Beginnings
As per my usual routine, I started with some basic sketches. I felt inspired to create some sort of patch-style logo, and during the summer months, I really wanted to create a design for classic PNW activities. I knew I wanted this to transfer to hats and t-shirts in some way, but I worked out the other details later on in the semester.
After many sketches, I decided upon these 3 activities. I wanted to make them into a series with a similar look and style.
Digitization
I then began working in Illustrator and, after many versions and critique, I came to these final versions. I started off with simple black-and-white logos which I planned later to change colors. Later, I ended up keeping the single-color design but switching black to gold. I did end up altering the logos to make them more appealing with the change in negative and positive space. I was hoping to screenprint gold foil onto shirts.
Logos
T-shirt Designs
Beanie logos
Printing Process
With that, I began creating my products. It was an admittedly grueling process and took a lot of trial-and-error. I chose three different color beanies and shirts to differ each logo. For the beanies, I screenprinted the designs on a suede fabric, cut them out, and sewed them onto the front of the beanies. For the shirts, I screenprinted the design with an adhesive ink (which ended up ruining screens…oops) and then heatpressed the gold onto the material.
I also created my own packaging. I found a large stack of personal pizza boxes and screenprinted those black. I then cut a square out of the front to allow the customer to feel and view the product. I included a craft paper wrap which had the product’s information printed on it.
Final
Once I finally finished all of my products and packaging, I was able to sell these items with my class in Popshop. This was my second year working at Popshop, and it was really rewarding to complete this whole process for the second time. Our process, storefront, management, and also revenue improved greatly compared to our first year.
We set up a booth with all of my classmates’ products in 2 separate venues. One was at the JUMP center in downtown Boise and the second was at a holiday market in Meridian, Idaho.
