Cafepress are holding an anti-Valentine’s Day design contest that is different from the contest held by Spreadshirt, which I mentioned a few days ago,  in several ways. Of course the obvious difference is that they are looking for Anti-Valentine’s Day designs at Cafepress while Spreadshirt are just looking for a Valentine’s Day design. Another point to note is that Cafepress are only offering a $250 American Express gift card as first prize, a $100 CafePress gift certificate as second prize and a $50 CafePress gift certificate. But Spreadshirt is offering two cash prizes of $500. I could be wrong but it seems that if you win at Spreadshirt, Spreadshirt will own your design and no further profits can be made from it whereas at Cafepress, you get to keep your design, profit from its sale and I’m sure it will get extra promotion from CP to help make even more sales.

One other important difference is that the Cafepress contest is open to only US residents and as far as I can see, the Spreadshirt contest is open to the world.

Link: Cafepress Anti Valentine’s Day contest
Link: Spreadshirt Valentine’s Day contest

The fact that I am not eligible for the Cafepress contest pushes me towards favoring Spreadshirt in this case but I don’t like that Spreadshirt just buys your design. I think that you should get royalties for each time it is sold. I honestly don’t think either of these contests are very good and I wouldn’t bother with them. Of course if you are residing in the US and you are going to make some Anti-Valentine’s Day designs for Cafepress you might as well enter the contest. You have nothing to lose. Or you could just retag your existing images.

With all these t-shirt design contest sites out there who are open to the world there is no reason that Cafepress can’t get their legal team to figure out how to open their contests to the world.