HAPPY PLACE T-SHIRT
This has been such a fun t-shirt to design! It helped me learn a lot about graphics, fonts, color schemes and how much I truly love the art of graphic design. Most t-shirts I make are a challenge and I spend days or weeks waiting to get inspired from something unique or the latest trends. When I felt like giving up, my husband kept reminding me that the design process is my favorite part of creating these shirts. No, it's not easy but if it wasn't hard and challenging, then everyone would do it. Seeing my design come to life and when people actually love it just as much as I do is the most rewarding feeling I have ever experienced. Just hearing someone say "Rachel, I love this and I am so proud of you" brings tears to my eyes.
The idea of this t-shirt actually came from a combination of my mom and Bradley's school. As most of you know, my Brother Bradley attends a private school in Frankfort, KY. Every year they have a Family Weekend and in 2019 I had the privilege of setting up a booth. Since ya'll know what happened in 2020...Family weekend was canceled and the past two years have been only virtual. This year will not only be the first in person Family Weekend since covid but also celebrating the schools 130th anniversary! Their theme this year is "Happy Place" which inspired this design. My mom thought it would be a great slogan of "No Worries, I'm in my happy place" at Stewart Home School and I thought it was such a great slogan and can be used all over the world. This shirt can be worn anywhere that you view as your happy place! I was truly honored to be asked to set up a booth again this year and can't wait to hug all the students, staff and families of Stewart Home & School!
During the design process, I had a vision of what I wanted, I just wasn't sure how to make it come to life. I knew I wanted it bright and "happy" while also making it a groovy vibe. After a few weeks of playing with the design, it felt like a dead end. I was getting so overwhelmed that I thought about hiring a graphic designer but that is $$$ and honestly I pride myself in designing all of our t-shirts. So, I decided to download and try the free trial for Adobe Illustrator. I watched a ton of YouTube videos and taught myself how to use it. After a FULL day of working on this design, it was finally starting to come to life. My eyes filled with pure tears of joy as I started realizing it was almost perfect. I added a few personal touches to the design to make it truly me with the lightning bolt smiley face and check out the little mushroom guy with the thumbs up :)
Just like thumbs up, another universal hand sign is "peace". I see so many people, including the students at the school, doing the peace sign as a form of "goodbye" or living their best life throwing the sign up in the air for a photo. So we had to add in the peace hand sign to the design to really tie in the happy and groovy theme.
I can't wait to wear this shirt in the mountains, at the beach or anywhere that makes me happy and say "goodbye world of worries, I'm in my happy place!" while throwing the peace sign high in the air. Tag us @noworriesky in your shirt at your happy place!
Xoxo,
Rachel