Play Hard Do Good T-Shirt Design

DESIGNING T-SHIRTS is a challenge I enjoy, so when I was commissioned to design and illustrate the 2012 Beacon Lounge t-shirt, I was ready for some fun.

The Beacon Lounge is a quiet, relaxing and recharging space, nestled amid the chaos and activity of SXSW. It's the place you can take a break, meet people, eat tasty food, hear good tunes and help create lasting social good in the world.

Concept Sketches

Eve Simon, my friend and Beaconfire creative director, hired me to design this year's t-shirt. She provided the Play Hard Do Good theme and shirt specs. With this info, I began sketching ideas for a type treatment in pencil, shown below:

The initial sketch concepts for the t-shirt illustration were more along the lines of a simple type treatment, reflected in the pencil sketches above.

In the second sketch below, you can see I've expanded the simple type treatment from the first sketches to a complete and more detailed illustration using the Play Hard Do Good type treatment with supporting elements:

I aimed to capture a lounge-like late 50s / early 60s feel with the typography on this piece, having fun with the modern couch and other retro touches.

Inking, Scanning and Vectorizing

Once I had an approved concept sketch, I inked various design elements in my large Moleskine sketchbook and scanned them in. Once the elements were open in Photoshop, I was able to edit flaws, tweak details and prepare each piece for vectorization using VectorMagic — a key piece of my illustration toolkit.

Below you can see and in-progress version of the black and white illustration being built in Adobe Illustrator. Notice the additional horizontal rules in the center of the piece — those were simplified in the final version:

Time for Color

Once the black and white illustration was approved, I explored color. I knew I had a brown t-shirt as a base color, so I selected bright aqua and vibrant orange to compliment each other and the base white ink.

This combination created a color palette suggesting both a lounge feel and the Texas hill country around Austin:

Here is the final illustration shown in context on a brown t-shirt:

T-Shirts Supporting Sweet Relief

The team at GoodThreads and Beaconfire sponsored the t-shirt design and printing — I can't wait to see these shirts on Beacon Lounge guests!

These custom illustrated t-shirts will be available to Beacon Lounge guests with a donation to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. It's great to be part of the Beacon in this way, giving back and making a difference in the lives of people.

Come to the Beacon during SXSW, say hello and pick up your shirt.

Madison Ruby Logo & T-Shirt Designs

IT'S ALWAYS FUN to see a logo and t-shirt design in use. Last weekend I had the pleasure of paying a visit to Madison Ruby conference, where the logo I designed and t-shirt I illustrated were in heavy use.

Here are samples of the logo and shirt graphics:

I've created a Flickr set for Madison Ruby, with all of my sketches and in-progress vector art if you're curious how a logo is created from concept sketch to final art.

Thank You

Thank you Jim and Jen Remsik for the opportunity to help brand Madison Ruby. I had a great time working with you and heard great things about the event.

Well done!

Photo: Ashe Dryden

Winterblast 2009 T-Shirt Design

I've just received a box of freshly printed t-shirts I've designed for Winterblast, our church youth group's yearly winter retreat. As with the 2008 t-shirt design, I'd like to share a little more about the design process along with imagery of the final design.

Maintaining the Winterblast Identity

Since 2007, I've been working with a few constant specifications when designing the Winterblast t-shirt — a solid color, long sleeve shirt, white ink on the front only and a stylized wintertime animal in the artwork.

For the 2007 design I created a snow monster with two broom ball sticks on a navy shirt to start this series. In 2008, I chose a polar bear with a winter hat and sunglasses on a forest green shirt.

For 2009 I selected a penguin on a snowboard as the cold-weather animal to stylize for the shirt design.

Sketching the Snowboarding Penguin

With that general direction in mind, and the word FOLLOW as the 2009 theme, I began sketching ideas of penguins on snowboards, flipping over the typography:

Tom the youth pastor wanted simplify the FOLLOW type so the double LLs wouldn't tuck together, and we both agreed that having the FOLLOW type tilting downhill (rather than uphill) with the penguin grabbing air over the type worked best.

Color Mockup

Next, I prepared a color mockup for Tom in Adobe Illustrator, to show how the design would appear on an indigo blue long-sleeved t-shirt:

The font used for FOLLOW was based on Oxide Solid Light, with the strokes of the letters bolded manually, a customized W to match the style I wanted to see, and a custom explanation point added to round out the typographic details.

Tom liked this look and shirt color, so I sent shirt sizes and final artwork to MJM Screen Print & Embroidery Studio in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin for final printing.

Finished Design

The final, finished design turned out great, and I especially love the indigo blue shirt color, which fits in well compared to the shirts from 2007 and 2008:

Once again, the shirts turned out well, thanks to the great work by MJM on printing. I'm looking forward to handing these out to our students at Winterblast this weekend.

BarCampMilwaukee3 T-Shirts are Done!

Last night I picked up 4 boxes of beautiful, charcoal gray t-shirts for BarCampMilwaukee3! Here are shots of the actual shirt, hot off the presses:

Note that I've had my friend Brian Artka add his name, Twitter handle and tags to his shirt, so I could demonstrate how the shirt will work at BarCampMilwaukee3.

The idea is to create space in the design for each attendee to add a name, Twitter or Identi.ca handle and 5 tags to represent what they're interested in with a permanent marker. Each shirt becomes unique and personal, while also embedding key information to encourage strangers to say hello and start discussions.

I'll be picking up a bunch of colorful permanent Sharpie markers next week, which I'l spread out on a table for BarCampMilwaukee3 attendees to customize. I can't wait to see how the concept works at the event!

My favorite neighborhood screen print and embroidery shop, MJM Ventures, did a stellar job with my design once again. Thanks guys!

Get a free shirt while they last!

How? Sign up and attend BarCampMilwaukee3, October 4-5, 2008 at Bucketworks, 1340 North 6th Street, just north of Downtown Milwaukee (map).

Go Sign up today!

BarCampMilwaukee3 Final T-Shirt Design

After receiving not a single entry in the BarCampMilwaukee3 T-Shirt design contest, I decided late last week that I ought to come up with a design for the shirt, and quick.

Below is the final BarCampMilwaukee3 T-Shirt design for 2008:

How did I Get Here?

The deadline for ordering shirts and submitting some art was looming, and there were no submissions to the contest to speak of. It was last week Thursday when I opened my sketchbook and started to doodle. What came out in rough form was a design vaguely similar to the design above.

I wanted something a bit organic, fun and round. I remembered that Pete Prodoehl had "tagging" space on name tags at the first BarCampMilwaukee in 2006. I took his idea a step further by embedding the tagging spaces right in the shirt design.

At the Web414 meeting that evening, I saw Jordan Arentsen wearing a charcoal gray t-shirt from a recent Adobe AIR event, and loved how the shirt looked. I checked his tag (with his permission) and found it was a Gildan Ultra Cotton, the same shirt I've been using with all of my projects for the last few years. Excellent!

Design Iteration v1.0

When I got home, I was wired from the Web414 meeting, so I began working with the sketch I had, and generated a v1 design iteration. I quite liked the feel of this first iteration — the rounded shapes and tags, white backing color and the use of the BarCampMilwaukee icon on the back.

As I look back, James Carlson gave me some inspiration with a Wiki character he's sprayed on a large sheet of paper and showed at the Web414 meeting. It had eyes on stalks, which influenced my decision to add similar circles/eyes on stalks to the t-shirt design.

However, I wasn't sure of the dark blue color, and decided to sleep on the design until Friday.

Design Iteration v1.1

In the morning, I had the idea to try another color. Since the BarCampMilwaukee logo takes inspiration from the Milwaukee Brewers Blue & Gold colors, why not try a retro 1980s Brewers medium blue?

That's what I did, and I really loved the feel against the white and the charcoal gray shirt material.

I also wanted to describe the idea visually to the BarCamp core team, so on the v1.1 iteration, I added some sample texts in the balloons for my name, Twitter handle and 5 tags that represented my interests.

Design Iteration v1.2: Final

Feedback from Web414 and BarCampMilwaukee people was very positive this weekend, so tonight I've finalized the EPS art for t-shirt printer, complete with the sponsor list for BarCampMilwaukee3.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this project, especially Pete! I will follow-up when the shirt goes to print with photos of the shirts hot off the presses.