WWF has teamed up with Threadless, a global community of budding designers, to launch a new competition: the Threadless + WWF design challenge.

From today, members of the public can enter the competition by submitting a t-shirt design that reflects WWF’s chosen theme: protecting our planet’s habitats and species. It’s completely free to register and you don’t need to be a designer to submit a design – you just need a creative idea.

The winning designer will not only receive a $1,000 cash prize and other exceptional goodies, they will also get the chance to see their t-shirt on sale in 2013 through the Threadless channels.

The design of WWF’s Threadless t-shirt should aim to celebrate the natural world and inspire people to take positive action to help protect it. 25% of the sale from the winning tee will go towards WWF’s vital work to help vulnerable wildlife, habitats and communities around the world.

“We’re really excited about working with the Threadless community and can’t wait to see some of the entries. It’s amazing to think that the winner will see their t-shirt design worn all over the world – what a fantastic way of celebrating the natural world and the big and little things all of us can do to help look after it,” said Oscar Soria, Director of Media at WWF International.

Threadless works by activating its global community of 2.2 million people, encouraging graphic artists and designers to design a t-shirt inspired by the theme of the challenge – in this case, protecting our planet’s habitats and species.

People all over the world can score the different designs to help choose the winner. The winning design is then printed onto an eco-friendly t-shirt and made available for purchase.

Christian Picciolini, Threadless Community Partnerships Manager said, “Working with such a game changing organization as WWF is an inspiration for our Threadless creative community. Our designers are sure to rally around this cause and create some amazing designs.

"What's more, aside from empowering artists to control the creative process by presenting a truly unique way to express themselves, Threadless users will also be able to help WWF choose which design is the winner of the challenge."

About the Design Challenge:

· How do I submit a design? Anyone can submit a design from 28 November 2012. To submit a design go to http://beta.threadless.com/wwf

. Submissions close on 19 December 2012.

· How are designs chosen? Designs are chosen by the Threadless community. To score someone’s design you either go directly to http://beta.threadless.com/wwf/submissions OR you use the challenge page http://beta.threadless.com/wwf , go to the “Pick” button, choose “Score designs” and then “WWF” on the left.

You’ll need to register with Threadless to take part in the challenge – this is so people can only score each design once, to keep it fair. The scoring from the community will shortlist the best designs for us then Threadless and WWF will form a judging panel to choose the winning design from this shortlist.

· About T-shirt sales: Threadless will produce the winning design t-shirt on sustainably-sourced and printed t-shirts and retail these through the Threadless website. They will be on sale from March 2013 and 25% of the proceeds will be donated to WWF.

· What is the theme of the Challenge? The theme is “protecting our planet’s habitats and species”. WWF does more than protect cute cuddly pandas, fuzzy arctic polar bears, and other endangered species. As the world’s leading conservation organization, WWF works to inspire all of us to protect and restore the places where we live and rely on for our resources. That could mean taking shorter showers to conserve water, buying locally produced foods to reduce our carbon footprint, or joining a campaign for renewable energy to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

To find out more and get involved go to: http://beta.threadless.com/wwf