First of all, thanks to Daniel Johnson, Jr for providing a link to the “Fail Whale” origin story.  Read the article, and go support the REAL artist behind the Fail Whale! That being said, when it comes to the original screenshot…

I think it could be spiced up a bit:

And I got to thinking: How funny would it be to have a captioning / photoshop contest to kinda poke fun at Twitter for all its misgivings.

So, here’s the deal.  I’m going to post a high-res version of the twitter maintenance screen below.  The top text is Helvetica Bold, and the bottom text is Helvetica (Arial will also work).  You can edit the words, the captions, the picture itself - anything you want.  The winner will receive their design on an American Apparel shirt free of charge from me, and I will sell their t-shirt in my store. (I’m not going to rip off the original artist by selling her design, so I’m going to respect that wish by not offering it in my store.  If you like the Fail Whale, go support her!).

(By the way, If anyone out there wants to donate some other prizes to the contest, by all means send me an email or use the contact form.)

Post your entries as a link in the comments.  The contest will be open for two weeks (if i’m in the hospital with the baby when it’s done, then I’ll extend the deadline), then we’ll have voting for the same amount of time.  You can only enter twice, and your entries will be subject to verification.

Here’s the file.  Good luck!

EDIT: here’s a link to the file - people said my lightbox was interfering with them downloading it:

http://www.studionashvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/failwhale1.jpg

And I know disqus doesn’t allow images - so if you can’t host it on flickr or photobucket, just email it to me and I’ll put it in the thread.