UPDATE: 3 June 2008: Ryz is running their first footwear design contest. Ryz’s footwear designs are “community-sourced”: would-be designers download a template, fill it in, have their designs voted on, winning designs are actually produced. And winners get US$1,000 for winning design, plus US$1 royalty on each shoe produced. Pretty cool. Deadline is 9 June. There’s also a Ryz launch event in Portland, 26 of June.
Check out Ryz’s cool new video:
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Full (and proud) disclosure: I spent three months last year as a paid consultant helping this cool startup set up.
They’ve now launched their teaser site, where you can sign up to get notified of news and launch.
I’ll let them speak for themselves:
RYZ lets you define greatness.We provide a level playing field where anyone has an opportunity to shine. Anyone can submit their own sneaker designs, share their creativity, and showcase their own personal style. And anyone can be a rock star. Our shoe designs are created by artists, DJs, poets, students, dreamers, doers and other not-so-ordinary individuals like you. But that doesn’t stop them from achieving design immortality.
Unlike the fashionista elite who dictate the latest style, RYZ gives the power to the people.
We’ll post the design entries online and let our community decide what’s hot and what’s not. The design that receives the most votes wins. Winning shoes are produced and sold to adoring fans from around the world. And along with bragging rights, the designer also gets a share of the profits. (Keep the day job for now.)
Yes, this will be a popularity contest. And like all democracies, participation is important – so sign up and be the first to hear when it’s
time for you to RYZ.
hey dan!
very cool. i may try to enter if i can find the time. however, seems that download of the template doesn’t quite work on Mac OS X (10.4.11) with Safari (3.1.1): the png flie doesn’t not have the multiple layers in Photoshop that the site says it should. not sure if this is a problem with their site or with my setup. will try with Firefox…
cheers,
tracy
Hmm. Yeah, good point. I’m guessing that they’re aren’t any layers in the png. And that they forgot to update the instructions (which mention a layered photoshop file). I’m guessing they want you just draw on the single layer (or add your own layers). My understanding is that anyway Photoshop doesn’t (or at least in the past) do png layers (while Fireworks did). I’ll ping them and see…
Hey Dan,
thanks for trouble shooting for us. I had not heard of Tracy’s problem before, we will look into it.
We launched two days ago and the winner of our first contest is a (reformed) graffiti artist. Having spent almost 2 years in prison for tagging all over Portland Oregon, our hero, Caveman (Jason Ehlers) thinks it is much cooler to see your art work on someone’s shoe rather than a building.
Check out our site and submit a design (no funny business with copy rights though!)
Rob
Hey Dan-
Thanks for the post – we just released our beta version…no layers yet, but you will find a PNG with alpha layers which is pretty easy to use as a mask in Photoshop or any other tool with layers…
Let me know what you guys think – also if you’re still having problems downloading please drop me an email at scott@ryzwear.com.
Hope you’re doing well in HK! Great pics man!
Scott
Oh…beta at http://www.ryzwear.com!
Thx
Congrats, Rob and Scott! Looks like a great launch–and some very cool designs!
I’m spreading the word to my designer friends about the site. Thanks for your tech tip, Scott. That makes sense.
And I’ll keep my readers posted on the “rise of Ryz”!
Here’s a recap of the launch and winners:
http://www.neighborhoodnotes.com/nw/old_town_chinatown/news/2008/06/the_chosen_one/
[...] the Portland-based community sourcing Web 2.0 sneaker eCommerce site that I’ve written about before is live in Beta! At least 3 cool designs are available for purchase. These sneaker designs were [...]