This t-shirt was designed for a project in my 3rd year Design class, in which we had to create a t-shirt design representing a famous person, incorporating their portrait and one of their quotes. I chose to represent Jeff Mangum, celebrated musician best known for his work as lyricist and vocalist of the band Neutral Milk Hotel.
His surrealist, visceral yet earnest lyrics and songwriting have been critically acclaimed, specially on Neutral Milk Hotel's album "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea": body parts and people merge together in bizarre tales, exploring themes of intimacy and longing.
"Let your skin begin to blend itself with mine", the last verse of the song "Oh Comely", always struck to me as being one of the album's most poignant moments, as well as the verse which best summarizes Mangum's overarching motifs, themes and underlying messages. Using this verse as a starting point, I aimed to create a design in which the songwriter merged with the shirt itself, and consequently with the person wearing it.
In order to highlight the concept, I prefered a more simplistic approach for the illustration, namely, the use of a no-pressure, round digital brush for a black and white, lineart-only illustration. To achieve the desired cohesion between image and text, I opted to integrate my own calligraphy within the drawing itself, following the movement and the expression of the illustration's lines.
However, the portrait never merges itself completely with the t-shirt; a nod to the manner in which Jeff Mangum exposes so much of himself through his music, and yet, maintains a rather reclusive public image. Blending himself with his audience and losing himself in the music, without specifying just how personal or autobiographical some of his work may be.
Lastly, the flower blooming in his eye is a reference to one of his most well-known songs, "Holland, 1945", inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank, namely the verses (refering to the victims of the Holocaust and Anne Frank herself): "(...)And it's so sad to see the world agree/ That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies/ All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes"
