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I won't even be nice about it. But, what gives on this site? no one gives a fuck about anythinggggggg. A top design is something that has 3 likes. The highest liked design in forever is pitch's santa cruz design. no one participates in discussions, no one does anything. What's the point of keeping this, or band job open at all?
People hype their texture packs or brand shit, and even then no one even cares. but, good thing we still get the mock up question on the weekly

Or maybe I'm just being a negative piece of shit?

  • TenTimesKarma said about 5 years ago

    Yeah. This place has been a ghost town for quite a while now.

  • Cameron Latham said about 5 years ago

    TenTimesKarma said:Yeah. This place has been a ghost town for quite a while now.

    Yep. BandJob and Foalio are even worse. Dribbble's been a bit slower as of late, too. Thought it was just me.

  • Matt Borchert said about 5 years ago

    Nah this place is nearly dead most of the time, I think most of the community that made emptees and even early mintees special has long since gone. It's hard to say exactly why...the rise of more social media outlets, places like dribbble, or even people just getting frustrated with the mini mod system and moving on.

    But yeah, there is some super-rad art that gets sub 10 likes, even some that is lucky to get 1, but I don't necessarily know what to do in order to make it better other than finding a better solution to mini mods and artwork approval.

  • Kyle Crawford said about 5 years ago

    the point of this site, was to bring the community together, talk about art, network, get critiques, give advise, feedback, and sell your shit, and fucking compete with one another. this place is none of that. its just a collective t-shirt diarrhea site. I mean, I used to do stupid shit like, PICK A NUMBER 1-200 because I cant decide what movie to watch. Or LOOK AT THESE COOKIES I MADE, or a picture of my shit. EVERYONE was doing stupid shit like that. So what does this site benefit anyone? Maybe selling some shitty designs, that are god awful for an ungodly low price to cut out the hard working dudes who give a shit like me? or what? it's a joke now

  • cmeyers said about 5 years ago

    Kyle Crawford said:the point of this site, was to bring the community together, talk about art, network, get critiques, give advise, feedback, and sell your shit, and fucking compete with one another. this place is none of that. its just a collective t-shirt diarrhea site. I mean, I used to do stupid shit like, PICK A NUMBER 1-200 because I cant decide what movie to watch. Or LOOK AT THESE COOKIES I MADE, or a picture of my shit. EVERYONE was doing stupid shit like that. So what does this site benefit anyone? Maybe selling some shitty designs, that are god awful for an ungodly low price to cut out the hard working dudes who give a shit like me? or what? it's a joke now

    no one wants to see cookies, the mini mods want to sift through all the t-shirts being submitted and pick which ones are community worthy, and the non-mods want to "like" tees.

    duh.

  • Jason Carne said about 5 years ago

    I think Dribbble stole away a lot of the talent, and others probably left because Mintees has kind of turned into a dumping ground for "buy my shit". Also, Mintees and Bandjob are really limited in their function - it's designs ONLY for t-shirts or ONLY for bands. Sure, you can post about different stuff in the forums I guess, but yeah.

  • Kyle Crawford said about 5 years ago

    there used to be tee offs and i used to do mintees / emptees awards
    people gave a shit. this place isnt just for "band tees"
    I remember at one point the hype for threadless was so bad, they had to make a promote this thread
    calling out ripper, community coming together to destroy the ripper
    heated debates, all this shit
    now its crickets
    good news is, you can get 20 likes and maybe get tee of the day eventually. if that still matters to anyone

  • cmeyers said about 5 years ago

    Kyle Crawford said:there used to be tee offs and i used to do mintees / emptees awards
    people gave a shit. this place isnt just for "band tees"
    I remember at one point the hype for threadless was so bad, they had to make a promote this thread
    calling out ripper, community coming together to destroy the ripper
    heated debates, all this shit
    now its crickets
    good news is, you can get 20 likes and maybe get tee of the day eventually. if that still matters to anyone

    fully agree.
    the most exciting thing that happened recently was the pokemon hybrid thing.

  • Jason Carne said about 5 years ago

    I meant Bandjob is only for band merch. But anyway, it probably has something to do with the bugs that are never fixed (log-in issues and such) that make this place kind of a pain to use sometimes.

  • cmeyers said about 5 years ago

    for me, as far as the tees go, it's mostly the lack of fresh talent. everyone here is super talented, but there's only so many times i can see the same stuff over and over. i keep going "thats cool, seen it a thousand times already though". it'd be nice to see new guys with different styles.

    for the forums, it's like you said. they're boring. no one cares.

  • Sol Amstutz said about 5 years ago

    You're definitely not alone in feeling this way. Personally I don't get on here much anymore because nothing has any substance anymore. It's like a landfill for stupid bullshit discussions and mediocre design work. I think emptees really caught on, and this place tried to fix a lot of the problems we had there, but I think there are simply too many people just throwing up whatever they want.

    Sure, there's still some cool stuff going on here, but it's so damn hard for me to find it because of all the other dumb shit I have to sift through to get to it. It's just not the same anymore for some reason.

  • Cameron Latham said about 5 years ago

    Jason Carne said:I meant Bandjob is only for band merch. But anyway, it probably has something to do with the bugs that are never fixed (log-in issues and such) that make this place kind of a pain to use sometimes.

    Agreed. Having to login every two or three clicks gets annoying. Contests (I'm assuming that's what a tee-off was; those might have been before my time on the site) and random fun junk like the Pokemon hybrid thread could spice things up for sure. More mini-mods to get the queue through faster would help as well.

  • cmeyers said about 5 years ago

    Cameron Latham said:
    Jason Carne said:I meant Bandjob is only for band merch. But anyway, it probably has something to do with the bugs that are never fixed (log-in issues and such) that make this place kind of a pain to use sometimes.

    Agreed. Having to login every two or three clicks gets annoying. Contests (I'm assuming that's what a tee-off was; those might have been before my time on the site) and random fun junk like the Pokemon hybrid thread could spice things up for sure. More mini-mods to get the queue through faster would help as well.

    getting the tees through faster won't make people care any more.

  • Kyle Crawford said about 5 years ago

    I dont think what you said cameron is really the problem. no one cares. I guess if it were me, I would make a post that said, (if I were jared and dobi)
    what dont you like, would you be upset if it closed?
    etc etc
    if good outweighs the bad, then shut it down. It's like watching a wounded dog suffer a long grueling death
    just patch it up or pull the fucking trigger

  • Jason Carne said about 5 years ago

    It seems like the clients aren't really even here much anymore scouting for talent. I can't remember the last time I got an e-mail from someone who said "I saw your work on Mintees..." - it's always through somewhere else for me.

  • Sol Amstutz said about 5 years ago

    Jason Carne said:It seems like the clients aren't really even here much anymore scouting for talent. I can't remember the last time I got an e-mail from someone who said "I saw your work on Mintees..." - it's always through somewhere else for me.

    The only emails I get from people who saw work here aren't serious and/or are looking for a lame deal or handout.

  • Cameron Latham said about 5 years ago

    Sol Amstutz said:
    Jason Carne said:It seems like the clients aren't really even here much anymore scouting for talent. I can't remember the last time I got an e-mail from someone who said "I saw your work on Mintees..." - it's always through somewhere else for me.

    The only emails I get from people who saw work here aren't serious and/or are looking for a lame deal or handout.

    This.

    But yes, that is true. Pushing more tees through wouldn't necessarily help. I don't really have a solution, I guess. The recent "bigger" job postings, albeit spec work, have been nice. The Kiss brawl on BandJob got things shaking around there for a bit, but now it's just as dead as it was before. I really only go on here to vote on tees and check the job section for the most part anymore.

  • Somaon said about 5 years ago

    Just thought I put my 2 cents in and honestly because I'm nothing to this site and still learning but because of this site and artists here I strive to get better and work on my shit. Now I also see things have gone like ten times karma has mentioned, into a ghost town. I haven't been on for a really long time as in know everyone or network, make friends or whatever but been here long enough to know how often ppl socialize around here and how threads usually stay around for days or it is "SSDD" because I check this site a couple times a day and it does make it hard to stick around and talk about things like even getting a critique. Now I have posted stuff up on the critique thread and that thread went dead and has been dead for I don't know how long but I bet you can still find single critique threads instead of posting on that specific thread. Now I go through that thread as well but I don't think I know enough to really give advice but when I feel I can I do. I also feel as if there is there is this one "IT" group that runs this and don't waste their time on schmucks like me who want to learn and contribute. Just Thought I would give my input.

  • akillerwombat said about 5 years ago

    ... its because a ton of the people who were active on the emptees bounced when it closed and or have faded away. The whole dynamic has shifted and it just isn't appealing to participate in much anymore. Personally, I lurk a few times a week but as you've said, its just different.

  • Matt Borchert said about 5 years ago

    I think part of the problem is the very structure that this website is based on - and goes into human nature as a whole.

    On a lot of different design websites you promote other people's work as a means to get your own work seen. Think how on dribbble if someone promotes your work, your work becomes visible to those who follow the dude who hit like. Same thing goes on Society6 where posts have an endless stream of "cool! neat!" - people promote in hopes of getting their own work noticed.

    Here you post your work and hope it hits community selected, and that's it. There is no incentive to hit like other than to show some love...but...human nature has a way of making people ask "what's in it for me?" To fix this though the whole sites structure would need to be rebuilt...not an easy task....and I guess the bigger question to that would be if you are basically remaking dribbble's structure...why not just use dribbble?

    Ah well, back to work.

  • Killer Napkins said about 5 years ago

    Yeah, it is quite dead... I still refresh the ole mintees tab every day, just in hopes something interesting pops up, but it is definitely a rarity.

    Clients definitely don't come around here much anymore.. I remember when you used to get TOTD it meant that your email would blow up with potential clients. Now it is nothing.

    Not sure what the solution could be...
    Agreeing with cmeyers, definitely seeing a lot of regurgitated ideas floating around.

    Need more poop pics, and more exciting tee-offs... We also need Edgil back.

  • closetnerd said about 5 years ago

    Kyle Crawford said:So what does this site benefit anyone? Maybe selling some shitty designs, that are god awful for an ungodly low price to cut out the hard working dudes who give a shit like me? or what? it's a joke now

    That's just it. It doesn't benefit anyone anymore.

    Matt, you hit the head on the nail. Dribbble just seems like a huge circle jerk most days. Just go through some people's "like" section... you can see some people just like EVERYTHING so they can gain some followers.

    Everyone's so worried about promoting their work rather than some kind of community.

  • Menta said about 5 years ago

    If i may, i'm new-ish here, been around for less than a year, this community has been really helpful for me in terms of work (specially since design in my own country is absurdly underrated), and in terms of becoming a better designer and illustrator. However lately there has been a lot of "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT MY NEW SHITTY BRAND WITH DESIGNS I DID IN PHOTOSHOP IN 3 MINUTES" going on, however i don't think it'd be enough to say it doesn't benefit anyone. Lately i've been buying lots of t-shirts online that i found out about by seeing the designers i like here posting them

  • Tom Philibeck said about 5 years ago

    Once Emptees closed most people just kind of disappeared. And when most of the people disappeared, so did the drama. Honestly, I think drama was one of the biggest reasons Emptees was so lively. There were always members caught ripping, Indonesians saying dumd shit, etc. There were just a ton more members so the site kept itself going. It was a snowball effect. The more people that have left this site, has caused even more people to leave and it keeps going that way.

    It's a bummer, but I see no way to fix it.

  • Cameron Latham said about 5 years ago

    closetnerd said:
    Kyle Crawford said:So what does this site benefit anyone? Maybe selling some shitty designs, that are god awful for an ungodly low price to cut out the hard working dudes who give a shit like me? or what? it's a joke now

    That's just it. It doesn't benefit anyone anymore.

    Matt, you hit the head on the nail. Dribbble just seems like a huge circle jerk most days. Just go through some people's "like" section... you can see some people just like EVERYTHING so they can gain some followers.

    Everyone's so worried about promoting their work rather than some kind of community.

    Yep. Matt's definitely onto something. I do much prefer Dribbble to Mintees as a website, but I like Mintees more so community-wise because it's almost entirely folks from the music/apparel industry. If Mintees could structurally become more like Dribbble (notifaction system, contests, etc.), but keep the community and forum and such, it'd be great.

    I think we just need another Brandon Day.

  • Denimous Snake said about 5 years ago

    I had a dream last night we all made Mintees a social network for designers. Not like it is now, like this hybrid social network almost like Absolutepunk but where artists discussed mostly art, and the 'news' posts were design related. It was cool as shit. There was still a 'tee of the day' but you could click on the 'Tee' section, and see all the tee's people were working on, along with album artwork, branding, etc. It was cool.

    I love Mintees, and you guys, I like this community. It is a little ghost town-ish (Which by the way Kyle, I saw on your facebook awhile ago you didn't like Ghost Town by Owen, did you hear the new record?) but fuck it. The pokemon thing was dope. Shit talking threads are dope, you guys are hilarious and helpful. I'd rather watch it limp like a dead dog walking if it means we get one thread like the pokemon one a month, as opposed to having to track you all down on various social media sites, etc.

    We're all designers, let's come up with something. I've been fooling around with a Mintees app for awhile now, but without any type of permissions, it's a little tough.

  • CoreyMV said about 5 years ago

    I still come to the site a few times a day. The talk topics just arent as intersting as they used to be. Add in the fact that most people have stopped commenting to most posts and we get to where we are now. I would love to see an increase in activity and this may be a good starting point to get some back. The contests were always fun to participate in/watch. The pokemon thread was refreshing. The draw me threads were always exciting as well.

  • Kyle Crawford said about 5 years ago

    Denimous Snake said:I had a dream last night we all made Mintees a social network for designers. Not like it is now, like this hybrid social network almost like Absolutepunk but where artists discussed mostly art, and the 'news' posts were design related. It was cool as shit. There was still a 'tee of the day' but you could click on the 'Tee' section, and see all the tee's people were working on, along with album artwork, branding, etc. It was cool.

    I love Mintees, and you guys, I like this community. It is a little ghost town-ish (Which by the way Kyle, I saw on your facebook awhile ago you didn't like Ghost Town by Owen, did you hear the new record?) but fuck it. The pokemon thing was dope. Shit talking threads are dope, you guys are hilarious and helpful. I'd rather watch it limp like a dead dog walking if it means we get one thread like the pokemon one a month, as opposed to having to track you all down on various social media sites, etc.

    We're all designers, let's come up with something. I've been fooling around with a Mintees app for awhile now, but without any type of permissions, it's a little tough.

    ghost town ruled, new album is eh

  • 8-bit ZOMBIE said about 5 years ago

    I'd have to agree with the general consensus. The community definitely isn't as lively as it used to be. I was debating on whether or not I'd even do hype for my release here because not too many people seem to care about my posts any more. (In the end I did because it's like an 8BZ tradition, haha) But I too still love this community. 8BZ wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Emptees. Love all the regulars but yeah, things have been sucky lately for sure. Mostly people asking the same lazy noob questions and pointless bumps on threads no one will ever look at.

    I love Mintees for what it is. But the only way it'll get more active is if everyone starts participating more. Which isn't really something you can force, haha. But there's definitely still ways to get people active and involved. (Stuff like the Pokey-mans thread) A lot of the magic definitely died with Emptees but Mintees is still a great place. As some people have mentioned, this site is STILL an absolutely amazing resource for everyone new to the game. I think a lot of us are just jaded and forget what it was like to not know anything.

    On the tee side of things - I don't really know what will help there. It's sad to see so many rad designs go unloved. But to be honest, I don't even really check the tees section too often anymore either. Seems like that side of the site is dying for sure.

  • Ellis said about 5 years ago

    It would be cool if some of the more seasoned artists around here collaborated with Mintees to do some sort of online tutorials or live sessions with some of the newer guys trying to break into the scene.

    I understand it's probably not good practice to give tips to potential competitors, but I think something like that would add a cool, collaborative edge to this community. After all, it is meant to be a 'community.'

    Something similar to skillshare, but more specific to t-shirt/poster design and less drawn out.

    Mintees could have a 'Featured Artist' every week that either presents the recorded tutorial or does some sort of live streaming class. In return, they are featured on the homepage and can some exposure that way. Something aside from the standard SOTD on the homepage.

    This place definitely has the potential to expand into a much broader environment.

  • miles to go said about 5 years ago

    i barely check here anymore either and as kyle said, no one gives a crap about a new design, release, anything. its such a shame but it could be a general sign of a dip in indie clothing lines popping up every 30 seconds or something. i miss all of the activity and having this site as my homepage but its depressing to see a great design get 18 likes and a post about a new release have 9 comments(3 from 3 people).

    bums me out but what can you do?

  • cmeyers said about 5 years ago

    i would fully back a skillshare style tutorial session.

    i hate the idea that anyone would refrain from helping "potential competitors". i understand a certain aspect of not revealing too many secrets, but an unwillingness to teach new techniques and tricks to fellow designers is pretty ridiculous. it's our job to use those techniques in our own new way, but refusing to share ideas and techniques with each other is a sad thing.

  • Matt Borchert said about 5 years ago

    Ellis said:It would be cool if some of the more seasoned artists around here collaborated with Mintees to do some sort of online tutorials or live sessions with some of the newer guys trying to break into the scene.

    I understand it's probably not good practice to give tips to potential competitors, but I think something like that would add a cool, collaborative edge to this community. After all, it is meant to be a 'community.'

    Something similar to skillshare, but more specific to t-shirt/poster design and less drawn out.

    Mintees could have a 'Featured Artist' every week that either presents the recorded tutorial or does some sort of live streaming class. In return, they are featured on the homepage and can some exposure that way. Something aside from the standard SOTD on the homepage.

    This place definitely has the potential to expand into a much broader environment.

    I do intend on doing a handful of videos over the next few months for some things like texture on type options, creating mockups from t-shirts, and masking model shots...but they take a good chunk of time and I haven't gotten around to it all yet.

  • Denimous Snake said about 5 years ago

    There are tons of ways to keep this place alive.

    Make it more like a social network.
    Have an artist of the week where he posts a video doing a little bio along with drawing / whatevering something cool.
    Have a live chat feature!
    Clean the resources section up. Honestly, I scour it for free / cheap stuff. Not for a random article on App user interfaces. Maybe make it a freebies section! Or make a freebies section! Change the designs for sale section into more of a store! Sorted by community votes, most liked shirts go to the top of the store, and the person can buy it right there. That way the rad designs get bought.

  • NVasion said about 5 years ago

    I love this place, no idea where I would be without emptees. But lately there's really not much going on here which sucks

    I have log-in problems as well. I still check the site pretty often but when I see a cool shirt I'm just too lazy to log in and click the like button. With facebook, dribbble, instagram and tumblr there are so many platforms where people post their work and most of the time that's where I see a new shirt design for the first time. So of course I comment and like stuff right away when I see it.

    I think when this place got started the quality control was very tight. A lot of shirts got rejected. Sometimes that was harsh but the site looked good. The designers only posted their best work. Now there's so much mediocre stuff that gets through and it's harder to find some gems in there. Maybe a lot of the minimods are too generous, I don't know, I don't even look at the queue. It must be even harder to find gems in there.

    And yeah, all the e-mails I get from people who found my work on mintees are those "how much?"-mails. I reply and I never hear from them again. Maybe these emails would stop coming if this place would not be filled with people who are selling their designs for low prices. Shady clients might just give up looking for cheap designs. Designing and uploading something for sale also seems more and more pointless. It's not the right way of selling designs to begin with but it used to work pretty well. Now I'd much rather spend my time drawing pokemon

  • Ellis said about 5 years ago

    I can just picture on the home page, a big banner stating this week's featured artist and then show the following couple weeks of artists who will be collaborating. It will get people to keep looking back for the weeks to come, and if it's always someone familiar to the community, people would be intrigued to look just because of that, even if they don't feel they need to learn anything.

    Once tutorials are posted, people can start sharing their work based on the things they've learned. If some of the artists are willing to be even more collaborative, it could be a little more similar to skillshare in the sense that they can continue to offer advice in a board related to their tutorial.

    I'm not trying to jack skillshares concept either, considering thats exactly what the idea sounds like, but it would be cool to just have that little additional feature on this site.

  • bmoore said about 5 years ago

    I still check Mintees daily and yeah it sucks when there's not been anything posted since the last time you checked. I think the solution is just post more. Sounds simple, but login and post something. If you see something that might interest the community (music video, documentary, article, etc), post it. Then if you check out the post, reply with your thoughts. If you're a designer, post a sneak peek of something your working on exclusively on Mintees. If you're one of the more well known and looked up to designers, do a Q&A in the talk section. I don't think, other than maybe a login issue, that Jared and Dobi need to do much. It's up to us to post more.

    ps- it's Trash Talk Thursday.

  • DrewGliever said about 5 years ago

    You're not just being negative, you're dead on. The community started dying when Emptees died, I think.

  • Eureka!!! said about 5 years ago

    From what I've experienced the community is very closed. granted there are a lot of people who frequent this site, it feels like the people who have made it, don't really have the time for everyone else or at least critique other peoples work. In order for this community to thrive people have to be willing to give without expecting much in return.

    I will say that if it wasn't for this site I probably would have never attempted to learn the fundamentals of design and get into the design world. But honestly it feels uber cliquey, with the exception of a few people, again I haven't talked to everyone. Hence why i no loner really try to be apart of the community.

  • HaydnChapman said about 5 years ago

    Well, I think one of the reasons Emptees was so active and lively was because the drama of rips and stuff - and, since everyone was just sitting around waiting to see what that guy would say to defend themselves, they would make other threads or surf the designs. There isn't that much drama on Mintees.

    There are tons of ways you could make it more active. You could take an approach like Hypebeast (which isn't the best example but they've got a good thing going), where you could have articles about clothing, interviews with designers, maybe the odd informative video or two and give people incentive to go to the forums while waiting for the next thing. I think the major problem I see is that, after you sign up and post a tee or make a thread, what keeps you sticking around for long periods of time? There is only so much you can do when it boils down to making designs, looking at designs, and talking about shirts.

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