Elite Clothing Designs and Screenprints

Printed on grey v-necks.

Printed on white tees.

Printed on black v-necks. The accidental texture on the "E" was a nice touch.

Exposing the designs.

The design turned out really clean.

Printing...

I've been doing a lot more screen printing lately, a goal I've been meaning to fulfill since I first began in the summer when I was screen printing t-shirts for my music project. Having a dimensional design and packaging design class along with the working with the gallery committee for alumni show it has given me numerous opportunities to experiment much more with screen printing. As my time and the time of many friends of mine at The Art Institute comes to an end we've all been reaching out to each others exclusive talents.

My friend, John has been into collecting hats for a while now, specifically quality 5 panel hats, namely from RIPNDIP, The Quiet Life, and Supreme amongst others. It hasn't been until recently, within the past month or so that he began making his own printed pocket tee's in between work and studying animation at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

We decided to try to make something more out of his ideas than just a hobby and reached out to our friend and fellow designer, Stephen Catapano who almost immediately started working out ideas for designs and a logo of sorts. If there is one thing to know about Stephen it is his constantly evolving obsession with everything letters and typography, especially script fonts so needless to say, his hand drawn type was as on point as ever.

All of the prepping and printing was done in one night in a friend's dorm room so I was surprised when the screen turned out as well as it did so I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I can see this developing into a hobby of mine as I continue to learn and experiment more with the medium. It feels as though everything I've been doing art and design-wise have been exercises, preparing me to do something more ambitious with what I've learned. In terms of what the next step will be, nothing is certain for now but this project will continue to develop in some way.

2013 Alumni Show / Screen Printed Tees

Left: Exposing the image. Right: The finished screen

In a few previous posts I mentioned I was helping plan and design posters for The Art Institute of Pittsburgh's Alumni Show, a show which looked to shine light on the work of recent alumni. For this show the school developed a newly formed committee reaching out to students of various majors and some faculty to help organize gallery events and worked hard throughout the quarter to design and produce posters, hand-outs, signage, display pieces and curate the event. After a few months of planning the gallery committee pulled together a really nice show. For the show we wanted to use the logo designed by Mark Saville for t-shirts. It was proposed that at the show, students, faculty, and other attendees would be able to come up and screen print their own t-shirts.

I’m not by any means a pro at screen printing so the design did come out a bit choppy at the bottom, courtesy of my makeshift set-up. I also initially intended for there to be two designs in which participants would be allowed to choose from but I mistakenly managed to expose the image in reverse, hence properly fucking things up but all-in-all I think it turned out rather nicely, albeit the minor imperfections.

A few of the wall mounted displays showcasing the work of the school's alumni.

Some fantastic catering and music was provided during the reception.

The two above photos are from the reception day event which included a mix of staff, students, and the featured alumni as well as music from members of the design committee and some fantastic catering. 

Above are some examples of my posters being used throughout the school to advertise the reception event. I'm really pleased with how well they turned out in print form.

Shane and Sean trying their hand at printing.

Shane holding up one of the shirts.

The reception of screen printing booth turned out much better than I had anticipated seeing as nearly all 75 of the shirts were used by students for the duration of the show. As the show slowed down, with fewer people coming in we decided to try experimenting with mixing a few of the colors we had together.

Having fun with mixing ink.

While it was a tiring and very busy quarter, seeing everything come together so well was more than a payoff and a great learning experience working with everyone who helped out.

Posters for The Art Institute of Pittsburgh Alumni Show

The two above images are posters I created for an upcoming gallery show at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. The show will feature a body of work from recent alumni. I wanted to create a poster with imagery that encompasses the vast array of talents featured within the show from a number of different majors that AIP has to offer, hence the variety of icons that make up much of the poster.

For the first poster I wanted to have something that stood out. Instead of using the school’s typical colors I chose to go with something a little more diverse, with more contrast, darks, mediums, and light colors. With the second poster (bottom) I went with a more subdued layout and color palette with the icons acting as a background to bring more direct attention to the text. The classy center graphic was created by Mark Saville who also produced a number of posters and imagery to promote the show. 

I still have a few more signage pieces that I will be working on before the shows reception date which I will have posted here in the coming weeks as well as some other projects that are slowly but surely coming together.

Take a quick look at my tumblr for other art related doings: redntoothnclaw.tumblr.com/

Icons and Graphics

Here is a sample of some vector icons that I created to be used in some posters I’m working on to advertise the alumni gallery show at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I wanted to create a diverse range of graphics that pertain to the various majors that are offered at AIP. I have a few more icons that I’m still working on and some I would like to adjust slightly before I finalize the posters but for now this is just a work in progress of what is to come.

Dimensional Design Project (Work In Progress)

The design screened onto canvas

My screen printing setup consists of a light taped
 to the toilet paper holder in my bathroom.

Design exposed into the screen. Also pictured: my girlfriend's cat being a creep.

This was an assignment for my dimensional design class. We had to make a bag for the Fourth of July. We were free to employ our own concept and being that the holiday isn’t so much an environmentally friendly one I wanted to address that in my concept, that being to bring a message to encourage people to “Have a green fourth of July”.

Needless to say I ran into problems getting parts of the design to come through clearly, I think the ink i mixed has either been to thick or too thin, blotting up or not printing as crisp as I would have wanted but I intend to revise this before the quarter is over and have images up of the complete bag as well.

Visit my tumblr for other art related things: redntoothnclaw.tumblr.com/

Texture Studies

Digital circle study 1

Digital circle study 2

Pen and ink texture study 

Scratchboard texture study

Above are a few select images of some digital and traditional texture studies that I have been experimenting with periodically in my free time. The first two (from the top) are digital vector renderings of circles layered and arranged repetitiously in patterns. The last two are densely layered linear pen & ink and scratchboard drawings.

I've been feeling inspired lately by all things linear and geometric but I think these "drawings" better represent an obsession with the idea that I could make something organic and textural, create a sense of depth, or evoke some kind of emotion with elements that are synthetic such as lines and simple shapes.

For those interested in these experiments I recommend checking out the Geometry Daily blog for tasty minimalist drawings that are updated daily.

On a related note, I recently made a Tumblr to showcase cursory postings of my artwork and related content. Check it out here: http://redntoothnclaw.tumblr.com/

Heccra Illustration

Within recent years I've fallen out of illustration, pretty much completely. It's a sad aspect of my life, one that, confessionally, can be attributed to a mixture of built up anxiety and laziness... but mostly laziness. Drawing used to be one of my favorite things to do; throughout my years in high school I spent much of my time drawing, either at home or in class, doodling and sketching out ideas, either in my sketchbook or on my classwork and notes. While that may not seem like the most appropriate use of my time for me it was a healthy hobby, one that I have fallen out of and unhealthily began dwelling on daily but never actually attending to.

Instead, music, or rather that of the avant-garde and experimental persuasion, that of noise has become the focus of much of my time. Along with my friend, Brian Sopher and more recently, Andrew Lake we created music under the name Hintergrund, a project I have documented here in a number of posts which I have created artwork and designed the packaging for.

Realizing my love for music and visual art, namely illustrative, I noticed that the two go perfectly together because what is music without the accompany of a visual element, an aesthetic, something visually tangible? Getting to the point, I approached Heccra, a one-man experimental post-hardcore project in which I have written reviews for and more recently conducted an interview with over at inb4track, the music blog I write for. I offered that I draw a design up for t-shirts, the result being the above image.

To put everything into context without too much unimportant inside speak, Heccra's sound is distinctive in that the vocals sometimes feature this pitch-shift which make them sound, like that of a chipmunk. Its a strange but intriguing production choice, one that I feel embodies the sound of the project quite well and as such, I thought I would touch on that in my illustration which is that of a cartoonish chipmunk looking rad in a cali-flip style hat, the name "Heccra" embroidered on the bottom of the bill. I think it turned out pretty dece.