I decided to start off with something which wasn’t too much of a big ask for my first brief, just something which was an open brief so that I could just work to my own ideas and not have to create an idea from a design which someone is hoping for.  I chose a brief to design a t-shirt, this is a relatively easy brief of there are no exact requirements or preferences as it is really just a graphic which prints onto fabric.

I chose to just create work with a simple message, which is just a short statement, it does not have to be a powerful or ground breaking one, it simply has to catch someone’s attention. My first idea for a piece was to revolve it around the idea of consumer products and buying. Spending needless amounts of money on products they don’t need (like a t-shirt). I thought of the idea of a barcode and everyday products need them in order to purchase them. Then the idea of a city came to mind as many people spend their lives travelling into work just to make enough money for these luxuries.

Then I looked at the imagery from both and noticed that a city skyline of tall skyscrapers is lots of long lines, similar to that of a bar code. I decided to combine the two in an illustration which shows both in the same image. Having clouds above then the numbers for the barcode below.

The first step to creating this design is to make the lines which represent the barcode and city landscape. Using the Pen Tool to create black strips, these had to look like a barcode but not have too many gaps or distance between each line as then it would not look like a city skyline. I made the lines at the bottom all level apart from a few lines to create the barcode look and then the top half had a random height for each line, this shows the variation which is seen when looking at building heights.

Next to make the barcode of the design, I added a code to the bottom which is seen on barcode; these identify the product and help make it obvious that this is a barcode. Without these it would not be hard to work out what the work was apart from an odd city skyline.

I then thought of how to represent a city skyline, this is when I had to think what the most memorable parts of a skyline are. Then I realised that the most striking part was at night, when each building has thousands of lights glowing. This really shows that the city is alive, as in the daytime you can’t tell if anyone is in these buildings.

I added white lights to the building; want to stick to only black and white as these are the only colours which are seen on a barcode. I chose to only add the lights to some of the buildings as I did not want to overcrowd the design and kept it relatively simple.

I placed a longer black line down the middle of the barcode lines; this is a road which represents the people of the city having to travel, earning money to buy these consumer products. This also helps link the barcode and city skyline in relation to the message behind it. Keeping with the black and white scheme as to not complicate or confuse matters.

To improve the visual of a skyline, I added come basic cloud shapes in order to give the idea of buildings which tower above the people below, I think these work quite well as they are very simple shapes but portray the idea of a built up city area. I have tried to make sure that there are enough visual elements to represent both the barcode and city without making the whole image over complicated.

To finish off the work, I added text to the top and the bottom of the page, I connected them to the visual itself as it shows how both the words are connected, and you commute to work in order to consume unnecessary products. I feel that this is a good design as it is very simple and clear so that the viewer is not confused by what they are seeing, it can be read in just a short glance and then they can make up their mind about whether they like it or not. This was the goal of my design, to get viewers to understand the simple message without having to study the work or confuse what they are seeing. I could see this going on a t-shirt as it is easily read by others and the message is not offensive or too pushy, it is not trying to force people to change their ways but to just think for a moment.