How to make a group signed shirt look cooler?
March 23, 2016 4:24 AM   Subscribe

We have a shirt (light color men's tee shirt) that a group of us are going to sign on the back (which is currently blank). How can I make this look less...like a shirt that's been randomly scribbled on? I'm thinking maybe some kind of overall design that has spaces to sign in, but no idea what that design would be. Or some other cool idea. I have Sharpie fabric markers and I'm pretty crafty. Shirt gets here on Friday, needs to be ready to sign by Monday.
posted by anaelith to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (14 answers total)
 
Best answer: Who is "we"? Does "we" have a logo? Put the outline of the logo on the shirt, everyone sign inside of it. If you don't have a logo, the outline of some kind of image that makes sense for your group would work, too. Maybe a star. Maybe a stylized cat. Maybe a heart. You get the idea. Put something there to contain the signatures and it'll look less like a pile of random signatures and more like it's been signed by a group of people with a purpose.

p.s. Those sharpie fabric markers (the Stained ones?) are great, but just so you know, the yellow and possibly orange, maybe the pink as well, likely won't show up (well) on a light blue shirt because they're so neon. Test them on the inside seam before letting your group at them.
posted by phunniemee at 4:34 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Depending on the nature of your group, could you take some inspiration from concert t-shirts that list locations of the tour? Something like this, but instead of locations, it's the signatures.

Related to that, it might be worth finding some sort of iron-on design to anchor the scribbles.
posted by like_neon at 4:58 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


What about something like a Periodic Table. You could design a grid (in the style of the Periodic Table but with a lot fewer boxes) and have each person represented as an element (e.g. 'anaelith' = 'An'), and each person signs in a space in their box. Maybe you could also find a way to include a numerical value for each person as well.

With a simple design in black, you ought to be able to just take it into a printing place and have it done the same day.
posted by pipeski at 5:35 AM on March 23, 2016


Might be the same thing that phunniemee is suggesting, but maybe not??

How about making the singature area in the style of one of these word diagrams. (the top ones, not the ones that look like a flow chart). Another example. Pencil in an outer shape that represents your organization or is easy to work with, and then draw lines/rectangular blocks [in pencil] where you want people to sign. When you wash the shirt, the pencil should wash out.
posted by Guess What at 6:17 AM on March 23, 2016


If you are or know a decent artist, perhaps a cartoon of the group, with word balloons that people can sign in?
posted by Etrigan at 6:22 AM on March 23, 2016


Best answer: How many people are signing? That affects the design quite a bit.

If it's under 10, then each signature can be it's own thing, you could look at making boxes/grid or a symbol for each person; or flower petals or parts of a star or something appropriate to the number symmetry or the purpose of the group.

In the 8-20 range (or more) that could do a nice fill-in of an outline - like a logo, or a symbolic outline (sun/heart/star/dog/lady/etc) or a letter/initial. Draw that outline in black, and pick a (single) contrasting color for everybody to sign in.

In the more than 15 range, you can start making a multi-letter acronym/word, with the option to have a different contrasting color for each letter (but make sure each letter is signed in a single color).
posted by aimedwander at 6:28 AM on March 23, 2016


A slightly different take on this, but when I was graduating high school, the class officers collected everyone's signatures and had them scanned in. They then made tshirts that had our year on the back with all the signatures printed inside of it. It definitely looked cleaner and it meant everyone had a copy of the shirt.
posted by Deflagro at 6:39 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Best answer: You may be able to tape out a pattern for people to sign within - could also try a stencil type thing to block out where not to sign if you think people will try to sign outside the taped lines.
posted by NikitaNikita at 9:36 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Have each person use a different-coloured Sharpie. Have each person scrawl their name really big, about 12 inches long, at a 45-degree angle. Stagger and criss-cross the signatures all over the shirt for a cool graffiti-style effect. You could tape out spaces in advance, as suggested above.
This is not what you asked for, but it would be totally do-able to hire a designer to make the individually-scanned signatures into a repeating all-over pattern like this, and get them printed on Threadless or whatever.
posted by Grunyon at 10:03 AM on March 23, 2016


Are we talking a single shirt here, or multiple shirts that will each be signed? If the former, consider having the folks sign them, and them embroider each signature.

I have a toddler-size Luv Ya Blue t-shirt in my closet with a number of late-70's Houston Oilers luminaries' signatures embroidered on it (thanks ma!). It's one of my most prized posessions.
posted by Doofus Magoo at 11:18 AM on March 23, 2016


Response by poster: It's for a coworker who's retiring. We'll have at least 20, probably no more than 40 people signing (I hadn't really thought about how much space the number of signatures would take up). The shirt won't get here until this weekend and his last day is the end of the month, and it will take several days to have everyone sign due to funny schedules, so not enough time for extra printing or embroidering unfortunately (we're not exactly the planning department). We're only doing one shirt, unless someone wins the lottery and decides to also retire. The shirt is going to be a light grey, fairly neutral color (thanks for the tip about the neon colors). The shirt has something funny about retirement printed on the front.

Tentative plan based on answers so far is to create a mask of our logo and tape it on, then we can all sign inside it. Assess how it looks with all the signatures and if it looks better then draw in the outline. Thanks, all!
posted by anaelith at 7:55 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Think about how big/small each signature should be (probably smaller than people's first instinct?) and have a couple of your friends sign first to give a visual indicator of size for everybody else.
posted by aimedwander at 7:39 AM on March 24, 2016


so not enough time for extra printing

If it's something you want to do, it's very easy to make iron-on stencils with freezer paper. I have how to do it in a previous comment of mine here, along with recs for a really good fabric paint.
posted by phunniemee at 8:00 AM on March 24, 2016


Response by poster: Our logo is text, so it turns out it doesn't cover much surface area even when you print it as large as will fit on a large shirt. So what we did was we signed around the outside, so that the text formed the outline of the logo, and it came out looking awesome. (I also got a ton of compliments for coming up with the idea, I'm not sure they believed me when I said I just do what the people of the internet tell me to do.)

The most difficult part of the Sharpie Stained pens was not the lighter colors, but convincing people that they didn't need to smash them down. People who used a light hand and went slow had great results, but some other people had a smudgefest.
posted by anaelith at 3:50 AM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


« Older What's reasonable to expect men to understand...   |   Is it legal to reveal the identity of child... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.