Turkey/Syria Fundraiser Tee

I designed a t-shirt for an internal charity event run by Abbott’s Asian Leadership and Cultural Network to raise money for those affected by the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

 

Since the shirt was going to be distributed internally, I wanted to incorporate elements of Abbott’s branding into the design in conjunction with the earthquake imagery. The front of the t-shirt highlights the event’s purpose through the seismic waveform combining the Turkey and Syrian flags, as well as the minimal typography describing the event. Abbott’s brand imagery was incorporated into the back of the shirt through the ALCN logo and the #abbottproud text.

 

The inspiration for the seismic waveform came from analyzing posters and logos of other charity events – specifically the Tohoku earthquake posters and the World Wildlife Fund’s logo. I wanted to make the imagery minimal to highlight the shirt’s purpose while keeping the design clean and easily understandable. I chose to represent the earthquake through a waveform to explicitly communicate the tragedy in a way that maintained respect for both country’s flags and highlighted the unity between the affected groups and the ALCN organization. Other common earthquake imagery, such as rips or faults, may be an unintentionally disrespectful representation of both nations’ cultures and could suggest a divide or an element of brokenness, which is something I wanted to stray away from. I wanted the typography on the front to supplement the design, so I chose a minimal typeface and color that didn’t detract from the image.

 

To design the ALCN logo on the back of the shirt, I created a custom typeface using the Abbott “A” image as a base for all the letterforms. I also used the same typeface as the “Abbott” text in the Abbott logo for the hashtag. This was to incorporate the brand imagery into the shirt as much as possible and maintain consistency with the designs of other Abbott merchandise.