Would you wear it?

In a heartbeat!

Hold on, I'm going to try and improve it a little.

As a former music major, I always thought of music as something elegant. In band, choir and orchestra we always wore full black and white concert dress and every concert was a rather formal occasion... at least, about as formal as you get for high school. Thinking along those lines, this style feels "wrong" to me, but then you know your school's music program better than I do. (Just out of curiosity, are you involved in the music program, or are you an artist that's designing for the music program?) I would not have worn a shirt like this, but perhaps that's just a matter of personal taste.

I don't think that those two fonts work particularly well together, and would reconsider your choices there. At the very least, take a look at the kerning, particularly after the "G" and around the "O" in the word "GALION" and around the first "E" in "DEPARTMENT".

I think that the colors are rather harsh on top of one another as well. They seem to struggle for dominance. Those may be your school colors, but perhaps if you used one or both colors on a white t-shirt it would be less hard on the eyes.

The person in the center and the one on the right are both facing front, but the one on the left is facing left. I think that it would work better if all three were facing the same direction. It might be hard to show a trumpet from head on, but I suppose you could always try a drummer.

I don't know if that will help you at all, those are just my first impressions. It's hard to critique the idea without knowing what kind of feeling the group is going for. I hope that it helps some.

I see what you mean. I do happen to be in the band and in showtunes. I don't know, to me it seems like when we will wear these shirts, it displays that we are involved in the music department and are happy about it. I was trying to make it somewhat fun looking. But as you said, it should have a feeling of elegance.

Thank you for all the information, I think I might try something different, because of your statement above. Stay tuned.

If you haven't been given any direction by the head of the music department it makes your job harder. Of course, he might not even know whether he wants to go with a fun design or an elegant design or a completely abstract design or a minimalist design, or a <shudder> grunge design... it's tough when the "client" says "I'm not sure what I want, but I'll know it when I see it!"

If you don't have any specific instructions, and if you both enjoy doing the design work and have the time to experiment with it, it might be fun (and would definitely be good practice) to approach it from a few different angles. Maybe the school would be interested in more than one design, and it's a good creative exercise, too.

One thing that I wish I had done more when I was starting out as a designer was to save my early work - files or printouts, whatever was handy - and keep a scrap book so that I could look back and review my progress from time to time. If I were you, I'd definitely consider doing that!

Yeah, there weren't really any specifics other than the school colors and the music department theme.

I have the whole summer! I'll definitely be looking at it from many perspectives.

This is good advice. I do have a folder where I keep anything I do in photoshop, but I should really get something tangible to keep my designs in. Thank you!

How about this?

I like this design much better then the previous one and i can see you were going for elegance but the wave of string you added does not really convey music to me, maybe if you added music notes on them.

The "wave of string" is supposed to be a musical staff (I think), and I agree, a G-clef and some notes would enhance the design.

nannerpuss, I also think a solid typeface will hold up better over multiple trips to the washing machine. The thin lines of the 'face you've chosen are more likely to flake after just a few washings.

Unless its dye-subbed.
No flaking.

I'd equalise the type size of music and department. Or at least make department bigger - or take it off altogether.

True. I was thinking silkscreening, which is what was available to me last century when I was in high school.

when I looked at it, I saw the staff too. I tend to think that adding notes to it might make it too busy. I think that a G-clef could also throw it off balance.

I like the idea of dropping the word "department", too... it would be sort of implied even if it wasn't on the shirt, and that would let you move the word "music" down a little in order to give the staff and the text a little more breathing room.

I would also try out a solid font, as PD mentioned.

I like the concept. I think that the type needs some tweaking, but I do like where you're going with this. Well done! (and save both!)

I tweaked the music staff (and yeah, that's what it was supposed to be) so it looks more like a staff, but still keeps that fluidity. I also changed the text to something a bit more bulky.





I also had another idea and would like your feedback on this t-shirt design, please.