Lowdtown April Release: Public Radio Tee

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

Design Process – Townster

I wanted to give you guys a little peak of how I come up with t-shirt designs, so here’s a look at what I did to make the Townster design for LTFF.

Brainstorming

Before starting a design, I think it’s important to have an inspiration. For this design, I already had a clear idea of what I wanted. I had this little design that I put up on emptees called: Headphonester.

The illustration was pretty crappy, but I liked the composition on the t-shirt, and the colors were something that would look good for my Lowdtown line, so I decided to revamp it.

I always feel more comfortable sketching out the design before getting on the computer, so I start in my sketchbook. I like blocking things out with a ballpoint pen (I never draw with pencil), and then with an illustration pen, I go over the lines that I like.

Onto the Computer

Afterwards, I get on the computer and I start to work on the lineart. For this kind of design, I wanted the lines to be super clean and sharp so I used the pen tool instead of the brush tool for all the lines.

Then I add in any halftone details. For this design, there weren’t too many halftones besides the thick eyebrows and the shirt pockets, so I added that.

Finally, I figure out the color palette. I usually use kuler (kuler.adobe.com) and make a custom palette that I think looks nice. I apply all the colors, and mock it up on a t-shirt.

So that’s all I have for today, I hope this gives a little insight into my process. If you like the design, check it out at the Lowdtown Friends & Freaks Store!

Thanks!