Contest T-Shirts

I just finished the contest t-shirt design for this year!

Well, actually, that’s only sort of true.  I finished two versions, which we are now showing to a handful of friends to get their vote (one I like, one Bodybuilder Hubby likes).  It’s basically the same image, but one has a “distressed” look and the other doesn’t.

I’m happy with the design; it turned out a lot like I’d orignally pictured in my head.  It took me a little more than 10 hours total, so I’d better be happy with it!

I’d post a picture, but even once we pick one of the two images, there still might be changes made when they’re actually printed.  It seems like my t-shirt images always change when they get printed.

Last year the big problem was color.  I had made a design for a white t-shirt, with an image that was black and this turquoisey, aqua blue.

I had been really pleased with last year’s image.  I used a black oval background and the images of Bodybuilder Hubby and one of my sister’s best friends from junior high, who just happened to be a figure competitor and who was gracious enough to let me have some pictures of her to use.

Well, it turns out that in screen-printing, there are a limited number of choices for colors.  They had a jade green and a royal blue, but nothing like the turquoise-aqua I wanted.  I picked the available color I thought was closest, and the final shirts looked pretty good, just a little off how I’d pictured them.

Then on the post-contest survey, one of the competitors, a bodybuilder guy in his early twenties, commented that the t-shirts “weren’t cool enough.”

Ouch.

Really, I’m not surprised that someone would say that.  I would be more surprised if my design aesthetic was anything like a 20-year-old bodybuilder’s.

I like clean lines and simple shapes - modern, elegant, you know.

The best example of how what I like and what the typical bodybuilder likes differ happened with the other shirt I designed last year. 

I was asked to put together a design for a shirt for one of our sponsors.  I made an image that I thought looked great.  Bodybuilder Hubby’s arm over a black circle.   Simple but striking.  A little bit artsy.  I liked it.

I sent the image off to the sponsor to do with what they wanted.

And what they wanted, apparently, was dragon tails.

Dragon tails.

All around my clean, well-designed circle were dragon tails.  Or at least, something that looked like dragon tails.  It’s kind of hard to tell.

Um, okay. 

I’m sure there were competitors who liked it better that way.  And I’m okay with that.

I mean, really, the world would be a really boring place if everyone liked the same thing.

So, for this year, hopefully there will be a lot of people who like what I’ve done.  And hopefully the people who don’t like it won’t complain anywhere where I can hear them.

Now to do the image for the “Staff” shirt.  Oh, and to make the image for the back of the shirt with all the sponsors’ logos.

Okay, so maybe I’m not almost done.  But getting closer!