All the tees will be on sale Monday Nov 10th in the Threadless Select store

#1 is by Trent Burleson, Illustration professor

#2 is by Soojung Ham, Industrial Design professor

#3 is by Nancy Skolos, Graphic Design professor

#4 is by Randy Willier, Illustration professor

RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN PARTNERS WITH THE THREADLESS SELECT
SERIES TO LAUNCH FIRST-EVER GUEST CURATED SERIES
Collection Curated by RISD President John Maeda to Launch on November
6 Featuring Theme of Newness, with Exclusive Designs by Faculty
Members

PROVIDENCE, RI - November 6, 2008 - Rhode Island School of Design
[RISD] and Threadless [threadless.com] have partnered in the online
tee shirt company’s first guest-curated Threadless Select Series,
with the theme and artists chosen by RISD President John Maeda.

After an open call for submissions and a request for suggestions by
RISD alumni and students via his blog, Maeda assembled four
professors as creatives for the project. Nancy Skolos from Graphic
Design, Soojung Ham from Industrial Design, and Trent Burleson and
Randy Willier, both from Illustration - all incredible
practitioners in their respective professional fields - agreed to
join on as artists and designers in giving a unique meaning to
Maeda’s chosen theme of Newness.

“We’re part of this amazing community of learners, doers, and
mentors that pursues the art and philosophy of human expression -
and newness -with exhausting intensity,” said Maeda. “This
project with Threadless has been a great opportunity to explore this
timely theme together. We are amidst the election season here in the
U.S., and a movement is arising driven by a palpable desire for
change. Human nature and the creative spirit drive our desire for
new tastes and new sensations, all of which can be synthesized into
fresh perspectives and new experiences.”

The final products will be launched and celebrated in the same way a
gallery show would be - with the shirts serving as pieces of fine
art. They will be unveiled at an opening reception in the lobby of
RISD’s new Chace Center [20 N. Main Street] on Thursday, November 6
from 7 - 9PM. Shirts can be purchased in the weeks following the
event at risd|works, the retail space on the first floor of the Chace
Center that specializes in the curation and sales of alumni and
faculty works of art and design, as well as at TheSelectSeries.com.

“When we thought about who we wanted to have launch the Curator
editions for the Select Series, John Maeda seemed like the perfect
choice,” said Dustin Hostetler, Special Projects Curator for
Threadless. “Not only is he involved in some amazing art-related
projects, but his new position at RISD represents the same artistic
community involvement we love to support at Threadless.”

The resulting sales and artists’ commissions from this project will
amount to a $15,000 donation by Threadless to RISD’s scholarship
fund.

Threadless.com started in 2000 as a site with an ongoing, open call
for tee shirt designs to be submitted directly online. Submitted
designs are scored by the public, with the staff selecting winners
from among the highest-scoring entries. In addition to seeing their
t-shirt designs produced, winners receive cash and merchandise.
Threadless sells out of every shirt it produces.

Over the years, Threadless has occasionally printed designs by
established artists and designers, allowing them to circumvent the
submit/score process. This newer model has allowed the work of
emerging artists selected through the fan scoring process to be sold
alongside that of well-known creatives. These curated shirts,
selected by Hostetler, became known as the Select Series, officially
created in 2006 as a distinct line of Threadless. With this
specialty arm, Threadless aims to pay homage to the whole spectrum of
art and design - from fine art to street art, CG to sculpture, and
typography to architecture. Beginning with this series by Maeda,
Threadless now plans to have guest curators for the Select Series on
an ongoing basis.

About RISD
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has earned a worldwide
reputation as the preeminent art and design college in the country.
Today, with more than 22,000 alumni, the college enrolls roughly
2,000 undergraduates and 400 graduate students from the United States
and almost 50 countries, offering degree programs in the fine arts,
architecture, and design disciplines, and art education. Academic
programs include research and design initiatives, the exploration of
art criticism and contemporary cultural concerns, as well as
international exchange programs. Each year, RISD hosts prominent and
accomplished artists, critics, and authors to its campus. Included
within the college is The RISD Museum of Art, which houses a
world-class collection of art objects from Ancient Egypt, Greece, and
Rome and art of all periods from Asia, Europe and the Americas, as
well as the latest in contemporary art. For more information go to
www.risd.edu or our.risd.edu.

About Threadless
Threadless is an online design community with an ongoing, open call
for tee shirt design submissions. Anyone can sign up, download a tee
template and submit ideas, which are then evaluated by the Threadless
community for seven days. Tee shirt designs are selected by
Threadless from the pool of the most popular designs as scored by the
community. If a design is selected for print by Threadless, the
designer currently receives a payment of $2,000 in cash and a $500
Threadless gift certificate.