Design Process: Robodog

You might be wondering what I do to come up with a tee shirt design. Or maybe you're not wondering - but I'll tell you anyway. Actually, most of my ideas are inspired by every day situations. Let's take Robodog, for example. Little robotic "pets" are becoming more popular. They're everywhere, actually. There are robotic reptiles, dragonflies, pandas, birds, and of course, dogs. They are becoming pretty common. And people in Japan are working every day to make robots more realistic. It's kind of creepy actually.

Well anyway, I wanted to try and find something funny about having a robotic pet. So, let's brake it down, #1- I looked for something around me that is an everyday thing (robot pets) then, #2- I started a brainstorm session with myself to think of possible funniness about it. This step can take a little while so its important to be patient. Look around and notice things. Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas. Quantity counts at this stage, not quality. Build on your ideas. Keep a little note pad with you so that when you get an idea you can write it down and it wont be forgotten. Test your ideas on someone you trust to see how they react to it. Well anyhoo, you know the idea I came up with and here's the short version of how I got there: Robodog = dog = poops = what do robots poop? = batteries.

When I have an idea I ask myself if a large number of people would be able to relate to it. Since a lot of people have pet dogs (in the U.S. alone 43,021,000 households have a total of 72,114,000 dogs) I figured that a large number of people would be able to relate to cleaning up doggy messes.

So with a good solid idea in hand I was ready to start doing a rough sketch. And here is what I came up with for the dog.: The batteries where added in later on. I edited and cleaned up my design on the computer and here is the final image:

So now you know how I came up with this design. If you are interested in seeing how it looks on a shirt click here.