“If you can’t beat ‘em, make t-shirts.”
I’m a purist, and admittedly a bit of a typography snob. I’m working on it.
Remember in the 2010’s when hipster culture was at its peak and retro took over the world again? Everything was unreasonably boutique, artisan, and vintage. I love history, but I value purposeful design that has integrity.
Beloved typographic styles were stripped of their historical dignity by the masses, becoming more watered down than a dollar cocktail. But I too was complicit — designing, silkscreening, and heat transferring such t-shirts for a living as my guilt grew with each paycheck. I had to do something.
I craved some harmless subversion. On lunch breaks I stripped one of our templates down to its border, then laid out the type for some meta honesty and finished with custom swashes. I couldn’t beat ‘em so I joined ‘em, integrity be damned.
It is a typography lover’s ode to designing with purpose rather than following the trends that undermine our rich and meaningful visual history.
I chose the very application that is increasingly responsible for the watering down of these once refined styles: the t-shirt. Anti-formal.
What once expressed an air of formality to those who originally experienced it in the wild will now be most commonly found on something as unceremonious as a t-shirt. I found that simultaneously comedic and tragic.
If you can’t beat ‘em, make t-shirts.