Project 9 - T-Shirt Design

Our assignment this week was to produce a T-shirt design of our choice with the only limitations being the use of two to four colors. By not having a specified objective to follow, it was a little overwhelming at first to narrow down the type of shirt that I was going to design. I was juggling between doing a humorous design that you might find in a novelty store and something much more structured and professional such as applying my logo as an integrated marketing piece. In the end I decided to combine these two paths of thought to create an iconic image that was not overly funny or too serious and would still let me create an engaging solution. The inspiration for this piece came from an Edgar Allen Poe quote: “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” I have always been very fond of this proverb but have never applied it to any of my work. As I was developing ideas for this piece I initially tried to create designs of an interwoven sun and moon. However, after a few attempts, I realized that my sketches looked a lot like what many other artists have created in the past and I decided that I had to take the communication of ‘night and day’ to a different level in order to be completely original. While I was resolving this issue I had become entangled with some music playing in the background and instantly had my solution. I wanted to create a surreal, psychedelic, depiction of a person wrapped up in a dream. I had recently looked at a few poster designs from the Art Nouveau era and decided that I wanted to incorporate this style into my piece to create something that I would not normally do. I turned my focus towards creating a peaceful profile of a woman’s face that was surrounded by swirling, interwoven hair. The addition of stars streaming behind her let me add a cosmic feeling to the piece and helped it relate to the quote a little more. All in all I found this project to be one of my favorites and was happy to explore and implement a different style into my work.