T-shirt crit for newbie designer

[green3]

Hello to everyone, i would like feedback for a t-shirt design to be used at a BFA review at my school. Basically, i need to show my design capabilities at junior level to be considered for fine arts degree. The concept of the design is "Coexistence" or living in harmony with others disregarding race, religion, gender, ethnicity, etc. I have two designs to show, both are meant to deliver the message with simplicity and i want to include the word "coexistence" in both. Any feedback, positive or negative, is welcome.

Thank you for the time

[chamanc]

I think the Bird Redesign does a better job of communicating the message you are trying to put across in your t-shirt design. The way the colorful birds are placed convey harmony whereas the first design (T-shirt 1 Black) the birds seem too static. The Redesign one is much more inviting while the all blue bird one reminds me of twitter or a tech company. Hope that helps. :)

[green3]

Thank you chamanc!

I developed the redesign, made the birds slightly larger( i thought they might be too small), and added the "coexist" word in low opacity @ the bottom.

Now i'm just debating the colors to print on. I have narrowed it down to the ones below. :thinking:

Thanx again :

[Elwell]

There's no reason to post PDFs. Attach jpegs instead and people will actually be able to see them.

[Elwell]

You can edit your posts and do it this time.

[ZsMann]

why'd you go diagonal with the power lines?
*edit*
and I like the light green one the best... but I'm partial towards that color

[green3]

Good observations,

considering the design is simple i figured the slant on the power lines would make it more dynamic. But at the same time, it might be taking the focus away from the color birds so maybe straighter is better. I made three new samples with lines going straight across.

Now, i dont know if the background color of the shirt will affect the "inviting" factor of the design and if the word "coexist" should be there or not..

either way, the design should be close to finished after any of these final adjustments, if needed.

:thinking:

[ZsMann]

I think the idea might be understood better with less colors/more birds on the front to really emphasize the back. I definitely like the straight power lines more. You might want to think about how your design would work if a girl was wearing your shirt though.

[Raoul Duke]

I'd kinda like to see the birds up close. I really can't help you much from this distance. No need to post the shirts. I like the placement as it is.
Maybe experiment with poles. I think it would boost the composition.

[Bi0s]

man, are you going to do the stamp manually?
if yes, and it's with serigraphy, try making 1~2 color (unless you're good with the technique) and try more kinds of birds, usings different sizes and these things ;D

and I would use a text for complementing the visual message
there are two kinds of texts, the message fixing and the complent text.

In this case, I would use the complement one, cse it's hard to catch the concept if you don't know what's the concept XD

[Bi0s]

on the stuff about messages i said before, read Roland Barthes about propaganda message, visual rethoric. Read and tell this in your release of the work, showing this, you'll maybe get extra points ;D

[Kiiskinen]

I would definitely wear a shirt like that at least. The message is good and the composition is neat and simple. Not overly crowded and chaotic like most designer shirts tend to be these days.

How about lowering the lines slightly and adding a few flying birds above the lines? Might make it too crowded, but like Frasier said, "Yes, but if less is more, then think about how much more more would be". ;) I also personally liked the diagonal lines better, and would love to see a red version.

[green3]

Zsman: the less colors is a good idea, because it will cost me less to screen print (at my local shop) and the colors will seem less scattered. I will only print a men's shirt sample for the purpose of the review- Thanks for the suggestions.

Raoul Druke: a few shots of the birds up close below, as far as the poles, i don't know if they would over-complicate the design, but i found a few interesting vectors. I don't know where i would place them though, I'm leaning towards only keeping the lines. Good input :)

Bi0s: i could but i decided to go to a local print shop, and I'm planning to use only 3 colors because it can get expensive after 2 colors. I resized some of the birds for variety as mentioned, and think it added depth, cool. As far as the message, i will look into a variety of words, if anything else could complement the visual message better. And thanks for the Roland Barthes reference, will keep that in mind as i present.

Kiiskinen: Thanks! I figured simple was the way to go on this design. As far as adding birds, i might add one or two in the final if it's not too risky. Nice quote though :)

So birds sizes were slightly varied, a bird added, colors reduced, and finally i made an alternate with a logo in the back instead of more lines. I think the alternate might be the final. Well, thanks to everyone for all the input and i will print it this week.

[LonZ]

Forgive me if I may go on a different direction here, but I think the design is way too simple for the the Campaign itself. At first glance, I couldn't find the idea on the design behind it. If I would look the shirt from a distance, I would only recognize stripes & color dots. Why? Because of the small details are hardly can be seen. I don't mean to offend, but this are some criticism I do get at my work.

You wont get the 100% similarity from digital printing to silk printing. Especially when dealing with small details on a shirt. Paints tend to overlap & expand as they are printed & heated on the fabric. My suggestion is that you could work on the silhouettes more to make the small details visible. Some angles & curves would tend to go round in the process of silk printing ending up visually unreadable.

Going on the concept of your design, I've seen some COEXIST designs using religious symbols to literally spell it, but what you've done at the back of the black shirt is more likely appealing to me since there's a feel of Modernity in it. However I couldn't seem to understand the three colored birds if I would take out the word COEXIST below them & those in front of the shirt.

Just my two cent, I think the idea would be clear if you would use different types of birds. This may also decrease the colors you would likely use, since the silhouettes shows already their differences. They may also show different nations. e.g. using National Birds. And having different shapes may also bring humor on the concept:teeth:

[Erayo]

Just my two cent, I think the idea would be clear if you would use different types of birds. This may also decrease the colors you would likely use, since the silhouettes shows already their differences. They may also show different nations. e.g. using National Birds. And having different shapes may also bring humor on the concept:teeth:
I say add a penguin out there, it would look much cooler.
Different sized birds might work out actually.
On the last designs I've noticed some birds were standing alone on the wire, contradicting the "coexist" thingy... remember to always place em in couples or groups (try making them look like lovebirds facing each other).
I also vote for the wires that are not 100% horizontal, I like them tilted a bit (doesn't have to be diagonal, just a bit tilted to different sides).

It reminds me of Pixar's short "For the Birds" :)