Where it started.
T-shirt design was my introduction to graphic design. What began as creating artwork specifically for apparel eventually grew into hundreds of designs for brands, organizations, events and licensed merchandise.
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THE FIRST ONE
Night's Watch Pale Ale
I’d always been an illustrator, but this was the project that pushed me into graphic design. A friend working in sales for a DTG apparel company in Northern Michigan brought me my first T-shirt account. I had the artwork in my head—but there was one problem: the design needed to be vector.
So I taught myself Adobe Illustrator and created this shirt.
That first project opened the door to hundreds of apparel designs, years of production-focused design work, and eventually a career that went far beyond T-shirts. Everybody starts somewhere. This is where I started.
Michigan Apparel Graphics
Designing for the shirt—and for the press.
Michigan-themed apparel was a recurring part of my work at LivinFresh, requiring a steady stream of new graphics built around regional identity, outdoor culture and state pride. The challenge was to create something immediately recognizable as Michigan while still finding a fresh way to say it.
These designs were also created with production in mind from the beginning. Beyond the artwork itself, I prepared graphics for screen printing, building color separations, trapping and production-ready files while considering ink count, garment color and how individual colors would interact on press.
Launch shirt for a Fantasy Apparel brand.