Graphic design feedback for super-niche t-shirt

In My Humble Opinion
1

Okay, this is a super-niche question.

My dad’s 80th birthday is coming up. He likes to sail, so as a gag gift I’m making a t-shirt for him. It’s based on three things:

  1. An old joke
  2. His love of “memojis” (Apple’s customizable emojis)
  3. His love of the Tarheels

As such, it’s a Carolina blue shirt with two of his memojis and the joke. I’ve got all that. What I’m not good at is layout, font, etc.

If any of you have good graphic design chops and can give me feedback on making this look better, I’d be super grateful!

2

Looks all right. Here’s my two cents. Feel free to ignore it completely because what you have is fine.

The graphic of the man is too low. It will be scrunched up on the belly most of the time. I’d raise it higher by making the text a bit smaller, and having it above the “80th Birthday”.

Then I’d play with the font sizes so that each of the first two lines are the same width. Then it would be more like:

WHAT DOES (bigger)
A SAILOR SAY (smaller to fit same width)
:man_mage:
ON HIS
80th BIRTHDAY? (all a bit smaller)

You could play with font choices for hours and never find the perfect one. What you have is good enough. Colours are good too. It’s never going to be a dynamic work of art, so don’t stress yourself.

3

I’m a lifelong sailor and now I really hope I make it another 23 years, because I want that shirt! Great job!

I don’t have any suggestions, because I think you nailed it.

4

I agree. I think it looks fine as it is.

5

I played around with it, but didn’t save anything.

6

Thanks, y’all! Guanolad, I appreciate the detailed feedback. But the image link is a thumbnail saying “upgrade to pro account to embed images in emails,” and even when I click through, that’s what I get.

7

We’ve seen that in other threads, and my best guess for why that happens is imgbb decided after your upload that it needed to censor the image. The specific error message is deliberately misleading. Use another image host, I recommend gyazo.com.

8

I agree with Guano Lad, you could make the font smaller so the image can be higher. Otherwise, the old man’s head and hand would be sticking out from your dad’s waist if the shirt is tucked in, but that would look just as intentionally silly.

I think it’s a great gift and sure to get some laughs.

9

I think your lettering looks fine. Like everyone says, shrink the front pix. I might put it front chest pocket position..

10

All right, here’s an update. Better?

11

Very nicely done.

He’s gonna be a dapper dude. :wink:

ETA: well need to see the final result. Plz.

12

Sorry about the link not working. I’m not sure what went wrong, I followed these instructions, which I thought had been vetted to be foolproof.

I’ve stuck it on my dropbox, so I hope you can see it now, but to be honest your adjustments for this new version are great. Don’t mind me. You’re on top of it.

13

thumbs up emoji :+1:

14

I think it’s quite cute. :3

I liked the original having the 80th part be bigger. It made it feel more like I’d see on, say, a birthday card.

Which is what this seems to be: A birthday card in t-shirt form, which is pretty cool!

15

I like this version a lot. Except I wouldn’t do the yellow, because that’s not a Tarheels color. Maybe silver. And the font should be darker.

16

Okay. I don’t know what Tarheels are, so I just picked something random.

17

IMHO, the th in 80th could be a bit smaller - maybe lower case like in your original
version - so it’s more obviously 80th… it looks a bit like BOTH.

18

Definitely meant to keep the “th” smaller, just forgot–I’d noticed the “both” resemblance as well!

Updated again: