One of the things we like to do at Design Kompany is connect people.
So when Cascade Bicycle Studio owner Zac Daab (center) asked me and Akira (left and right) if we could make a T-shirt for a national bicycle group, I knew just the person he needed to meet.
The T-shirt is for a team uniform of cyclocross enthusiasts across the country named ‘Hup United.’
Just so happened our summer intern Alex Hage was very into bikes. His first week in Seattle, he ended up with two. “I figured I’d sell them at the end of the summer anyway, so I might as well get a couple.” And Alex did T-shirts, too.
He introduced us to his homemade technique to stencil T-shirts:
1. Order blank T-shirts
2. Cut stencils
3. Spray
Akira took the lead to hash out a design direction:
“When we met Zac at Cascade Bicycle Studio in Fremont, he showed us a picture: a box-shaped clock radio, with a construction paper-cone taped on it for amplification.” Sort of an experiment of a friend of his, inspired by the DIY style of homemade Jamaican DJ rigs.
What?
After a couple of days thinking about what that was, exactly, and how to turn it into a screenprintable T-shirt design, Alex and Akira looked at tons of album covers. Zac sent more photos. They picked a phrase: “Northwest Dub Sound System,” and Alex stenciled the letters in a cone shape coming out of a small box.
“This is great!” Zac said, the day we delivered them. “I’m psyched. This is exactly what I envisioned!”
looking good
Looks great! How did it turn out?
I love your blog ! Thank for this.