On Friday (~13th August, 2010) I had a very quiet day, so spent most of it drawing, designing, creating and uploading new graphics to Redbubble. Here is where my mind went:
I photographed a bunch of shots of this BMX-rider sometime last year and figured I could incorporate one of them into a T-shirt-design. Initially I had uploaded a simple two-colour silhouette-style graphic of the BMX rider, then rebuilt it so there were four-riders in different colours slightly overlapping each other. It worked, but it was hardly rocket-science to build.
On Friday I was revisiting the graphics to see if I could enliven it. Well, I had been thinking about how I could escape the rat-race … and this idea was born. The rat-head took some time draw, and the rat-tail went through various incarnations before using the arc of the wheel as a starting point!
Anyhow, after much proverbial crumpling of binary paper, I finalised this design. Most impressed, I set about putting it into various layouts. These four are where we are currently, yet I know there is scope for many more ideas.
Escape the Rat Race
Pretty much where it all started. Rat’s racing on bikes looks much cooler than just their heads sitting in F1-cars, so went for a set of four-bikes. Two is not a race, three never looks random enough, and ‘four rats racing’ rolls off the tongue so much easier. ;)
Escape the Rat Race AGAIN!
This design is more like one rat riding along and suddenly doing a mono’. (Raised front-wheel. When I was a kid, it was a called a mono’. Not sure what they call it now.) I like to think of this being the rat that escapes the normal rut of life by doing something out of the ordinary.
Originally I had the front-rat in a rainbow colouring, but it looked more like a mistake than an intentional design. Oh, but it did show me that I do need to make duplicates and invert the black/white. That’ll allow them to work on darker-coloured shirts. More about that soon!
Celtic Rats
Not all of us want a tattoo, but we do want to rebel against the system and escape the rat race. So here you have it: An attempt at a Celtic pattern that could have been put around your neck, arm or waist … but will look best upon cotton around your chest!
Rat Race Pattern
When Redbubble eventually enable graphics to rotate, to flow around the shirt, go right up to the neck-line and down to the base, this shirt will be adjusted accordingly. Until then, it still looks great. I see this pattern being developed a little further as time goes by, but this will do for now.
If you are like me, you’ll love wearing anyone of these shirts either in public-view or during casual day at your day-job.
If you do buy one, be sure to photograph yourself wearing it and put the image online somewhere with the tag “escapetheratrace“. That would be cool!
Stephentrepreneur.com 
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