Shake the Field Shirt
SHIRT DESIGN
I had the privilege of working with Alabama based non-profit, Alabama Forward’s Shake the Field team to develop a t-shirt design for an upcoming community event. Shake the Field encourages civic and cultural engagement in Alabama communities. Their team reached out to ask if I could create a design around a slogan they had created, The Movement Ain't Gonna Power Itself.
Here’s a detailed look into my design process for this project
Step One: Research
I wanted to get a feel for the Shake the Field design style, as the shirt would be representing the entire brand.
After gathering some inspo from their social media and website, I knew I wanted to go with a hand drawn, loose, and illustrative to really push their connection to community and grassroots movements.
(All photos in the collage were taken from the Shake the Field Facebook Page & Website)
Step Two: Brainstorm & Sketching
Then I started working through different ideas and layouts. My sketching phase is normally a giant dump of everything going through my brain and all the different directions I could take the design. I drew from some background the team sent me about the slogan:
“Here's the inspiration behind it: The phrase speaks to the idea that there's a place for all of us in creating lasting change. Even when we're feeling overwhelmed by the news or everyday life stressors, we each have something to give and somewhere to plug in. Each one of us is a little spark that keeps the engine moving – and it won't move without some force (think Newton's first law of motion!). The phrase actually came from a personal place: my mom used to tell me "the room isn't going to clean itself" when she was frustrated with me procrastinating on cleaning my room.”
After playing around with the typography and drawing a lot of lightbulbs, I landed on a sketch I that felt like the right direction.
The Winning Sketch
Step Three: Finalize Concepts & Send for Client Feedback
After deciding to run with that idea, I created a few different options. I chose to use oil pastel as it creates that nice hand-drawn texture that I was going for
(It also happens to be one of my favorite mediums at the moment).
Once I was happy with these drawings, I scanned and finalized some black and white designs to send to the Shake the Field team for their feedback.
THE FINAL DESIGN CONCEPTS
Version 1
Version 2
Step Four: Revisions
Every graphic designer prays that the email back from the client after sending the initial concepts is “We love it, absolutely perfect, please don’t change a thing!” but that rarely happens - and that’s okay!
The thing I love about feedback is that it turns a project into a team effort, it’s not just be coming up with everything myself, we’re getting closer and closer to a project we both love.
The team loved where I was going and decided they wanted me to use Version 1 but wanted me to add graphic elements that were representative of what their organization does like, redistricting/fair map representation, equal voting rights, civic engagement, economic justice, etc.
As you might be thinking, I too thought that it would be difficult to boil these large concepts down to a simple graphic, but I was up for the challenge. I went back to my sketchbook and came up with some new elements to create the final revised design.
THE FINAL (REVISED) DESIGN!
Step Five: Approval and Color Options
The team loved the new design and were excited to see it in color. Using their brand color guidelines, I came up with 1 single color option, 4 three color options, and 5 four color options. I sent them off to see which one they liked the best.
(screenshot of the Shake the Field Style Guide, provided by the brand)
THE COLOR OPTIONS
Step Six: The Final Design!
Here we have the final design! The team decided on a 4 color print and went with this one for their t-shirt design and I’m so happy they did. The shirts were debuted at the Selma Jubilee in March and are being used to help raise funds for their community efforts.
Check out more of my design projects