Ready...fight!

This week's contest had higher stakes than usual - the winning design would get picked up by Betabrand and used in producing pants (or some other product, such as socks). Betabrand is the company that brought us cordarounds and meat feet, along with many other interesting experiments in unexpected textiles on everyday clothes. In addition, the design was to be inspired by an 8-bit style. I used this gallery of fighting game backgrounds as a mood board - so atmospheric!

I figured they wouldn't actually want something that was too crazy-bright of a novelty print. I made a stone lattice with a starry sky visible behind, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out.



This came in 138 out of 242 with 55 votes. In terms of entries I might conceivably wear on real pants (as opposed to something like pajama pants, on which I would be more willing to wear a zippier print), my favorite by far was the starfighter pinstripe, but I could also imagine these cuboids. In fact, the pinstripe was the one that won the whole thing! Betabrand got to pick from the top ten (so it was partly votes and partly selection that won the day). I'm actually a little disappointed they picked one so subdued - I'm pretty sure it was the most subdued entry in the whole thing. But, it is a very clever and effective print that you could get away with as pants in some workplaces, and I'm going to be very tempted to buy whatever they end up making.

Not considering the possibility of garments, my favorite print was these cartoony birds (which came in fifth), followed by the collage of consoles and yearbook photos. And as for entries that didn't take the 8-bit theme as literally, I really liked this colorful stripe and 3-D floral.