What’s a sweatshop without a little fun?

(Don’t have time to read?  Here’s the punchline.  http://layertennis.com/)

A couple years back a phenomenon began when members of a designers forum posted images from their current projects for critique, as is want to happen.  Out of bored creativity, other designers took the original spirit of the work and turned it into a completely different work.  Although the two pieces shared themes or elements or styles, they were a testament to the random directions different artists can take their work.  

This creative one-upsmanship was so fun that artists began to be called out in competitions to see who could come up with the most comical, beautiful, or overall creative pieces.  The two artists would take turns creating an image, video, or other artwork and pass it along to their competitor, who would the modify the artwork and pass it back.  Each piece passed among the competitors was called a “volley” and the challenges were called “matches.”  Eventually, a tennis style format emerged as the most natural expression of the nature of competitive artwork.  This is the birth of Photoshop Tennis (or at least it should be).  

The rules are simple: There are no rules.  Wait, no.  There are a lot of rules.

• Each match is between two artists respected in a common field
• After receiving a volley, you have no more than two hours to return fire
• Winners are decided by a panel of your peers
• All work must be done in the agreed upon medium
• Don’t use anyone else’s work

I’ve witnessed the “official” Layer Tennis (so called because of copyright issues with Adobe Photoshop) championships sponsored by Coudal Partners last year, and it is amazing.  Take a look at one of my favorite matches from the Season One Archive for an example of the raw creativity on display.  There’s something about a time deadline and competition that puts super-creative ideas on paper that would never had a chance otherwise.  Good stuff.