What do you get when you match original art from the Threadless.com community with a sleek, smooth-to-the-touch case for your iPhone from Griffin? One awesome case!

With two retail outlets in Chicago and another office in Boulder, Colorado, Threadless.com has been helping artists expand their creations onto wearable products for almost ten years. The online design community picks the best user-submitted designs and the winners have their work put up for sale.

It all began when founder and CSO Jake Nickell won a T-shirt design competition for an event in London, which inspired he and friend Jacob DeHart to form the company. “We’re always looking for new opportunities for artists,” proclaims Nickell in a Flash video on their website. “Griffin came to us with this idea about making iPhone cases that would have artwork on it. We made it happen, and it’s awesome.”

Griffin Technology is a familiar name in the gadget world for its wide variety of iPod and iPhone accessories. “In the iPhone space, we’ve seen a lot of collaborations that were more about just getting a certain name or a certain logo and gluing or stamping it onto the back of a case,” explains Griffin president Mark Rowan. “We really want to start from a deeper level, get the outside design influence, have them talking to our designers and coming up with something that’s really unique for the channel partners.”

The first two designs available are “Birds of a Feather” by Ross Zietz and “Clouds Within the Thunder” by Joe Van Wetering (shown here). “This design came to fruition after I defeated Zeus in a bar fight,” says Chicago-based Van Wetering of his winning creation. “With my bare hands.” He’s been a Threadless member since 2004 and has 8 printed tees.

You can visit the Threadless site to buy the matching T-shirt or case (compatible with both 3G and 3GS models only), download iPhone wallpaper and learn more about the artists. Budding artists can also join in the fun to be considered for future releases. As Threadless puts it: “You never know, your design could be next!”