received by Friday June 27th, 2008 and all regular mail entries must be postmarked by Friday June 27th, 2008 and received by Friday July 5th, 2008.
-Be sure to include your name, address, and phone number with your entry! One entry per person, please!
Email your entries to:
freepeoplecontest@gmail.com
Mail your entries to:
ATTN: Pruitt Shutt
5000 South Broad Street Bldg#15
Philadelphia, PA 19112
A friendly reminder: Regardless of which way you enter the contest, be sure to read the Official Rules, as by entering the contest you will be deemed to have agreed to be bound by them.
Below, find a couple pictures of past bags for inspiration!
Best of luck to all that choose to enter!
xo
Free People Design-A-Bag Contest!
June 11th, 2008 / Posted by fpgirl / Permalink1 people like this post.
You said things should look as good right side up as upside down so no landscapes but in the past bags there is a landscape…?
That aside this sounds cool. I love the pink bag with the whimsical horse.
I may have missed this when reading through, but is it limited to one submission per contestant? Fun contest (:
These are really good questions! I apologize for not addressing them in the original post!
Ana, I should have thought of a better example than a landscape for my description of how the design should look good up or down. There was a landscape in the past bags but I think that is something we have tried to avoid in more recent bags. I do think though, that things like houses or ponds and such could work in a design, maybe if they were splayed around the page in a number of directions or in a way like the pink bag with the horse… Actually, you guys can show me! :)
Melissa, yes it is one submission per person.
Thank you so much for your questions! If you have or anyone else has any more questions, please, please feel free to post them here!
xo
p
HI! :),
I would like to know, i’m a drawer who mostly does illustrations, i’ve never made a bag before but I really want to participate in this contest. Do you need the final submission to be the actual bag with the design or just the design with sketches/drawings of the final idea?
Also one more thing wouldn’t the winner also recieve a percentage of the money if the bags sell as it’s the winner’s design that’s being put on these bags?
Thank you! :)
Jocy
Is there a certain type of medium we should use? Paper and pen, etc… or computer programs, or fabric and paint, perhaps to send into you?
This sounds like so much fun!!! I can’t wait to get started!
Hi Jocy!
Re: profits. We actually do not sell these bags. We give them away at our stores as shopping bags-instead of using paper or plastic bags. :)
Hi Jocy! Thanks for your questions!
The final submission should not be a bag or anything, just a 2-d design that would either be on an 11 by 16 sheet of paper in the mail, or over email, a file that would be about the equivalent size of an 11 by 16 paper, scanned at 200 dpi or higher quality. I’m afraid the make of the bag – as in the shape, size, cut, etc… – is not something that can be changed as we have a format and size that we always use. What you will be designing is literally the screen print on the material that the bag is made of.
Also, to Chelsea, I would say most any 2-d medium is fine, though it is limited to being on paper, so fabric and paint wouldn’t be good. But paper and paint would be fine! Or paper and pen, paper and markers, photoshop, paint, etc etc etc… :)
Finally, as Heatha correctly pointed out, we do not make any profit from these bags. These bags are the bags we use to hold clothing that the shopper has purchased.
But, just FYI, here is some legal jargon from the Official Rules : “Submitter understands and acknowledges that Submitter will not be paid for or receive any form of compensation for her/his design submission (except as is stated in “Rule 7:Prize” herein) in exchange for granting Sponsor these rights.” (The rights referenced are the rights to ownership of the design.)
Hope this helps! I am so excited to see all the cool designs you guys will submit!
And again, please, please feel free to ask any other questions you might have! I will do my best to answer them quickly! Thanks!
Xo
p
love this!!
also, if you can, try to come by my Fly event next week at a super cute boutique in South Philly. http://flygirls.typepad.com/fly/2008/06/fly.html
This is too cool!!! I will brainstorm my heart out! Thank you Pruitt, and free people!
I’ve got another question to throw into the fray: Is adding the actual words ‘Free People’ to the bag out of the question? Or other words, for that matter, just as long as they’re obvious from any direction what they say and as long as they relate to the actual graphic? I’d like to add my own hand drawn type to my design but wanted to check in before I took off with my idea…
Any help would be righteous :)
Hey Sam!
I wanted to be sure people knew that the Free People logo itself is not necessary for their design, but I don’t see why you couldn’t put the words ‘free people’ or any other words in the design. What you are describing sounds totally appropriate and cool.
Basically any words that are appropriate, either to the brand or to your design, and like you say, are pretty obvious from any direction, would be fine.
It sounds to me like you have the right idea!
Let me know if i can help you in any other way, and as always, please, everyone feel free to post any other questions!
I look forward to seeing your entry!
xo
p
I’m really psyched about this project!! I was wondering if there is any sort of theme or is it “anything goes”? From what I read, I know you’d like an all-over print for spring in cool colors…. Is an Illustrator file an acceptable form of submission? Thanks for the fun opportunity! : )
Hello Aileen! I am so glad you are pumped about the contest! We are too!
An Illustrator file is absolutely acceptable! Do save it as a .jpeg as well though, just in case, and for ease of sending, etc…
As for a theme- not really! Sounds like you had about the right idea – springy is good, and greens or blues are pretty key, and of course a Free People-y feel! But other than that, it’s pretty open.
Best of luck in the contest!
Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have!
xo
p
at the end of the contest, will we get our original designs back (if sent by mail)?
How awesome of you to offer this! I will definitely work something up!!! All the best to you!
Hey Tiffany!
My first thought in regards to your question about if you will get your original designs back is that no, you probably won’t. But, I want to look into it, and see if it might be possible to get them back to you, so let me ask around at work on Monday and see what people say.
I think a more likely thing would be that we would, after the winner is announced, put all the entries up on a flickr account for everyone to see, and thereby you could possibly get your design back, as well as see everyone’s awesome entries.
More as I get it.
And please, all feel free to ask more questions as you have them!
xoxo
p
hi,
i love this contest! what a sweet idea.
i know the theme is greens and blues, but is it okay to have a very small amount of one other color somewhere in the design? i’m just thinking of a little pink as an accent and i was wondering if that was acceptable.
thanks!
-emily
Hey Emily!
Thanks for your question! I’m so glad you like the contest! I have been so pumped about it. :)
One other color in the design is totally fine!
Just so long as you don’t have more than three colors in the design.
But yeah that sounds great!
Best of Luck!
And please feel free to post any other questions!
xo
p
Hey!
I have a similar question to emily’s but…
Would our chances be totally squashed if we did not use say green…?
I have an inspiration that does not really include alot of green
be honest though becuase i could keep brainstorming
this contest sounds amazing
i love you!
xoxo
Hey Caroline!
Thanks for your question.
I would say that your chances would not be totally squashed if you didn’t use green, but they would be totally squashed if you didn’t use cool colors. For example, if you don’t want to use green but used blue or purple or black etc, that would be fine. I hope this helps! Good luck, and I’m so happy you are pumped about the contest!
Any other questions, keep ‘em coming!
xoxo
p
Thanks for an awesome contest! I’m so excited about it! I just had one question, does the actual design have to be 11 x 16 or can it be like one design repeated multiple times that fills up an 11 x 16 space? I hope I explained that okay. Thank You!
Hello Caroline! You explained that just fine! :)
It can be a design repeated that fills up an 11×16 space, that would be totally okay!
Thanks for your question!
If anyone has any more questions, please feel free to post them!
xoxo
p
Hi! I have a question…you said three maximum colors, but can we use different shades of each of those colors? (i.e., dark green and light green, along with shades of two other colors). And also…should we send in the original design, or a copy (you said something about scanning in the guidelines…). Thanks!
Hi,
This idea is sooo awesome and I already have half of my design drawn, but I was wondering if by ‘three colors’ if I could use a few different shades of green and have that count as ‘one color’ (green) or if by using 4 shades of green that would count as four colors? I hope this is easy to understand. I just don’t want to end up using five different blues, 3 greens, and one purple and having that count as using nine colors instead of three.
Thanks!!
Hi Carly and Halie!
You guys basically had the same question so I will answer you both at once! :)
Four different shades of green would be four different colors. So yes, you can use different shades of the same color, but unfortunately, for the purposes of this contest they would count as different colors. The reason for this technicality and rule is because of the price of printing colors. When printing, different shades of green are different colors, and save for the most recent bag, we have tried to use as few colors as possible for our bags, which is why we have a three color limit. I hope this helps and doesn’t make too much trouble for your design!
Also, Halie, you can send in the original design or scan a copy, whichever suits you. The scanning guidlines are for those people who are emailing their design and are scanning it from an original not done on the computer. Or, if they did their design on the computer, we want them to know the resolution necessary. Obviously, the scanning guidelines don’t matter if you are sending in your entry via snail mail.
I hope this info helps you guys out!
Please do post any other questions you might have!
Good luck in the contest!
xo
p