.Net

In August 2007 I felt I needed an additional creative outlet, and had been interested in the idea of doing some T-Shirt design for quiet some time. I stumbled upon the 'Redbubble' website after researching local-based alternatives to 'Cafe Press', and saw instantly this would be the ideal way for me to realise those ambitions, as they offered a print-on-demand service, flexible pricing structures, a good site interface, and a local Australian operation.

At that point I decided to differentiate myself from a lot of the 'artists' using the Redbubble site at the time by creating a 'brand concept/ID' which I would use on the majority of my T-Shirt designs (as opposed to simply 'branding' them as coming from Pete Larkins). I wanted something a little 'edgey', and with 'attitude', which would reference 'street' / hip-hop culture, as I saw the 'youth' & 'nightclub crowd' being my primary markets for the majority of the designs I had in mind. This was the result.

After brainstorming various concepts, I came up with the idea of "Bulletproof". Researching the websites of various body-armour manufacturers, I came across a source image of military protective gear which seemed to particularly suit.

This was then brought into Illustrator, traced as an outline, and further stylised. It was then exported to Photoshop, and I selected an appropriate font from Manfred Klein to reinforce the 'hip-hop' aesthetics of the logo concept. Finally the logo was was rounded out with additional 'flourishes' from another open-source font in my collection by the 'Smeltery' foundary in the UK.

Once finalised, the logo was saved as a high-resolution asset for use in the majority of the T-Shirt designs I've been producing in various colours since, and making available for sale through the Redbubble website.

Note: Some of the designs may be construed as somewhat risquè / NSFW, so this is why I've put the link in a separate tab, and if you are easily offended I would definitely advise against viewing the t-shirts.

To see them at your own peril, visit: http://www.redbubble.com/people/bulletproof