Rap stars have merch?

I had to do a few pieces for Eazy-E, Flavor Flav, The Biz, and Notorious BIG. Doing art for 13 year old girls is super easy. Turns out rap merch can be pretty easy too.

Go big and bright.

Bright colors. Oh yeah, and as you would think, these aren't only for male buyers. Because these will mostly be sold at Hot Topic or Journey's, girls and guys will both buy them.

Oversized prints are going to be popular. Gotta be bright to match that sweet Kid Robot or LRG hoodie and Nike dunks. If you're into that.

Anyways, here are some examples I did.

Inspiration!

Here are some websites that I really like.

abduzeedo
shorpy
thegiantpeach
karmaloop
urbanoutfitters

Do your research.

It's good to know what your client is going to like before you spend time on a project. It's also good to take a little time to sit back and click around online to find inspiration! New things that spark interest or new trends.

Spend time on your sketch.

Make sure that you have a good idea of what you're going to do if it is a design that will take a long time. Sometimes clients ask for very specific things and you spend hours and hours and then you show them and they hate it. Sometimes, that could have been helped by showing them a few ideas before you start! If it sounds like they are going to be impossible to impress, then it may be smart to pass the job along to someone else.

POP.

What makes a design appealing to someone? Why do people buy t-shirts that have graphics on them? Obviously because they can be cool, but why are they drawn to them?

There are a lot of things that go into the composition of a design. And as boring as that sounds, it is something you have to understand very well to succeed in that kind of business! Knowing your buyers. You want to know if a guy or girl will be buying this, or both. What colors are "in" and also the demographic of your buyer. Are they teen or adult? Hipster or teenybopper?

Unisex designs

We can start with this design for my brothers band, A Rocket to the Moon.
This is a good example of a unisex design. Both guys and girls will like this. It has a pretty wide age demographic, too. It isn't very limited as far as buyers go. I didn't plan it that way, but I guess it just worked out, ha.



And ladies...

Here is one that is much more limited with age and gender. I did this one with a younger girl crowd in mind. It really is easier to design for girls. You just need bright colors, hearts or swirly text, and a cute subject. This shirt is obviously aimed towards the young to teen girl market. The "juniors" market.



Gotta draw 'em in.

Guys are much harder to work for. A good example for this would be a shirt I did for a UFC line that was focusing on different countries. This is pretty obviously pointed right at the male market. Black shirt, strong brushed metal texture, and strong colors. Since guys typically shop less than girls, as a designer, you have to make dudes want the shirt.



That is a pretty easy overview of guys, girls, and unisex design.

I guess we'll just jump right in to it.

When a client hires a designer, they usually give some type of direction to work off of. This can be fun or suffocating. Luckily, I have never had too much to do with suffocating direction. Sometimes they want things that just don't make sense. Other times it gives you full creative freedom.

Lets start with something everyone should know!

Sesame Street! I started doing licensing designs for Sesame Street earlier last year. That means that when a licensing company hires me, they have the licenses for those brands and put their merchandise in stores. This was the last name I thought I would be working for. I loved it.
Ever seen that SNL short "On A Boat"? That was my direction for this design. The Cookie Monster tee is based off of the MTV show, Jersey Shore, with a "fist pump" parody.

These types of designs have to hit a person's funny bone. These shirts are targeting a 13-25 year old age range as those ages most likely know what the shirts are referring to visually. They are also unisex tees.

Freedom!

Lately I've been working on a line for a company called Rock Renaissance. They gave me total creative freedom with a style I love most: LA edge. Here is a picture by a friend of mine named Dirk Mai.

This fits the LA edge style in the ways that it has blacks and mild color. It kind of gives the bohemian vibe that Rock Renaissance called for when I heard their vision.
Here are some examples of what I came up with for that specific look:

I love doing these styles because it is right up my ally. Things that I would wear. That makes it a whole lot easier to design! These are also all unisex designs. I'll go into further explanation on how to really go about making a design stand out to a guy or a girl or both.