Forest Park High School Bruins Marching Band Design

This design was commissioned as the T-shirt design for the Forest Park High School Bruin Band’s 2019 season. The show was entitled 1942 and was made as a tribute to the Allied Forces during the years of World War II, celebrating the bravery and patriotism of our armed forces during this turbulent time in history.

The band director approached me with a concept he had in mind for the T-shirt design that he wanted to see fleshed out as a polished concept. After initial designs were made using the iconography of the American flag raising on Iwo Jima, it was decided that such use of powerful imagery could be construed the wrong way and viewed in a frame of mind of disrespect. In order to not leave any area for misrepresentation, it was decided to move forward with another design. Using the same template, I created a simpler design that was still evocative of the same patriotic tone as the original. The font itself was chosen based on a vintage carnival inspired typeface that I felt was era-appropriate. The title also incorporates the color scheme created by the sunset within the design.

The main design is enclosed within a circle with important points of interest breaking through the border. The composition is separated into thirds with the stones in the background creating the bottom third creating the base and the bear and flag creating the left and right thirds, respectively. Skewing these two objects at an angle creates a much more dynamic composition and brings the viewer directly to the bear due to the perception of its weight within the composition. The lines cut out from the background at various widths created additional embellishment. This was a design decision based on the fact that the negative space of the design was taking up too much weight, as well as another way to accentuate the main focus.