Designing a unisex t-shirt for Loves, Mariessa posed an interesting challenge — after all, her name has the word love in it and hearts in her logo. Since the brand is a boutique fashion line, it needed it to be edgy (my favorite descriptive word), bright and cool. I had my work cut out for me.

Turns out Mariessa didn’t like any of these — she’s going with something more distressed and more about clothing construction, a dress form and sewing machine parts — but I liked the execution of integrating hearts with a larger concept about either 1) a tough act or 2) big talk to make it more likely that a boy would wear it.

Approved t-shirt designs for Loves, Mariessa (the ones with the logo) and a few leftover comps. The approved designs are being screened by Bearded Lady printing in Austin, Texas.

With a handful of fonts, I recreated the design, substituting a few of the phrases for term specific to Kirk. Here are the three drafts:

The catalog number is the actual catalog number for Kirk’s album, Suddenly Bright Out.

Kirk wanted a t-shirt that was less about promotion than it was something someone would want to wear. But still, with an eye on promotion. His logic: he’d seen a cup at Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse that read, I love — can’t remember the name, but let’s say Andre D’Arcy so — Andre D’Arcy. Kirk found out later that this was a local musician. But more than about Andre D’Arcy, it was a cool coffee cup, one that Kirk wanted to use for his coffee.

With such a shirt, I can see how the shirt owner would prosteletize Kirk more than the shirt by itself. Kirk’s logic is that word-of-mouth is more powerful than just seeing another name on a t-shirt.

In the end, he liked the second version the best. I do too. Look for the shirt soon at his website.