capitalsown wrote:This upsets me. There are two ways I can see it:
1. Through overuse and unoriginality, these characters developed by an unaffiliated third party have become de facto mascots of shirt.woot.
2. The artist assumes his characters represent shirt.woot which sort of seems arrogant to me.
I hate them both.
The bag should represent the website. This bag represents all of the bargain bin characters one artist on the site created. If someone is going to represent the site through references to designs, why not collab with other artists so the bag actually gives a taste of the artistic diversity and not just the creations of one person? I really hope the artist does not believe the characters he made are a good representation of what the site has to offer.
The bag represents two things- one is themes that are and have been extremely prevalent on woot. This is not a matter of opinion- penguins, bunnies and turtles are extremely commonly used and have won many times, not just by me. Pop culture references, anthropomorphic food, ninjas and zombies, and birds have all had their fair share of dominance and continue to be popular themes in derbies (and dailies). These nine things define many of the trends that have overtaken woot since the start of the site.
The second point is that each of these more specifically references one previous woot shirt that was extremely popular. In fact, they are fairly close to representing the top 10 sellers ever on woot, at least relatively within their time. I understand there are several missing, but if you go through woot's history (and the current reckoning), you can figure out which shirts are here, none of which are my own. Did I adapt the characters to my own style? Yes, but I'm not going to copy-paste someone else's design on my bag. I thought it was funny to represent woot in this way. I think the idea is clear, and it has nothing to do with padding my own ego.
I understand that you might not like my style, but that's fine. I have never said this before, but if you don't like it, don't vote for it. Every artist drew a bag in their own style using their own characters. No one artist's style represents woot as a whole, but that's not the point of this derby. Woot made a call for designers to update their bags, and I went through with an idea I liked in my own style. I'm not sure where the issue is.
That aside, thanks to everyone who has enjoyed this design 
