About a year and a half ago I posted a reel to Instagram stating that I come up with my best ideas while driving. It was on that 6 hour trip to Sacramento that I came up with this idea. I wanted to do something completely out of the box... How can I create the Silhouette without actually using the silhouette? I thought about it for hours and my brain kept returning to the gear we use. What if I use all the gear and just place everything in the exact same position as the silhouette? Can it work? Can I actually get a graphic designer to pull off the image I had in my brain?
I explained the idea to my guy and we gave it a go. At first, I wanted a Jay Peterman catalog look to the design so we tried it. We went back and forth on the design a few times, but I didn't feel like it was working and put the design to the side.
About a year later I was working with another graphic designer and I had an idea for a blueprint. What if I combine the blueprint idea with creating the silhouette out of the gear... this is the perfect combo.
The graphic designer I collaborate with right now is an artist, he is amazing at the ability to pull an image from my brain and make it reality. We have to go through numerous revisions to get to a final product... but we do get there. We have great chemistry as a team.
One of the versions we were working on had a circular design around the silhouette, but I felt the square worked better for the shirt. If you haven't noticed, I don't really care for designs on the back of sweatshirts. I needed something that worked for the front of the sweatshirt so I repurposed the circular design and added "So Others May Live".
At one point I did have the H-65 and H-60 as a part of the design, but I felt that limited the customer base to the Coast Guard only. To keep the design more open to customers worldwide I opted to go with the helmet and fin at the bottom of the design.
So here is where the Blueprint, started as a Jay Peterman catalog and finished as a "The Blueprint". Hope you enjoy.
