Saturday, September 12, 2009

|asb meets tmnt and dr. seuss|


This is one of my two T-shirt designs for Union's Associated Student Body this school year. I started the design planning to sort of 'rip off' an American Eagle shirt design, but I quickly changed the colors and arrangement of the type as I 'unionized' the graphic. I chose purple for the shirt color because that seems like an uncommon free-shirt shade, and the lime green seemed like a natural partner. After the shirts were printed and distributed, John Luckiesh confessed that he loves the shirt because it reminds him of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

This second shirt design took me a very long time to complete. Also (loosely) starting as an idea from American Eagle, it went through a few arrangements of the type and many different color schemes until I ended with this version. I manipulated the text a bit to make it fit better together, keeping the Star Wars logo in the back of my mind. However, a few people mentioned that this design reminds them of Dr. Seuss, which never crossed my mind.

It's interesting to see how designs are interpreted and how they make people feel. Depending on emphasis, placement, or wording, you could be insinuating something to one person and offending another. That's why it is so important for designers to be intentional with their work and give it purpose, always with the audience in mind.

--J. Gibb

P.S. I hope you like the new blog layout I found! Unfortunately, I perused the code and cannot figure out how to change 'il primo' and 'il secondo'! So, I guess the blog will remain bilingual until I find a solution. :-D