College Creative: Spotlight on Design Series

In our ‘Spotlight on Design Series’ Sky High Marketing’s design team will showcase a project completed for one of our clients.

The art department was asked to come up with some shirt designs for the Wisconsin Lutheran College bookstore. Wisconsin Lutheran College is a private liberal arts college located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The college was not only looking for a design for the popular basic t-shirt but also something that would stand out from the crowd. Along with the basic t-shirt, I chose two apparel options that would give students a unique way to represent their school and created designs they would want to wear.

As a current college student myself, I thought about what I see on campus from a day-to-day basis. A majority of students wear a lot of apparel with a vintage, distressed, or retro feel. I chose to focus on these ideas while also incorporating text and imagery associated with the college in my designs.

The basic t-shirt design uses a distressed font and a faded image of the logo in the background to give the feeling of a vintage collegiate athletic shirt. To create the design, I used a font that had a worn in look to it and placed it on a dark green t-shirt. Then, I decided the college’s athletic Warriors logo would work well as a faded image offset behind the white text. Students will appreciate the distressed feeling of this design.

As for the ladies shirt design, I focused on merging the collegiate feel with a more feminine side. I chose to use the schools colors and spent time finding the perfect fonts that are a mix of retro and vintage collegiate. The shirt style captures the popular distressed feel with its “burn out” texture, complementing the design. Using black for the shirt color really sets this shirt apart.

The final shirt design is geared for the men and has a worn in feel to it. Again, I chose to use the college's colors for this design. I wanted to really give this shirt a retro feel to it and used a script like font reminiscent of the 50's. I also used a collegiate font to give it a more authentic feel. To make the design stand out on the shirt and give it more appeal, I finished the design by adding a green to black gradient.

Jessica Reimer, Graphic Design Assistant