Imaginary Bodies, Constructed Sexualities
So for those of you who don't know, my thesis project ended up being a study in the narratives of sexuality that get assigned to children. The way in which I chose to illustrate my findings was to produce a series of t-shirts. I went to Value Village, where the children's t-shirts are $2.00 each, and then printed conflicting (or ironic or cheeky or affirming) messages overtop of them in Futura Extra Bold. I used t-shirts because everyone wears them, and are a family-friendly piece of clothing, but also because they have a history of subversion and rebellion. I really like how the ink of the transfers seeped in differently for each shirt, making some harder to read than others. The words I chose to print directly on top of the screen prints are mine, but the slogan-like quality of some of them came from artists such as Barbara Kruger. (The typeface came from Stanley Kubrick's title sequences.) I wanted it to be immediately recognizable what I was sort of trying to say with these shirts, but less obvious the more time you looked at them. This was definitely a different kind of graphic design project.
Below are spreads from the book I produced as a kind of answer key to the t-shirts.
