Thursday 26 September 2013

'A Confederacy of Dunces' t-shirt

The literature and art inspired clothing company Miles to Go have just released my 'A Confederacy of Dunces' t-shirt.  The book remains one of my favourites and one I've reread several times.

For the design I wanted Ignatius to be the focus but I also wanted to represent New Orleans somehow.  I tried to illustrate him standing in front of some NO landmarks but it didn't work so I sourced an old NO map from the era ACOD is set in and proceeded to brainstorm some ideas.  It didn't take too long to see that the boundary line of NO was such that I could potentially have a portrait of Ignatius that inhabited the city centre. 

I finished the illustration then tried to add an obvious map element to it with a street map label featuring the Miles to Go logo but we (Greg MTG) decided that maybe it needed a quote instead.  Initially I went with "Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins" which was almost too good with regards to the design but not really that in keeping with the tone of ACOD.

The book has so many brilliant quotes to pick from but eventually we settled on the Jonathan Swift quote that introduces the book;  "When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him".

Click here to buy one. 






2 comments:

musko82 said...

Do you still have these shirts? Thanks

Unknown said...

I think your idea is genius, I'm a freelance artist and I turned my husband onto this book like 15 years ago and we regularly giggle to ourselves about the nuances of the book. And legit,I fucking hate the internet and have re typed this shit like six times. I'll fuxking delete this like all the other ones. ASS. Keep signing out. I just want this shirt. Want to share ideas