Tee Shirt Graphic Illustration for Secret Chiefs 3
I worked with Secret Chiefs 3 to make this shirt based on the illustration I did for their Live DVD Concert Album Cover. It was a risky move to do a design with so many tight lines as a silkscreen print. The ace printers at Babylon Burning in San Francisco worked fastidiously to keep the screens from clogging. They showed me how quickly the screens clog and how much more work this print job was than your average job. I say that to both credit their amazing attention to quality as well as to warn other graphic designers who might see this to avoid making your printers go through such labors! Many thanks to Mike Lynch and his team.
The medieval style illustration was drawn on scratchboard to simulate the look of a woodcut. There is a very medieval sound to much of the music Secret Chiefs 3 was playing at the time, so this fits in with their aesthetic very well.
You can see in the waves how the small detail breaks down due to the coarseness of the screen and fabric. Still, I like the way it looks because we're going for the look of an antique print anyway. These would have ended up looking really disappointing if the screen-printers had not been on top of their game.
