Trucking company t-shirt design

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

I did this t-shirt design for a local independent trucker. He agreed to the art fee and I traced his truck by hand and created the logo behind it. We will be printing it in 5 color spot process with a white base, black, red, grey, and a white highlight layer on top. I would like to do something more with this but I'm limited to 4 or 5 colors. Any ideas that might work, or is it good enough left as is?

 

[visual800]

I like the sharpness of the logo with the old skool looking semi

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Great start indeed..

Next bevel Or convex name, reduce inc. greatly = light font inc. is not a sales point, put logo on truck door or side.

Think truck needs something but I've not done this so I liking it what ya did.

 

[HDvinyl]

Maybe move the J&S some?

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Maybe move the J&S some?

Thanks for the advice. I think you're right on point. I'm gonna try moving it to the left a bit more to balance the logo out more.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Great start indeed..

Next bevel Or convex name, reduce inc. greatly = light font inc. is not a sales point, put logo on truck door or side.

Think truck needs something but I've not done this so I liking it what ya did.

One thing thd truck needs is lettering on it. I hadn't quite done it yet because the guy might want the truck relettered so I'm holding off to make sure. I will try to lighen 'inc.' And see what i can come up with. I thought about bevelling the lletters but I will usually hold off until the customer approves the layout first since i would be drawing the bevels freehand. I do like the bevelled look for sure.

 

[bob]

The truck is good, not as art particularly but just a good job of hand tracing.

The truck appears in black and white, in the foreground, and large. The oval thing appears in color, in the background, and is locked in a death struggle with the truck image on a could of levels. Both color and degree of perceived dimensionality. The oval has some illusion of dimension while the truck just sits there looking flat,

The oval part, on its own, is boring and pedestrian. The white highlight oval doesn't work, it just looks like a white highlight oval.The typography is unremarkable. The color choices dubious.

Other than that, it's fine.

 

[Marlene]

I agree with bob on a lot of what he pointed out. the oval is OK. the truck is OK. together, not so much. it needs to be brought together so it is one logo, not a logo and a truck

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

The truck is good, not as art particularly but just a good job of hand tracing.

The truck appears in black and white, in the foreground, and large. The oval thing appears in color, in the background, and is locked in a death struggle with the truck image on a could of levels. Both color and degree of perceived dimensionality. The oval has some illusion of dimension while the truck just sits there looking flat,

The oval part, on its own, is boring and pedestrian. The white highlight oval doesn't work, it just looks like a white highlight oval.The typography is unremarkable. The color choices dubious.

Other than that, it's fine.

I agree with bob on a lot of what he pointed out. the oval is OK. the truck is OK. together, not so much. it needs to be brought together so it is one logo, not a logo and a truck

Thanks for the pointers. I have attached the photo of the truck that the customer gave me to work with. The sun is behind the truck making it appear flat. If I felt confident enough to alter the lighting to my own needs, I would, but I don't feel that confident with it. One other problem this causes is I'm forced to work this design into a four color layout, which forces me to use the red for the 'logo'. You might not be able to see it, but the black on the truck contains about 20% red also, as well as mostly red lights. The paint on the truck is the color shifting kind that looks brown, then black, then red in passing. The stripe is some sort of creme color, but I'm forced to make it appear white unless I can add a yellow channel to the color scheme, but I have my hands tied unless the customer feels like forking over more money for one additional color. I'm already going to have to convince him that his four color shirt has to be a 'five color' shirt because I need a white base and highlight layer to make it really work. The best way to handle this would have been to take my own photo of the truck with better lighting and push for a full 6 color print, but I feel fortunate enough that this guy actually has no problem paying a steep art fee on top of a four or five color print on maybe 25 or 30 shirts. These are gonna be some expensive shirts the first go around.

As far as changing up the typography, the more I think about it, I think I'll skip the beveled text idea and go for changing the letterforms slightly. I think if I add an angular serif to the top left corner of the letters maybe I can make it better send the message of speedy delivery and not look so generic.

I'll get back on this in the morning. I think I need to get to bed.

 

[Marlene]

the amount of color shouldn't be an issue, seems like you have some good colors so far. it is more about pulling the elements together. does he want the truck in the logo? if so, I'd down play that part and make is smaller. if you had the truck off the the right, mostly on on oval and re-worked the copy, you could make a patch type logo with some of the elements outside the oval shape. I think you have some good ideas, you just need to figure out how to make them look like they belong together

 

[Jillbeans]

I don't like the bright red and I don't like the wallpaper look print in it.
I'd change that to maroon with maybe a red "hot spot" up towards the top.
I don't like how the stacks (or whatever they are) frame the INC. because the angles in that drive me nuts.
What about moving the oval to incorporate the entire truck? Oval could still be skewed. Lettering at the tire line.
Maybe using a font with a traditional looking ampersand?
(or stealing one from another font)
I do like what you did with the truck illustration.
Love....Jill

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Here is my latest effort which I think I will be presenting to the customer. Thanks for all the good tips. The red was definitely too alarming so I toned it way down as Jill suggested. No "fleur de lis wallpaper" either, just some classic "corduroy". I tried black lettering, scrapped it, and went back to shinyish white letters. I changed the font up entirely to something that suggests speed. I added the city along the bottom, as the customer has suggested and I think it makes a nice balance. Did I polish this turd or does it still stink?

 

[qmr55]

I like that one. But maybe light gray behind the truck instead of black? A little more contrast.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

I like that one. But maybe light gray behind the truck instead of black? A little more contrast.

You don't know how much I would love to just throw in another color altogether, but alas I don't think that is possible. As far as the grey vs. black, I'm torn. I don't really like either, but I'm stuck in this 4 color scheme. Argh.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

You know the more I keep comparing the thumbnails, the more it becomes apparent that the grey triangle definitely looks better. I will go with that. Thank you.

 

[2B]

the updated design is MUCH improved.

The font for the top line needs to be changed, looking at the thumbnail it reads JES that "&" needs to be more defined and/or much smaller

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

The font for the top line needs to be changed, looking at the thumbnail it reads JES that "&" needs to be more defined and/or much smaller

Oh yeah. Good point.

 

[qmr55]

Use an & sign from a different font type. That one does not work well.

 

[OldPaint]

your using the PETERBUILT OVAL.....))))))

 

[Jillbeans]

I really hate both fonts....sorry.
The new title font looks girly to me. The script is meh.
I think the INC looked better underneath.
Try using something like Impact (I know people hate it but it is a good clean font)
Tweak the ampersand because it's always too small in that font.
Durst in caps and lower case. The initials and ampersand above it.
Thin rule lines on either side of INC.
Everything centered.
Use one of Steve's fonts, like A&S Speedway for the city.
http://artandsignstudio.com/speedway.html
Spell out the state, it's improper to use all-caps in a script and it looks better spelled out anyway.
While I like the black triangle, there are a whole lot of dissonant angles going on.
Edited to add a fast suggestion.
I'd lose the oval. If you're doing the corduroy thing make the lines vertical.
I'd change the city name to white on mine and print the whole thing on a maroon T shirt.
(needing less colors then)
You'd have to lose the grey drop shadow on the name and add a thin pinline of white to mine.
Just wanted to show you the fonts I suggested.