Nottingham Parkour splatt | Zade's Training Blog.

This is the fifth in a series of [1] [2] [3] [4] t-shirt design for the Parkour Nottingham (Npk) community. I wanted something grungy, urban and unique. Something more complex, which would look cool and be great to wear while out training on the streets. Easier said than done, it had to be not too complex, if it was to be printed on a tee as I found out later. I didn’t want to create something for the sake of it and have it looking mediocre that anyone could create. Most designs out there currently seem to be of the urban grunge effect. It had to be something which I was happy with design wise and would want to and be proud to wear myself.

Npk – Splat Design.

I had originally took the ‘Graffiti Npk Logo’ (displayed below) which I’ve always used on videos to be used as a template for printing. Sadly it would have had to have been screen printed and that in itself cost quite a bit of money and is generally used for batch printing, so that ruled that design out! Even though I do love the design, I might have to look into other online options if I really did want that one printing. It could have been used as a transfer, but that would have looked cheap and could only be on black t-shirts. I also tried to add a boarder to contain the design, but that also looked odd and wouldn’t have worked either.

I started creating various designs which all seemed to be too complicated or weren’t original enough for my liking to be printed. It’s easy to spend hours on overly complicated ones in Photoshop, without really knowing how or what can be printed on clothing per say. Sat there hoping to create an idea by chance or something brilliant by accident. I mean that is how designs are born, right?! I spent about a week or so on the design, it came from an idea of having it look like a tin of paint had spilt on the t-shirt. The rest was getting the right text within the splat, the web address and anything else.

Graffiti Npk Logo.

I completed two samples, one which was A5 size and one which was A4 . The A4 design came out better then the A5 one. Even though, not all the small paint splats could be picked out. If everything had came out on the A5 design it would have been great. I have since then tweaked the design making it simpler and less paint splatter, so when it was printed again it would pick up everything on the design with no trouble at all. I have since got some printed and it looks even more incredible than the test ones I got printed.

Since wearing the first prototypes of the design on a black t-shirt with a white logo, lots of people have been wanting one, either in black or bolder colours. Even though I knew it wasn’t that good, people liked it and preferred it to the past designs. This is great as the community will be flooded with people wearing the design, all feeling apart of something unique and able to have something to show for their training efforts. Some of the slight alterations included breaking up of the letters, fixing parts which didn’t look too great. It looks now tonnes better and I’ve even included a small smiley face in the design.

Below are various different colour choices people have had of the design.