Project Runway Simplicity Pattern Design Contest

[janestarz]

I'm really in a snarking mood. Don't worry, I'll just get it out of my system and you can run along afterwards.

I was surprised to read on the advanced_sewing community that Simplicity is holding a Pattern Design Contest. Apparantly it's for everyone who is inspired by Project Runway. The website to the contest can be found here.

I am inspired by Project Runway. It's amazing to see what these people churn out of their sewing machines in limited time. I love especially how they are transformed from diddlybits and ninni-winnies into full-fledged padadadums. They really go through a change, and fast, and that interests me. I love the 'artistic' component. I also love how they don't judge the designers on how they look or act either. Everything goes. (Just don't have a model that has a problem with her waistline, because they'll bitch to hell about it)

So out of the goodness of their heart Simplicity has decided to host this competition. Grande! But what do I, the designer, get in return? Well, my pattern will be featured and marketed worldwide! And I can win prizes! A sewing machine (like I don't already own one), and $300.-- worth of Simplicity goods (if I can draft this pattern, I can draft all the other ones I want too, don'tcha think?) is first prize.
Second prize is a -- hold on to your horses -- bias tape maker and a rotary cutting machine. Wooptiedoo.
Third price? $50.- worth of Simplicity goods and a pair of scissors.

I guess the winner won't see a penny or a dime of that money being made off of his/her design, because it's stated nowhere. And what about all those designs that don't win, but are being made into a pattern by Simplicity after all?

Milking the artistic. How very low.

Comments

[woran.livejournal.com]

This is why never enter photo contests. You give away your copyright when you enter, so your picture is no longer yours even if you loose. And if you win, you get a few bucks while the photo gets used in all kinds of advertising. While you can no longer post it on your own website to show to others because that would be a breach of copyright.
Its a weird world out there.

[aroka.livejournal.com]

There's two sides to that. Yes, you give away copyright for a single picture, but you also introduce a much larger audience with your work, assuming the contest plays fair and mentions names. In my opinion the latter is quite important, and worth loosing partial copyright to a single picture.

I don't know how this works out for the Simplicity contest - if names get mentioned it might be useful.

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

that's exactly how writing contests are run too. Now tell me something. Have you ever read a book because you thought: hey, this writer won a writing contest. Let's check out what else she wrote.

[aroka.livejournal.com]

Actually: yes, it's partially how I found some interesting authors out there who I otherwise probably wouldn't have found. :):)

The same holds for photographers, I tend to look up the photogs who created the top results for fair contests (i.e. contests not based on solely the votes of a probably mostly male internet audience, who invariably will vote for the biggest bikinis (or lack thereof) instead of photographically interesting pictures :P)

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

Oh you silly man, there actually are girls on the internet these days, you know.

[aroka.livejournal.com]

Very much aware of that, no worries - it's just me being stereotypical. Of course girls also vote for the biggest bikinis. ;)

Nah, lets stop sidetracking - to be fair here I find that more and more contests actually do have nice voting procedures, and the results are about the theme of the contest itself.

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

Photo contests are usually about voting I guess, but writing contests and sewing contests like Jane tells us about, they have a jury. And they have silly prizes. Did you know that a lot of writing contests have entry fees? That the only prize they offer is "exposure"? I guess that's what this sewing contest is offereing too. "We'll show your design to the whole world. Or at least the part of it that comes to our website and/or reads our magazine." Yes? Is that all? Gee, thanks. I'll just go back to my life now.

[aroka.livejournal.com]

There are jurys with photog contests as well. But entry fees: juck! That really sounds like they want to give potential writers as little as possible, while claiming as much as possible of the rewards for themselves. Why does this business model hold? Are there so many more potential writers than there are contests/publishers?

Also: exposure.. a tricky thing. Can you claim you got exposure when such a contest publishes your short story somewhere on page 8 of their website, amongst hundreds of other participants? I think not.. tricky business. :(

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

Are there so many more potential writers than there are contests/publishers?

I think yes. Think about it. Everyone can write, in the sense of stringing sentences together to form some kind of coherent story. Everyone and their dog has a blog. Every kid who ever did well in their literature class at high school plays with the idea of becoming a writer at some point. Everyone who goes on to study literature in college has that possibility int he back of their mind. The slushpiles editors have to go through to find publishable stories are humongous. Heck, let me find you some links about vanity presses to illustrate this. It's depressing...

at least, I hope with sewing contests, the contestants are fewer and generally better at what they do.

[janestarz.livejournal.com]

Well, sure you could probably use the name-dropping if you're a starting designer. I'm just a bit worried about all those people who do not win first, second or third prize. Perhaps their designs will be a little adapted, and then sold as a 'Simplicty design' after all. They will have nothing to show for their efforts.

Does that work with photo competitions as well? That your work might be used for commercial purposes after you've lost copyright?

Of course, I'm guessing all you have to do is enter a design sketch for this competition, not an actual pattern block. Some of the hard work will be done by Simplicity after all...

[aroka.livejournal.com]

Usually: no. Also because it's very difficult to actually get complete copyright for a picture (for that I need to explicitly sign stuff, I believe just claiming that you have it in some very small letters somewhere isn't enough. If they do claim commercial copyright I want to know why and for what, and usually I tend to not pursue that particular contest any further.

Mostly they want to use them for self publicity and to be able to post them on other places of their own website at a later stage, both is fine with me as long as authors names are placed on or near the pictures, which is usually the case.

Reusing ideas from 2nd or lower pricewinners in the photog world is much more difficult: I can imagine that you can reuse parts of a pattern design in something else, but a photograph speaks for itself by itself. Yes: you can get ideas from that singular picture, but that's good, learn from others! You cannot just copy pixels from them and paste them together to create a new photograph. Reusing patterns.. I don't know if that's done, doesn't sound nice to me if they did without mentioning you..

PS Fun fact: most websites where you upload pictures immediately claim (complete) copyright (and ownership) - just check the terms of facebook or photobucket.. annoying..

[woran.livejournal.com]

True, if your name gets out there, in a clear way, that is very important too. But when I look at the results of old contests I often see no name at all, or the name is shoved in a corner in tiny print. That's no fun at all.

[erwinl.livejournal.com]

It's really a strange prize isn't it?
If you're good enough not to need their goods, you get some of their goods as a prize.
And that is indeed aside from the procedings for your pattern which you might or might not earn.

It reminds me of the Elffantasy costume contest.
I don't know what the prizes are these days, but when we participated, the prize for having the best selfmade costume of the entire Fair was a costume made especially for you by a 'professional' costume maker!
Fortunately, when we won in the kids contest, the 'professional' was so unprofessional that in the end we got 100 euros to be spent in the Elfshop. That at least was a prize our kids were happy with. :-)

[janestarz.livejournal.com]

It reminded me of the Elf's costume contest as well. Way to go, EFF...

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

omg that is the stupidest prize ever. The more I learn about the EFF the more I wonder how they ever became this big...

[laracorsets.livejournal.com]

Simplicity had wanted me to make costume patterns for them a few years back. When I read through the contract I had to call and ask if they left out the part where I actually get paid to do the work.

They send you an advance of about $1200. Then you produce the patterns and make the garments for the envelope cover for a flat fee of about $300 -regardless of time or expense in making the garments for the cover shot and regardless of how simple or complex the pattern and garments made. A pattern for a simple top gets paid the same as an elaborate multi pattern period gown!

They then CHANGE the pattern, make and market it. The pattern maker ONLY makes additional money if the pattern is RE-ORDERED by the stores and then only about 2-3 cents per pattern. Unless you pattern is popular enough to re-order you get nothing! At that rate the pattern maker would OWE them back the money given in the advance!

There was no way in He** I was signing that!

[nokey.livejournal.com]

Oooh, have you ever read a recording contract for starting bands?
And you thought slavery was abolished? Hah!

[fyrane.livejournal.com]

Ick that sounds like a really crappy deal they offer. No wonder my simplicity patterns never seem to work for me. They alter the pattern afterwards ;) . I guess its just the way big companies work with originality, or talent for that matter. Money has to be made, preferably for them.

It's like that in model contests too. I always pity the girls that win "holland's next top model" or any other version of that series. The contract for the winner sounds so nice on TV. You get a 100.000 euro contract, a sponsor ship bla bla bla. But when you read the tiny letters on the contract (which is on their site), you know the winner gets screwed over. The runner ups usually have a much better career, I think. They have more freedom and still got enough publicity to spark the interest of potential customers.