Hello emptees!
I just wanted to share the news that Desired Hearts is now up and running!
We ran in to a few bugs because we built everything from scratch using Merb, a Ruby-based platform. However, we went this route so we could contribute to the open source community. We’re all about giving, whether it’s for the open source movement or to charity. From here on out, we plan to add or better features every two weeks. Expect international shipping, a better community section, and a few other things very soon. Other features will be announced on our blog.
Now for the big news ...
We’ve thought a lot about the industry and the other sites that are doing this (Threadless and Design By Humans). We never want or plan to become those sites although the general idea is very similar. However, the core idea behind Desired Hearts is the contribution to charities while building an upscale, trusted brand. With that in mind, we’ve now decided to change our payment system.
So here’s our idea ...
We wanted to figure out a way to give as much to charity as possible while respecting the work of our peers and our community. We understand how bad it can suck to do "spec" work. So instead of battling Threadless and Design By Humans on how much we can pay the winners, we’ve gone a different direction. From now on, we’re going to give $5 to charity for every shirt purchased. That’s 20% of all proceeds going to the charity of your choosing. We want to do this because it’s what the site and the brand is all about: showing the love. So here’s where the issue comes in and the feedback is greatly appreciated .. we can’t afford to give that much to charity AND pay the designers. However, I feel like this is a good idea. I’ve been a designer now for 8 years. Although I’m not the best fashion designer, my strengths lie in branding, identity design, web and print design. But the best part of being a designer is the opportunity to change things .. I mean really change things. Spec works sucks .. it always has. I object to doing it ... unless it’s for a good cause. Desired Hearts is a good cause. It’s something we can rally behind in order to generate as much financial support for charities as possible.
What are your thoughts on this? Would you rally behind such a cause?
Thanks!
Creative Director & Co-Founder
Desired Hearts & Always Creative
39 Comments
Ameeee said about 1 month ago
I really like the concept behind this - I just wonder how you’d go getting quality submissions. I guess to sweeten the deal, if you had the artists name printed inside the shirt - and I guess if you had a wide reach and killer marketing - there might be something in it for the artist. (other than a nice feeling that you’re helping charity)
The site looks really nice by the way!
The voting bar is insanely good!
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
Well said my friend.
Jon Kruse said about 1 month ago
Looks good.
Contest sites are nothing new but you’ve managed to create something fresh with the charity angle.
Good luck.
ithew said about 1 month ago
I think this is a good idea, but then it might change the kind of submissions you get. Like I have my what’s for breakfast design up there for voting, and although i want the money to go to the american cancer society, now that I think about it...I don’t feel like the design I have up there is really an appropriate thing for the charity. I’d rather do something a little less graphic and gross
designisvoice said about 1 month ago
Ameeee,
Perfect idea. We want do everything we can to promote our designers. We will definitely add the name of the designer, the name of the shirt and a URL for the designer from here on out.
Also, we want the artists to see that they are benefiting from the marketing dollars we spend. Thanks for the kind comments!
_ _ _ _ _
Thanks Jon!
illdthedj said about 1 month ago
ill try to submit something in the near future
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
We understand where you are coming from, and don’t feel like it’s anything negative that you’ve done. We’ve just figured out which direction we want to take this ourselves. It’s a fine line between telling people what we want submitted and leaving it up to you guys to do. Like Roby said, we have no intention of being another Threadless or DBH...I don’t think the net needs another one. What we would like to do is have a community of able designers submitting work for something more than just a prize purse. And as a result, turn it into a higher end fashion label that cares.
Ameeee said about 1 month ago
I don’t know whether this be a good idea or not..but it might pay to contact a few of the designers you’d want to submit and that might get things kicking off for you. LIke you could have some shirts that you directly approved, skipping the voting process maybe?
Good luck!
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
yeah...that’s kinda how our launch line came about. we’re going to be commissioning designers in addition to using the voting process. sometimes there’s a designer you just really want to use ya know?
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
and just in case yall haven’t seen it check this out...
jublin said about 1 month ago
ah yes, i’ve been wanting to sub something over there for a while! Do you guys do simulated process printing? Was there a color limit, i don’t quite remember.
I think more money to charities is awesome and i think its a great way to separate you guys from the other sites. I’m trying to figure out the difference in what you guys are doing now. Before, there was a small cash prize and an amount of profit that went straight to charities per each shirt sold, right? And now there is no cash prize but more money going to charity?
It’s a good idea, but i think you definitely won’t be getting the amount of quality submissions that some of the other sites are getting because people are just gonna be plain greedy! haha. Hmm tricky indeed. I still have something i was working on for this site, so hopefully i can upload it pretty soon.
Jon Kruse said about 1 month ago
I think I saw that it was 8 color spot, CMYK, and all over prints with 2 colors.
jublin said about 1 month ago
ahh i see. thanks buddy.
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
yeah we can print 4-color or simulated process, all over(even though I think those are getting played out), specialty inks, and pretty much anything else your heart desires...haha pun intended!
Boycott Christian HC said about 1 month ago
Any plans on adding more charities?
If so, I’d like to see http://www.marchofdimes.com/ in there.
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
Yes. We plan on adding quite a few more charities as time goes by. We just wanted to start with a few for now.
steven said about 1 month ago
i’d do a commission for it no problem, but i wouldn’t submit to something i wasn’t in with a chance of being paid for… does that make sense?
designisvoice said about 1 month ago
Steven,
I know what you mean. That’s definitely something we’re going to run in to. We’ll continue to tweak our offerings in order to make as many people happy as possible.
designisvoice said about 1 month ago
haha .. We’re now rethinking the payment system. We want to help the designers out and get them some cash!
How would everyone feel if we had a slider in the uploading process that allowed you to choose how much you want from each shirt sold and how much you want to give to charity? Charity would automatically get $3 per shirt and the designer would get $2. However, the designer could choose to give more of the proceeds to charity and just give up some or all of their royalties.
Or ..
Would it just be better to get paid upfront? If so, what’s a reasonable amount? Note: we cannot compete with Design By Humans or Threadless. :)
So it’s either upfront cash or royalties it looks like.
Your feedback is greatly appreciate!
Visual Singularities said about 1 month ago
Great to see the site up again. One suggestion that’s been bugging me forever, please add some close ups of the shirts you have for sale. I’ve been dying to see "Monsters" in more detail. Or am I missing something?
As for the payment thing, I think an upfront payment with all the rest going to charity would work best. But either way it’s tough for people to complain about charity getting more of a cut since that’s the whole point of it.
designisvoice said about 1 month ago
Damn good point. We’ll get those photos added very soon.
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
Ok...we’ve figured it out!! We are still going to award the $500 cash prize AND donate $5 per shirt sold automatically to charity. Now, the designer has a choice to make; he/she can either keep all $500 (we know times are tough and designers gotta eat too), or he/she can choose to give all or part of that $500 to charity in addition to the $5 per shirt we are giving no matter what. It’s a lot simpler for everyone this way.
So if you are doing ok financially and you are feeling extra generous, you can feel good knowing that you were responsible for giving $500 plus $5 x (# of shirts sold). That’s going to be a pretty cool feeling. And for those of us who may not be able to afford to design for free, you will have a chance at $500 and still feel great about donating $5 per shirt to a good cause. And hopefully in the future when we have thousands of orders going out each day, we can offer much more to our designers and to the charities we support.
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
Sorry, I forgot to elaborate on how that selection would work. We are working on adding a slider feature so you can select, more precisely, what amount goes where. Should be fun to make:)
downrodeo said about 1 month ago
dude, that is sounding brilliant! I think that would be super fair to everyone involved.
ithew said about 1 month ago
I think this is a good idea!
But now that this is pretty much all charity oriented....I think i wan’t my breakfast design taken down and do something different and less gross...
can you make that happen matt?
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
sure
Coty said about 1 month ago
This is such a great idea, especially now how you have it set up to allow the designer to decide how much to give to charity.
jublin said about 1 month ago
sounds awesome. and i enjoyed reading through the thoughts and progress of how this would work
steven said about 1 month ago
agreed jubs, it’d be cool to see this take off
downrodeo said about 1 month ago
when would this be taking off exactly? I’m pretty sure a lot of people here would be waiting to know.
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
the site is up and running right now. you may run into some error pages, but for the most part it’s fully functional. we’ve built the whole thing from scratch on MERB, which will ultimately pay off ten fold. it’s just still kinda "buggy" until the site stablizes.
in regards to the slider function, that may take a few days to create and test, so in the meantime, if you submit something and you would like to donate all or part of your winnings to charity, just shoot us an email at info@desiredhearts.com telling us how much.
thanks.
downrodeo said about 1 month ago
thanks dude for the swift response. Much appreciated.
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
no problemo. thanks so much for your comments...all of you. this is the first project we’ve been involved with this much customer/user input and it really makes all the usual frustrations of a start-up all worth it. please keep the feedback coming, as it will only make the site that much better.
designisvoice said about 1 month ago
Glad everyone is digging our new focus. As Matt (DesiredHearts) said, keep the comments coming!
I believe we may have to randomly select someone that has replied and send them a free shirt. What do you think Matt? :)
downrodeo said about 1 month ago
woo... me me me...
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
i love giving free shit away...hmmm inny minny miny moe
Boycott Christian HC said about 1 month ago
I wanna get in on this, but every time I try, this dude in a black kimono pulls a karate move on me and tells me that I don’t want none of this, and that I should turn around. Hmmm...
DesiredHearts said about 1 month ago
So sorry...we pushed some changes the other day and when we did, it screwed all kinds of things up. What were you trying to do when it gave you the error message, and what version of what browser were you using?
Boycott Christian HC said about 1 month ago
I was trying to *cough cough* submit.
I’m gonna shoot you an e-mail!