This is a commission I made on December of last year for my good friend James Mitchell, whose asked me to do a variety of t-shirt designs for him in the past. This one was a funny riff on the iconic Batman logo from the old TV show –you know, back when Batman didn’t have to turn his voice into a menacing gruff– but with a more ‘sinister’ flavah.
James wanted me to use the same face illustration I’d made for him back in 2019, and paste it on top of the logo, while also replacing the original title with the word “SinMin” (short for ‘Sinister Minister’, his alias). A short and sweet gig, just the kind every artist craves at the end of a loooooooong year.
As soon as I sent James the first rough sketches to get a sense of the layout and proportions, he began coming up with all sorts of interesting variations and design options (the man knows his stuff): what if we added flames below the batwings, and how would it look if we also added horns. Computer-aided design has made it extremely easy for artists to accommodate clients whenever they want to view different options; the downside, of course, is the client might end up more confused when they really don’t have a strong idea of what they want –a potentially big problem if they end up changing their mind about critical concepts, especially if there is a tight deadline involved.
For younger readers, the ability to quickly change a thing or two on the artwork, while simultaneously chatting with a client who might be sitting hundreds –or THOUSANDS– of miles away might be easily taken for granted; but for this old dog it is still short of miraculous. God only knows how people will conduct business 20 or 30 years from now, especially now that the inconveniences of over-saturated office spaces have been made patently obvious by the on-going pandemic.
James thanked me for the expeditious job, and requested to be sent ALL the design choices developed, to show them to friends and family for further input. I’m sure if you visit his Facebook page there might already be links to purchase these bad boys online; or –even better– grabbing a shirt during one of his live appearances or karaoke performances.
Also, if you are interested in having me design a T-shirt for you, you can always do so by leaving a comment or sending me an email at absurdbydesign[at]gmail[dot]com, or through my social media.
Absurd by Design 