Heavenly Footlock

The Heavenly Footlock t-shirt is a collaborative project together with Tatami Fightwear, BJJHQ and 93 Brand to raise funds for the charities RAINN and Rape Crisis.

When I first began sketching down the concept, I realised quickly it would be quite a task to get it looking as technically decent as I wanted it, and I needed help too....

Chinese Lions

I have long had a strong personal love for Chinese lions (aka Foo dogs). Stone statue lions stood guard at the Chinese restaurant my parents owned and were the mascot our establishment used on all our branded tableware and printed material. My sister and I loved them. So it's no surprise that I still like to include my interpretations of Chinese Guardian lions whenever I can. The ink drawing I am holding above for example was drawn for my own branded clothing range - a grey hooded top:-

24 hour grapplethon charity tee and poster

I was asked to provide some support for a charity event - the 24 hour Grapplethon in aid of Meningitis UK. The above poster features my design; female kabuki character choking out a Japanese demon using a rear naked choke. The concept continues the theme I used on my previous charity design for Tap Cancer Out.

I first formed the idea in my head and then sketched it down in my notebook. I don't bother carrying around a full sketchpad anymore when I am commuting to work, I find a small lined notebook cheaper and easier to pack into my day bag.

As you can see, it is a little crude but was enough to show to the organiser of the event to win his approval. I then began to research Japanese kabuki mask characters in more detail. It's a fascinating art form not too dissimilar to Chinese opera, which I am a little more familiar with, having attended several operas when in China.

Once I had established certain details I wanted included in my final mask designs, I set to work on Illustrator. I drew each mask separately and then combined them on a new worksheet. The flowers are significant as they are Forget-me-nots, the chosen flower of the charity itself.

The images above are close-ups of the t-shirt we had printed. As you can see, I reprised the front design by rejigging the faces so they are looking sideways at one another. I was in a dilemma whether the outline the whole of the back design with a box, but in the end I left it borderless.

If you wish to donate to the event (which I will be taking part in as well), then please visit the sponsor page here: http://www.justgiving.com/meerkatsu


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Event posters

Creating designs for t-shirts is one thing, but event posters are a trickier business I find. Here, I'm not expected to create a work of art, but instead communicating information is the most important aspect. But without designing something attractive to the eye, that information is wasted. So it's a tricky balance. I'm no graphic designer, but recently, I was asked to design event posters for the Premier BJJ Championships - a series of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments in the UK staged at various cities throughout the year.

Cork
The first tournament is for Ireland - Saturday June 23rd in Cork, if you fancy visiting. Here's my poster design:

Here is a breakdown of my thought processes on the design...

Sticker Design, Diginate review

I love stickers - especially BJJ ones, so I decided to make my own. I drew up three new designs specifically to test how good the sticker printing service would be and for something I could use for self promotional marketing. For this initial sample, I used the online service from. www.diginate.com Here's how they turned out:

Morcegão Rashguard

Masaru Fight Co. are a UK based fightwear company that make fightwear and leisure wear for the grappling community. They recently began a custom rashguard design service and asked if I could test it out. I drew an evil looking vampire bat and tried various Illustrator elements, eg gradients and masking, to see if the printed version would stay faithful to my digital original.

Here's how I designed the bat artwork:

Monkey Style T-shirt

I've mentioned before that I regularly contribute to a BJJ magazine called Jiu Jitsu Style. In addition to this, I have designed a rashguard for them, and a t-shirt. This new creation is based firmly on my love of the old Chinese fable Journey to the West and the character Monkey King, or Sun Wu Kong, to give him his proper name.

Read on to see how I took the core sketch and built it up over a period of many steps to create the final product...