Spurs Nation
A t-shirt design for a local clothing brand, Just Like Texas.

I met the owner of Just Like Texas in the early 2010's when we were employed at the same screenprint shop a few years ago. We shared similar frustrations with the job itself and both eventually left. We reconnected through art last year and I was happy to hear she started a new creative outlet. She started Just Like Texas as her own Texas-centric clothing brand and felt she needed to include some fresh designs. She reached out to me to create a new tee design and test my creative waters. We created a fun piece and soon after that first shirt, she reached out to me again to create a San Antonio Spurs design for her brand. It's no secret San Antonio loves their Spurs, so this was already set to be an exciting project for myself. To portray team-loyalty and passion seemed like a fun project to sink my teeth into.

 

We bounced some ideas back and forth after the initial idea was discussed and decided on a team-inspired theme with "Spurs Nation" to include a skyline and the original Spurs colors. After nailing down the layout, colors and textures were the next step. I had her talk the designs over with her team with each revision to properly solidify the design within the scope of her brand.

I love experimenting with fills and this gave me an opportunity to try some different things. The original layout was a bit flat so I played with drop shadows, gradients, and other shapes within the skyline to give the design some depth. In screenprinting, there is a higher expense with using a lot of colors. Although it looks a bit sharper with more, using less colors is less expensive and can still look great. As a designer, having a imitations of colors can be a challenge, but if you know what you're doing you can work through it and still give your images necessary depth.

After a few revisions, the client settled on the image below. It looks flat in comparison to the others above, but it is still pretty bold and that is ultimately what they wanted--bold and concise. They then wanted to see the Texas outline in barbed wire (like this first design I did for them) but the final design utilizes a standard outline for the state. A few little tweaks and it was ready for print.

Be sure to visit Just Like Texas to get yours.

 

As a squinty-eyed David Puddy would say, "Gotta support the team."

For those of you interested in having custom & innovative design work created for your band, business, or brand, please contact me @ blue73100@gmail.com.