My Work :: Part 14: "Gao Gao" Stego T-Shirt

I am running off to the mountains this weekend, so didn't have time to get up an AB like I planned. So I did the next best thing, as not to leave anyone completely empty-handed: I designed a new t-shirt! Woo Hoo!

As I child, I was not obsessed with dolls or ponies, as any normal little girl can be. No, I adored dinosaurs. I collected all the dino books and figures I could, draged my fam to the Natural History Museum in DC where we lived, learned all the dino names and habits, etc. The very first job I ever wanted was to be an archaeologist. Needless to say that is no longer my greatest passion in life, but I sure do love dinos still and love hearing when a new species is found, that kind of stuff.

So when we watched the anime "Air," I knew it would have a special place in my heart, in spite of its bizarre but cute surrealism, which can be confusing. This is because Misuzu Kamio, the cute blonde with the impractically long hair, is also obsessed with my fave reptiles; she gives Yukito a stego shirt to wear and makes dino noises to express herself. In seeing a kindred spirit, a bond was forged between the two of us, the likes of which shall never be broken. =)

So of course I wanted to recreate the shirt! But someone at CafePress has already done that, and besides, the original shirt is NOT all that pretty, no matter how cute the stego on it is. So I decided a reddesign is in order.

Click on the pic above to see the shirt I designed. I took a pic of the stego shirt from off the web and traced the lines with the pen tool. Then I took those lines and the text and created outlines for both. (text: Type>Create Outlines; stroke: Object>Path>Outline Stroke.) The font is the same one I used for a logo for my cousin; is very simple yet contempo, and matches the whimsy of the stegosaurus pic. I put gao gao in quotes because I love when she says it, and put it on the back because I've been wanting to do a shirt at Cafepress with words on the back. I'm hoping that even if someone doesn't know it is from an anime, they will stil think it is cute. It's nice to get the inside joke, but I really hope the shirt's design, simple yet adorable, stands on its own.

CafePress is down at the moment, but when I get back from my trip I'm sure it'll be up and running again, and I will upload the tee for all to enjoy.

Next week I will get AB up and two other posts I have been working on. Till then!