Lowdtown April Release: Public Radio Tee
Posted: March 23rd, 2009 | Author: Ray | Filed under: Design, Lowdtown, Releases | Tags: nathaniel milburn, process, public radio | 3 Comments »This is newest Lowdtown Friends & Freaks design called: Public Radio. This was a fantastic collaboration between me and illustrator/motion graphics artist, Nathaniel Milburn. I felt that our whole design process was really great, so I feel like sharing how this tee came to be.
And for any of you interested in purchasing this shirt, it’ll be available on the Lowdtown Friends & Freaks website at April 1st, 2009 EST.
1. Brainstorm
In the brainstorming process, Nath and I corresponded by email and just threw out random ideas. I sent Nath a bunch of keywords that I felt represented Lowdtown. After that, he sent me some rough sketches of some ideas he had. One idea that struck me in particular was a fun design of a DJ character.
2. Sketch Tag
After I saw Nath’s DJ character, I played around with the idea a little further. I came up with a character that has a bunch of radio and DJ tools in his hat. This formed the theme of public radio, and the idea that this character supplies the public radio music to the Lowdtown folks.
3. Sketch Tag Continued
I sent Nath my sketch, and he refined my sketch and added his own style. I had to abstain from my habit of drawing big eye brows this time, haha.
4. Sketch Refinement
At this point, I felt that Nath’s last sketch had the look that I was looking for. I wanted the kicks to be a strong motif so I added them in to form to Lowdtown’s quirky streetwear style.
5. Lineart
Nath took over the final lineart, which came out amazing! It was extremely smooth, and just what I wanted.
6. Coloring
After Nath did the linework, I took over the coloring. To really push the quirkiness of the character, I felt I needed a really bold color scheme. Though a bit cliche, the CMYK color-scheme worked extremely well with the design. I tried many other color-schemes, but I was most satisfied with this one. Also, to add a splash of color, I added water-colored bubbles coming from the turn table. I felt that this was necessary to complete the composition.
7. Finalizing
Finally I mocked it up on a tee, and sent the final design over to the printer. And mark your calendars! This awesome shirt comes out on Wednesday April 1st, 2009.
Be sure to visit Nath Milburn’s portfolio at: http://www.heynath.com
Written by Ray Masaki
Hey, my name's Ray, and I'm the founder and creator of Lowdtown Friends & Freaks. Thanks for visiting the site! E-mail me at: ray@lowdtown.com if you have any questions or comments.
what’s a water-colored bubble…?
[...] Masaki of Lowdtown Friends & Freaks made a great post on his blog showing the design process of his latest tee. Public Radio is a collaboration between Masaki and [...]
the stuff coming out of the record player.