VCU's Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) strives to provide a space to empower Vietnamese Americans and allow students from all backgrounds to learn more about the culture. T-shirt design contests are held every year for the organization's new merchandise. I had the pleasure of participating in and winning the 2023-2024 T-shirt design contest and am honored to create a design for students to show off and wear proudly.
Year of the cat and dragon
Given the freedom to do any theme for the T-shirt design, I opted to create an eye-catching design themed around the Chinese Zodiac. As Vietnam celebrates the year of the cat rather than the year of the rabbit, I depicted a fight-like scene between the cat and the dragon, as they are 2023 and 2024's zodiac's respectively. Since we were limited to 3 colors (including the t-shirt's color), I chose to go with a bold blue and red color to make the design pop out more, contrasting the cat and dragon with the colors.
I'm usually very picky with what t-shirts I wear and how they are designed, so I wanted to create something that I knew I would wear myself and thought others would enjoy as well. I started with a simple rectangular frame where the dragon resides. As we're going from 2023 to 2024, I wanted to depict the dragon in the back almost as if they're closed inside the frame, while the cat playfully dodges their flames in the forefront. The added dimension where the flames break out of the rectangular frame creates an eye flow from the background to the foreground, allowing for a much more visually engaging design. With so much going on with the back design, I decided on a simple front design placed on the side that depicts our favorite cat, along with the school, organization, and current year.
Back Design
Front Design
T-shirt Mockup