Big Cartel offers an excellent resource for indie t-shirt lines looking for a quick and easy social online store. However, as of this posting, there were well over 4,000 shops at Big Cartel. The majority of these serve up some t-shirts and we wanted to share 12 of our faves?

Whether you are a freelancer or you work for a design agency, getting your name spread in the design community should be a top priority. A lot of doors can be opened with a just a little networking when using the right strategy to contact the top design bloggers.

With the abundance of t-shirt design sites such as Threadless and Design By Humans, it's easy to trendspot themes that are popular. Each site and its community has their own taste and it makes gaming the vote a lot easier. Here is a list of our top 5 design trends that are sure to give you a few extra votes in t-shirt competitions.