Visual Designer
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Turning Gears

“Turning Gears” T-shirt Design

 

At the camp I worked at for two summers, the counselors grow to feel like family to each other. To commemorate the time spent together, the counselors often order a tshirt or sweatshirt that includes the names of each counselor. For this design, I chose to include a symbol that represents each counselors’ name. The symbols are hand drawn by the counselor they represent and arranged within a gear shape. The gear shape represents the theme for the summer: The Inventor’s Workshop.

 

A counselor wears his shirt as he plays “I Spy” with one of the campers.

A counselor wears his shirt as he plays “I Spy” with one of the campers.

The idea

Each summer, counselors at Mount Hermon bond together and become a group that resembles family. To remind them of their time together, a tshirt is created that incorporates each of their names and a theme from the summer. For this design, I asked each counselor to draw their symbol on a piece of paper as big as possible. I collected all of the drawings and uploaded photos to my computer, where I image traced each one in illustrator. After expanding the tracings and cleaning up some of the lines, I brought all of the symbols together and arranged them in a gear shape. The gear represents the theme of our elementary-aged program, The Inventor’s Workshop. The name of our staff, Day Camp, is also included. We voted on a hashtag that would sum up our attitude for the summer or remind us of an inside joke, and #DoIt4TheKids was the winner. The shirt color was chosen by popular vote among the counselors. The thoughtfulness of this design shines through its simplicity and attention to detail.

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The drawings

Each symbol in the design was hand-drawn by one of the camp counselors from the Day Camp staff of Summer 2017. This particular sign was drawn with sharpie on bond by a counselor who went by the name Verve, a local coffee shop in Santa Cruz.

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Transitioning to vectors

Each drawing was then put into Illustrator and image traced. I cleaned up the lines after expanding the tracings, effectively turning the hand-drawings into vector images.

 
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The Final Design

The final design showcases each of the counselors’ symbols enclosed in a gear. The title of our team “Day Camp” is prominently featured in the center.