The band I’m in, Anyone Anyway, was in desperate need of shirts to serve as a promotional tool as well as a way to make money. So, after being in school at New England Tech for long enough, it was about time I put my skills to use. We had gone through several different ideas, like plain text, waves, photos, and so on, but nothing that we were genuinely happy with.
After picking and photographing a little flower from a walk with my dog, it occurred to me how potentially fitting this could be as a shirt design. I brought this photo into Illustrator where I used the pen tool to outline the flower. I understand that most people would be frustrated, or cringe at the thought of outlining such a detailed image, I felt differently. However, I dove right in because I love the functionality of the pen tool.
I was happy with the detail of the flower, and I thought that idea came across well. Also, the text at the bottom is very close together. I liked how narrow the type was and how it didn’t exceed the width of the flowers, and thought the product was all set. I even came up with variations with colors, whether it was just a subtle drop shadow, or making copies and drastically changing the colors to something kind of moody. I showed the color variations to the rest of the band, and it was decided to scrap those colorful ideas, and stuck with the black & white. I then started showing the original to even more people who made the point that the type was not very readable. If you were to be looking from far away, you wouldn’t be able to read the words, which defeats the purpose of promoting a band through merchandise.
Easy fix.
From there, I just spaced everything out and made the letters themselves bigger. I still wanted to add color, however, and I tried to make it look glitchy. To do that, I made copies, one red, one blue, and put them behind the white version.
These designs have now been printed and are being sold as a form of branding for Anyone Anyway.
