A couple of weeks ago, The Harry Potter Alliance contacted me asking if I would like to design a shirt for them to sell. I readily agreed, and asked my roommate LoriDays to help with the illustration portion of the design.
Originally, the HPA asked for a shirt depicting Harry living in his cupboard under the stairs with the caption “No one should have to live in the closet.” Lori made several sketches of various angles for the illustration, and we worked together to design the most successful one, which ended up being a straight on view of Harry drawing a window in crayon on the cupboard wall. Lori transferred the sketch to Adobe Illustrator and then passed it to me, whereupon I added the typography and formatted it to be a t-shirt graphic. This included making sure all the edges of the various shapes were perfectly lined up, redrawing some of the elements to form a nice border for the completed illustration, and separating the colors in the complex illustration so it could be printed on a shirt.
I ended up changing the slogan to say “Nobody should be forced to live in the cupboard,” so that it wouldn’t reference the phrase “coming out of the closet” which tends to only refer to gay or lesbian people. We wanted this shirt to feel more universal, to appeal to anyone who feels like they have to hide an integral part of who they are. Plus, using “cupboard” instead of closet just feels much more British and Harry Potter-y.
The shirt is available for pre-order now at The Harry Potter Alliance’s website. If you like Lori’s work, go follow her Tumblr and YouTube channel. And let us know what you think in the comments below!