TIMTHIANTHAI
T-Shirt Designs - SF LGBT Tennis Team
Tennis is one of my greatest passions outside of work. In 2012, I joined the SF Cal Cup Team, the highest-ranked LGBT team from the Bay Area. Our players all come from different tennis backgrounds, from intercollegiate players to former national players. Each year, we have an annual Cal Cup tournament against top LGBT players from Los Angeles and San Diego. In 2014, the 29th Cal Cup, I had the opportunity to design our team’s tournament t-shirt for the first time.
2014 | Tough Kitty
Our team captain that year, Alvin, was my design inspiration. He’s a small-built, introverted Asian guy, who can really pack a punch—someone you wouldn’t want to see on the opposite side of the net. He also has an obsession for “Hello Kitty.” I applied dirty, splatter-like graphics on a cute Hello Kitty-inspired character to create the paradoxical analogy for the team—we may look adorable on the outside (gagging!), but we can get down and dirty when needed (to win).
My Role
Visual Design
Besides coming up with concepts and designs, I also reviewed and selected the fabric from the distributor and monitored the test print with the screen printer to make sure the design came out as planned. Even though this was not my work project, getting frequent feedback was still an essential part of my process. I discussed the concepts with my teammates, showed them drafts, and even created a survey (via Survey Monkey) for them to help finalize the color combination.
2015 | Heart of Tennis
I originally came up with the concept of an anatomical heart that’s made of a tennis ball. The feedback from that year’s captain was that it was “a little too dark for Cal Cup,” and that he “would like to see if [I] could also provide an alternate design that uses the same creativity, is simpler, and covers a bigger area of the shirt.” I listened to his feedback and did just that. The captains were happy, the team was happy, and I was happy.
Challenges & Takeaways
Reimagining Tournament T-Shirts
Before I started my first design, I asked my teammates for ideas, as if I was looking for user insights for a design project. One of my teammates responded with something to the effect of: “Why are you thinking so hard? You will only wear it once during the tournament anyway.” This was the mindset that I aimed to change. Instead of a predictable team t-shirt with just “Cal Cup” and “San Francisco” plastered across the front, I wanted to include creative and witty graphics, so that people would wear them outside of the tournament. After all, we’re a gay team! There’s no reason for us or our t-shirts to conform when we could stand out.
Defying Expectations
After my first design, I felt the pressure to come up with something new and exciting. I thought that I would not be able to beat my own design creativity from the previous year. But I was wrong. By simply observing the things around me—objects, people, trends—I always found a design inspiration. Going through this uplifting experience really helped me stay calm under pressure and build my confidence, which translated well to other areas of my life.
2016 | Pikachuuuu
I became SF Cal Cup Captain this year with a two-year term. It was also the year where Pokémon GO came out and disrupted the mobile gaming industry, as well as society. I thought it would be fun to draw an inspiration from this and created something trendy. To push the concept further, I designed for a tank top, as its shape resembles Pikachu’s silhouette. It was the first time in 30 years of Cal Cup history that a team had a tank top as their uniform. Needless to say, it was the talk of the town.
2017 | Hardcore Tennis
It would be tough to beat 2016’s Pikachuuuu concept, but we did it. 2017 was the year that San Francisco hosted Cal Cup and the last year of my term as team captain, so I knew I had to come up with something spectacular. I thought about things that screamed “San Francisco” and “gay,” and eventually drew inspiration from S&M products that I saw in a store in the Castro. This design was so popular we had to order the t-shirts twice because our opponents wanted them as well.
Results
I’ve become the resident t-shirt designer for our team. Bringing out the “wow” (or laughter) in people and seeing them wearing the t-shirts outside the tournament weekend has been very rewarding. The unexpected result was how the design helped start a conversation, connect our team with our rival teams or strangers, and push the other teams to come up with creative designs during the tournament—a welcomed trend that added to the thrill of competition.
Since 2015, I’ve decided to hide/inscribe “SF” in my designs. If you look carefully, my 2015 design has SF in the skeleton’s groin area; my 2016 design has SF as Pikachu’s tail; and my 2017 design has SF tattooed on the dominant guy’s arm.