Thursday, January 20, 2011

Tee designs

Here are some 2D design that I have worked on for my CCA (track and field):

This is the first tee design done for my CCA. It is that of a photograph display hanger made of a string and some clothes pegs. Photographs which imitates polaroid with the different Nanyang athletes in their events, signifying the instantaneous moment of joy or happiness. There are also '1st' medals and an Asics spike shoe (the most common shoe brand used by Nanyang track athletes) seen hanging from the line.


This is the latest track and field tee design. For this work, I mimicked the pop art style, with the use of the broad colour planes and polka dots. The base colour of the design is blue, and thus with the use of more reds and yellows, so as to not clash with the blue. Some geometrical shapes are used in this design, to focus more on the elements I would wish to portray. In this case, the three figures seen: running, throwing, jumping. These geometrical shapes also help to frame the figures together, presenting a neater and more concised image. The use of a typical font, the one which is often associated to those on the tees of highschool cheerleaders. Not forgetting the lightning bolt shape that is used to put all the shapes and figures within. It represents strength (throwers), agility (jumpers) and quickness (runs) which is often related to track and field.
Drawing pen, A4 sized

This is the other design, a personal project for NYLD (Long Distance). It is for the event category that I specialise in. The silhoutte of a female figure running represents the typical nanyang long distance girl (like me) running. With the silhouttes of the different trees mimicking the trainings that we often carry out at MacRitchie Reservior. Not forgetting the fact that I personally do love trees a lot. For them being natural, steadfast and simply beautiful in its way. There are also reasons for drawing six trees; 1-sec ones; 2-sec twos; 3-sec threes, 4-sec fours; 5-coach; 6-assistant coach(es). Adjoining the design beneath are track lanes, each having exactly eight track lanes (the norms). Besides training in the MacRitchie Reservior, we do often train on tracks at Hwa Chong Insitution, CCAB or National Junior College as well since we still do track events. On the track lanes which are interwined together, small figures may be seen running on them too. The purpose of the interwining lanes was to represent the long distances that we do in a literal manner. Giving rise to the tagline beneath the lanes, "we clock our mileage". The words, "NYGH LONGD" can also be seen above the lanes.

Felt pen, A5 sized

This design was done last year for the track and field sec fours graduation. Its purpose was simply to give it to the graduating sec four seniors in appreciation of their efforts. It is an invitation card for our sec four farewell celebration. Despite the fact that they already know of this annual celebration, the invitation was done in any case. It was a suggestion by a sec four senior to make this celebration more formal, and at the same time interesting. The pop art style is once again used for the design, with the broad colour planes and polka-dots. Rectangles are used as well. If you realise, the colours used are generally the primary ones, excluding the green, biege and pink which added afterwards to enhance the design further.

This simple design brings in the idea of the number tag that athletics pin onto their jersey for cross country or track events. There is no specific reason for the number '0001' chosen, rather to make it simple and illustrate the idea of a our track team as "first". This design does not need complex drawings like those presented earlier but uses more typography designing elements such the fonts, size and also the positioning of fonts (see the made up logo next to the school crest).
This is one design made last year, which I personally am not quite satisfied with. Firstly, I did not use much effort in producing this design, and thus resulting to a lack of profound meaning or effort behind this piece. Secondly, it is not desirable to put the speech bubble next to the figure. Even I myself am not aware of the reason behind placing that speech bubble there in the first place. (?) But nevertheless, I do like the square shapes in which the various places which we train at are placed into. It helps to give a sense of coherence to the picture and also helps to make the design neater. And I do like the idea of placing the girl over these places, holding onto them as if they were her friends. It seems to show that the girl immerses herself in her trainings, which gives her the smiles on her face (joy). And, it seemed as if the girl reigned over these trainings, as if they were her territory. Like she knew them so well.

As time progresses, I am enjoying more and more of designing work. Previously, all I thought about designing tees were boring and simply that (nothing interesting). But well, I was wrong. Who says that artworks can't be tshirt designs? Who says that tshirt designs have to be all words and nothing special to speak of? Google 'tee designs' and one finds a lot of intriguing ideas which could and already can be found printed onto tshirts. It made me realise that more quality drawings too can be translated from the paper onto tshirts. There are no restriction boundaries and it leaves it for one to express themselves through the design, which ought to be attractive, meaningful and special. And in my case, it speaks of the people who are wearing the tee.

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