Winterblast 2008 T-Shirt Design

For the past several years, I've had the great opportunity to design t-shirt graphics for Winterblast, our church youth group's annual winter retreat.

For 2007, I created a snow monster for the shirt design, and loved how the white ink on navy blue long-sleeve t-shirts turned out. For 2008, I chose a stylized white polar bear design, on forest green long-sleeve t-shirts.

Designing the Polar Bear
To create the stylized polar bear illustration, I used image searches to locate a few reference photos, to help me establish correct proportions and shapes in my memory. Using this reference, I created a front-view polar bear in Adobe Illustrator. No sketches were necessary, as the bear idea had formed in my head by this point.

After several design iterations, I decided to add a pair of black 1960s sunglasses, a winter cap, and enclosed the polar bear within a circular shape.

I explored various type treatments for Winterblast '08, settling on a combo of Helvetica Bold and Medium. The rounded rectangle shape around the type suggests a highway sign — as our group typically has a long road trip North to the retreat.

Printing the Shirts
Once the art was complete, I took my final files to MJM Screen Print & Embroidery Studio in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. MJM provided great screen printing and superb service, turning these Winterblast t-shirts around quickly, and with great quality.

Here are a few photos of the finished t-shirts:

I think these shirts turned out very well. I can't wait to pass these bad boys out to the 50 students and leaders going to Winterblast 2008!

Comments

[marcus]

Hey Mike -these are great shirts, you could have a little side gig going here? :-) - got a left over Large?

[Mike Rohde]

All of the shirts are currentlt spoken for by the youth group (in fact we hope we have enough for the late-signer-uppers).

However, you have me an idea! We now have this screen on file at MJM, so a re-run would not be that costly. If we had 5-10 people interested in shirts, it would be cost of shirts and printing at this point. Interested? :-)

[macfixer]

Count me in! I'd love either shirt (let 'em guess at what it means!). Of course, you could do a distressed version, too -- for the throwback crowd ;-)

//k