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Chimpogo is an online creative community and ongoing t-shirt design competition.

The site allows members of the chimpogo community to upload designs and illustrations they’d like to see featuring on t-shirts. Members then score and blog about the uploaded designs.

Based in large part on the member’s feedback the judges pick a design each week to be printed as a T-shirt and the winning designer is awarded £500 to go with the joy of seeing their design become an actual t-shirt.

The site is very straightforward. From the homepage you can click through to the “Submit a Design” page or navigate to the shop where you can check out the entire range of Chimpogo T-shirts. Clicking on a design will take you to a “Rate A Design” page where you can give the design a rating of between “0” (pretty useless) and “5” (love it). If you love it so much that you’d like to buy it if it gets printed you can click “I want it” and Chimpogo will send you an email if it gets printed.

Anyone who loves t-shirts and has an interest in visual design. At the It’s a pretty even mix between guys and girls with the age range typically 17-30. About half their visitors come from the UK. Their other major markets are the US and Europe, although they’ve also sold t-shirts to customers as far afield as China and New Zealand.

Phillip , Chimpogo

“We were inspired by both the success and shortcomings of various clothing brands on the web, in particular threadless who pioneered the online t-shirt competition model in the US.

Being a t-shirt obsessive and having ordered numerous t-shirts from overseas websites I was frustrated with the variable quality and poor customer service often encountered and believed there was an opportunity to harness the amazing community of creative’s and designers based in London, UK to provide something better.

So far feedback has been overwhelmingly positive (although we’ve always got areas where we can improve) our customers love the quality of the t-shirt and the softness of the print (a big thing for us).

Customers who buy the t-shirt love that they have been a part of the creative process, it’s their comments, scoring and support for the design that has ultimately led to the t-shirts creation, which gives customers a real buzz, they don’t get with a product bought from the high street. We print on 100% cotton American Apparel tshirts (we like the cut and feel and the variety of colours).

In 12 months time we hope to still be having as much fun as we’ve had since we launched Chimpogo. We’d like to increase the prize money and increase the amount of print runs we do each week. We’re also looking forward to partnering with some amazing brands to offer even better opportunities for our community of designers.