Lollapadoodle

I entered a t-shirt design contest for Lollapalooza. I hope you like it.

How I came to this design is I started out drawing my own letters. I was going to simply decorate the letters with some patterns but they started to take on personalities. I blame the lowercase 'a'. I made a weird mistake with my pen and it turned into a tooth. It wasn't going to be a tooth, it was going to be some sort of fringe all the way around the 'a' but I couldn't ignore it's toothy quality. I drew the 'p' upside-down in an effort to twist the word on itself. I was going to re-use the 'a', one of the 'l's and proceed to the eye ball 'o's, 'z' and final 'a' but I didn't think that would read easily. I backed it up by adding the uppercase upside-down  'A' at the top and another 'l' to lead into the 'ooza' instead. This creates a spiraling shape conducive of a large spiraling lollipop... or a lollapalooza.

Once the letters were drawn, I evolved them into characters. The first 'L' is actually the shrunken head shape that intersects what became the 3 eyed 'O' Monster. The top O-eye is bloodshot because he's being strained by the L. It's crowded here. Like any sold out show. The lowercase 'l's are my tortured little artists, singing their hearts out, making their mark... even if the snotty little 'a' is trying to eat 'em up. The P-man is simply a spectator. The upside-down uppercase A seems to be a grown version of the lowercase 'a's yet none of them are wearing shirts. The Z is sleeping, or blissfully enjoying the crowd, I'm not sure. He's a Z, I felt he should be sleeping... Zzzz. I'm not sure why the O-Monster is trying to eat Z, maybe he's just trying to wake up his passed out friend? The 2013 is simply done up sideshow style to not steal any personality from the letters.

I left it in black & white because I like color so much, I have difficulty being satisfied in it's placement with in my designs. Plus, I thought it would be so cool to be a shirt that could be colored in while wearing it at the concert. Either with washable or permanent markers, it would really make the shirt interactive and a great personal memory that in the end would be unique.

I hope a few more people get to know I exist and I hope they vote for my design.