Beach Chickens

Once upon a time, in a quaint coastal town nestled between rugged cliffs and the endless expanse of the sea, there lived a peculiar flock of beach chickens…

This was a project I completed for my Introduction to Graphic Communication class. We were tasked with creating a unique pattern to be eventually screen printed onto a t-shirt. Inspired by a funny story I read with my niece, I landed on the concept of “beach chickens” and began the process by hand sketching various chicken designs. I then digitized them using Adobe Illustrator.

Setting up a digital design for screen printing is meticulous work because you have to ensure the layers don't overlap. As part of this assignment, we learned to transfer designs onto screens and do the actual print work ourselves. To do this, you print your design on a transparent sheet, lay it on a mesh-like material, then a combo of vacuum and laser machinery transfers it. After a wash, it's production-ready for me to apply ink and turn my beach chicken concept into the t-shirt of my dreams.

It was quite the process, but seeing the final product made it all worthwhile.