Sketch Artists Needed!

Wanted: Brilliant t-shirt designs

Contest Details

We’re bored of the shirts in our gift shop and we need some new ideas. After all, we’re in the museum business, not in the awesome-ideas-for-shirts business. (You gotta give us credit for being honest with ourselves.)

We’re looking for at least one winning design, but will accept more winners if the rumours of your collective awesomeness are to be believed.

Our ideal design will promote our little museum in an artistic, clever and creative way--it could be directly police(or police history) related, it could be about forensic science or even about our creepy building that used to be the city morgue. Let your imagination run with it. Learn more about the Vancouver Police Museum by visiting our website. Better yet, come visit!

Once you’ve submitted your design, promote it! Popular vote will play a HUGE role in deciding which idea wins. After the popular vote determines the finalists, our jury will pick the design(s) we're actually going to produce for the shop. The final decision will be based on which design(s) will be easiest to print, which is the most creative and which best reflects the character of the museum.

What’s in it for you? Fame and glory, of course. Plus, the designers of most popular t-shirts will get to pick a prize from the prize pool, starting with the most popular designs and going until we run out of prizes. Everyone who submitted a winning (printed) design will get some shirts with their own design on them.

Contest Requirements

We’re much more likely to print your design if it’s easy to silkscreen. A few artistic guidelines you should follow:

1) Use solid blocks of colour and line art. Fades, blends and really fine details don’t come out well. (Please, no photo-based designs either…)

2) Don’t go crazy with the colours; please use no more than four different colours in your design.

3) Your design should be no larger than 12″ wide and 14″ tall but can be smaller if suitable for your design.

4) It’s not required, but using vector-image software like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape (free) will make it easier to create a suitable design.

5) Your design will be printed on one side of the shirt (with a small version of the Police Museum logo on the other). See this poster for an example.

Submit a jpeg version of your design; if it’s selected, we’ll ask for the high-quality version.

We reserve the right to remove any entries that are abusive or in bad taste. We also don’t take kindly to those who rip off others’ ideas--your design must be original or you need to hold the legal rights to everything in your design. (This is really important; it’ll keep you from being sued.)

All submitted designs become the property of the Vancouver Police Museum. By submitting, you agree that if your design wins it can be used by the Police Museum on a T-shirt and other promotional items. We also reserve the right to modify the winning design(s). We have to do this to protect ourselves legally; if you love your design and we don’t select it, we can probably return ownership back to you. It doesn’t hurt to ask.

You must be 18 years or older to submit a design; if you’re younger, you can still make a design but your parent or guardian will have to submit it on your behalf.