Design Contest -- Better T-shirts for Kerry -- closes 5/31

[ishbadiddle]

The deadline for the Designs on the White House contest has been extended until Memorial Day, 5/31.

Head over, vote on the latest designs, and enter your own. Help us close Kerry's Swag Gap!

A while back, we noticed that, while the Bush-Cheney team had rolled out a massive apparel showcase on their website, John Kerry’s site offered T-shirt designs that, let’s face it, were pretty vanilla. It was the kind of bone-rattling discrepancy we might expect to see in, say, judicial appointments or EPA funding. But campaign shirts?

We soon realized that — though he fought valiantly in Vietnam and was repeatedly wounded by enemy fire — John Kerry wasn’t going to win the "gear war" against a GOP machine that is so obviously in the crisply tailored pocket of the windbreaker lobby. Even an experienced politician like Kerry was going need some help facing down the accumulated power of Big Fleece.

In order to really go stitch-to-stitch with the Bush-Cheney fashion show, we did the only thing we could do: We gathered our friends, cooked up a brilliant scheme and built us a website.

Since then, some heavy hitters have joined the campaign as judges, from celebs (Moby, Al Franken, Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo) to designers (Milton Glaser, Edwin Schlossberg, Chip Kidd, Todd St. John) to politicos (Joe Trippi) to bloggers (Atrios, Wonkette) to cartoonists (Tom Tomorrow) to playwrights (David Henry Hwang, David Auburn).

The contest is now open for designs until May 31, and for the public to vote on their favorites. More information follows:


============================================
Inspired by MoveOn's Bush in 30 Seconds contest, an independent group of designers and bloggers has created Designs On The White House, a design contest to create T-shirts for the Kerry Presidential Campaign.

We’re calling on every American with a conscience, a mouse, and a good idea to send in your designs for a better John Kerry 2004 Presidential Campaign T-shirt.

The contest is now open, and we will be accepting designs in the following categories until May 22nd, 2004:

1. Best Pro-Kerry Shirt
2. Best Anti-Bush Shirt
3. Best Issue Shirt - Domestic
4. Best Issue Shirt - Foreign
5. Funniest Shirt
6. Best Retro Shirt
7. Best Get Out The Vote Shirt
8. Most Stylish / Most Likely to Be Seen On Queer Eye

We, the people, will vote on designs, and then our esteemed panel of judges will make the final selections. Our judging panel includes:

Moby, musician and activist
Al Franken, writer and comedian
Margaret Cho, comedian and activist
Janeane Garofalo, actress, talk radio host, activist
Ana Marie Cox, editor of the political gossip site Wonkette.com
Atrios, blogger and political commentator
Tom Tomorrow, political cartoonist and blogger
Joe Trippi, political strategist
Milton Glaser, design legend
Edwin Schlossberg, designer, artist, and author
Chip Kidd, graphic designer and novelist
Todd St. John, fashion designer
Maura Moynihan, designer, musician, human rights advocate, and writer
David Henry Hwang, Tony Award-winning playwright
David Auburn, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Carol Wells, founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG)

Then we'll throw open the doors on the world's most democratic campaign T-shirt outlet! All proceeds after expenses will benefit the John Kerry Presidential campaign.

Please head over www.DesignsOnTheWhiteHouse.org to learn more about the contest, submit your design, and register to vote. Voting has begun, so go over and check out the designs!

Designs on the White House Organization (DOTWHO) is an independent political committee and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.