T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Focus Fusion Society]

Hi Folks! We need some Team Fusion T-shirts. Any ideas? We know there are some talented people out there who love the idea of fusion and want to volunteer their skills to promote clean energy.

Let’s spread the word about fusion and look good doing it. Post your T-shirt ideas and designs here (Low res images OK – but later they’ll need to comply with Cafépress specifications. Also note the cool black T-shirt design possibilities.

The plan is to open up a Cafepress store and get the fusion-fashions rolling. Since it’s for the fusion T-shirt project, feel free to use the images (not that we have many of these!), ideas and concepts found on this website (except where we note that they belong to others).

All profits from the T-shirts will go to funding fusion research, and you will get credited for your design.

Note that Cafepress does keep a large portion of T-shirt funds, so this is mostly a publicity drive.

[Focus Fusion Society]

Why cafepress? It doesn’t take any capital to get started, if we go that route. http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/ – We just need a design saved as a PNG file that we upload to cafepress after we set up a store.

The T-shirt won’t make us money. It’s more for the publicity and building esprit de corps (sp?). We’ll get $1 or 2 per T-shirt sold. Cafepress gets most of the price. But again, no overhead for us, so that’s nice.

As for design:

We’re thinking one image on the front. One shirt can be a plasmoid, one can be the DPF. Or maybe concepts like boron-hydrogen (see attached image below). Also, each shirt will have the url of our site on it.

We need some taglines, too: e.g., “Fusion Now!” and whatever else. “Fool for Fusion” sounds catchy because of the alliteration but, for obvious reasons, many people will shy away from the word “fool”… or anything that also has a connotation of “crazy”

Some have suggested if we want a sense of excitement or adventure use “Fusion Frontier” or “Fusion Future” or “Fusion Fan” or “Fusion Fever”…

Attached files

[Glenn Millam]

Here is a thought.

The concept is a head-on shot of plasma filaments emanating out of the PFF device, stylized into an almost-flower. I chose PSM Purple as the color, based on the image you have on your website, although the design lends itself to lots of color choices. Really depends on taste and budget.

As for the catch phrase, I chose the one shown to give a little gravitas to the message as well as some mystery, so as to drive the viewer to look up the site to see what’s so important, and to satiate their curiousity. Focus fusion is serious science, with serious implications, and I didn’t want to get any more cute than the art above it.

I hope you will consider it as a basis for a final design.

Attached files

[Rezwan]

I like your image for a T-shirt design, now just add the text with a more mod-type font. And try a few with different phrases, what was it:

Fusion: It’s closer than you think.
www . focusfusion . org

And:

Fusion: Why are we waiting?
www . focusfusion . org

e.g., same image, different phrase. We can upload as many T-shirts on cafe press as we want. We don’t have to come up with the one perfect shirt. We’ll try a few and see what sticks. All you have to do is supply the image in the right format.

Also, perhaps you could try a stylized version of our website logo. Your rosette image is from the top, which is great. If you just do the same style of image from the side like our logo, that would be cool, too. Don’t worry about the ropes vs. points of your other post or an accurate physics representation.

Also, perhaps a stylized representation of the fusion reaction we are promoting would look nice on a shirt. Check out the image below. In the middle, you could have the phrases above (fusion: it’s closer than you think) continued below the “fusion-reaction-pow” graphic. E.g., integrate the phrase with the graphic.

Again, the good thing with cafe press is that we can upload multiple shirt designs, so if you have time, the more the merrier.

What do you think?

Attached files

[Rezwan]

Like with the B11 + Proton picture, you make the “Fusion” in the star much bigger, and the molecules smaller on the outside.

And right now the problem with this graphic is that it looks like the boron and hydrogen are hitting the “fusion”, and not hitting each other. So maybe there is some better way to convey this with arrows and placement…

Wow. Graphical display of information is quite an art form.

[Charles Wilcox]

Rezwan wrote: Like with the B11 + Proton picture, you make the “Fusion” in the star much bigger, and the molecules smaller on the outside.

And right now the problem with this graphic is that it looks like the boron and hydrogen are hitting the “fusion”, and not hitting each other. So maybe there is some better way to convey this with arrows and placement…

Wow. Graphical display of information is quite an art form.

What’s missing is the intermediate step, where Boron and the Proton become an unstable Carbon atom. Then it decays into the 3 Helium atoms with the release of energy. I googled briefly for other diagrams of fusion reactions to find something close to this. Here’s a close match: MSN Encarta: Nuclear Fission and Fusion I think if you rotate it left -> right, as opposed to top -> bottom, it would be close to what we want.

Also, may I suggest we also have the “textual” reaction on the diagram? p + 11B → 3 4He + 8.7 MeV.

[Glenn Millam]

I think, with the t-shirt, the keys are making it something that will be interesting to look at and wear, and gives enough of a message to push viewers to the website. I am almost finished with a rework of my design. It is almost, but not quite, unlike what I had before. It will be up soon.

[Glenn Millam]

This t-shirt design has used the t-shirt template for CafePress. The image I have uploaded is a very low-res version that has been downsized to stay under the upload size constrains of the forum. The actual art us a PNG file that is 10×10 inches at 200 dpi.

Attached files

[Glenn Millam]

Here is a version with larger type.

Attached files

[Glenn Millam]

Uhh… and I did notice that the URL is wrong and I will fix it in the next round. 😛

[Charles Wilcox]

Glenn, a few thoughts (#4 is the most important):

1. Is it necessary to have the plus sign between ‘H’ and ‘B’? Since the diagram arrows imply they are combining, the plus sign is redundant.

2. Should there be a depiction of the temporary ‘C’ atom formed where ‘H’ and ‘B’ combine?

3. The ‘He’lium symbol shouldn’t be in the center of the reaction; there should be three arrows going away from the center with three ‘He’lium labels on the output nuclei, just like the two nuclei going into the reaction.

4. Where’s the energy release depicted?! The whole point is that this is a huge source of energy. It needs to be listed along with the ‘He’lium output, but with much more emphasis; bigger font, bold… something. Actually, I’d place it at the center as some “explosive” icon with a “+ 8.7 MeV” label. The ‘He’lium output lines that I suggested in point 3 should then come away from that explosion.

5. With the current top-to-bottom layout, it will be cramped if you add any of these details. Changing the reaction to proceed left-to-right would give you room to expand, and keep the very top and bottom text where it is.

I didn’t intend to be critical of the current design, but I do think my ideas would provide clarity and potency to the idea depicted.

P.S. I really like the stylized plasma focus you created here for the background.

[Glenn Millam]

The more I look at the 2 versions of this second design, I do not like it. I will give my thoughts couched in answers to Charles’ concerns.

Charles Wilcox wrote: Glenn, a few thoughts (#4 is the most important):

1. Is it necessary to have the plus sign between ‘H’ and ‘B’? Since the diagram arrows imply they are combining, the plus sign is redundant.

I am beginning to question the idea of having the entire reaction on the shirt. We shouldn’t assume that people know much about physics or scientific diagrams. I put the “+” in there after thinking about how someone with little knowledge would think about the diagram… there was little for them to grab onto. Diagrams such as these are too arcane for most viewers. They would understand a plus sign, and see that there are two things being added together. Still, I think it is too complicated, too messy, and too abstract for the average viewer, and it detracts from the aesthetics of the design as a whole.

Charles Wilcox wrote: 2. Should there be a depiction of the temporary ‘C’ atom formed where ‘H’ and ‘B’ combine?

3. The ‘He’lium symbol shouldn’t be in the center of the reaction; there should be three arrows going away from the center with three ‘He’lium labels on the output nuclei, just like the two nuclei going into the reaction.

4. Where’s the energy release depicted?! The whole point is that this is a huge source of energy. It needs to be listed along with the ‘He’lium output, but with much more emphasis; bigger font, bold… something. Actually, I’d place it at the center as some “explosive” icon with a “+ 8.7 MeV” label. The ‘He’lium output lines that I suggested in point 3 should then come away from that explosion.

Like I said, I believe the diagram concept may be too much for the t-shirt’s scope. What is the purpose of the shirt? Two things, I think. First is to be an interesting thing for people who wish to support the project to wear around their friends, and make a statement. Second, it should peak a viewer’s curiosity about the message the shirt is conveying, and get them to visit the website for a proper education. Wearable advertising that people will actually wear.

Thats why I like Reswan’s tag-line for the shirt. People have an idea of what fusion is, and they know that we still have yet to make it work as an energy source. Telling them its closer then they think plays on their hopes to get them to find out more.

My placement of the He in the center of the burst was to show the timeline of the diagram, i.e. 3 He atoms and a lot of energy (the burst) are the end result. Still, I think that this weakens the whole message. People do not care about how it happens so much as they care IF it can happen. I am thinking about reducing the whole diagram down to what is really important about focus fusion, which is that it will make hydrogen-boron fusion energy a reality.

Perhaps we can make this shirt two-sided, and on the back have a short list of the main benefits of focus fusion, and put a more detailed diagram there. Maybe even include a link to the “What Is It?” section of the website, assuming that people will have time to memorize it from reading someone’s moving back.

The energy release is in the purple starburst background. It is the object showing the energy from focus fusion, and is also meant to be what draws the eye.

Charles Wilcox wrote: 5. With the current top-to-bottom layout, it will be cramped if you add any of these details. Changing the reaction to proceed left-to-right would give you room to expand, and keep the very top and bottom text where it is.

I didn’t intend to be critical of the current design, but I do think my ideas would provide clarity and potency to the idea depicted.

Please be critical. This is the time to hash out ideas. The nice thing about CafePress is that, for no money down, you can create lots of different concepts and sell them all on shirts (or mugs, or all sorts of stuff). I don’t see a problem with making several designs with different goals.

A t-shirt design with a well-made and attractive diagram may not be the best design in mixed company, but worn by a physics student in class, it might turn some heads, and win some converts. I will work on that next, after I get this one out the door.

I guess the way to think about this current design is that it is intended for a general audience, and it does its work by drawing the eye (the burst), putting a question in the viewers head (the tag-line), and gives them a way to sate their new-found curiosity (the URL). Another design can be for showing the hard science behind focus fusion, for those who have more knowledge on the subject.

Charles Wilcox wrote: P.S. I really like the stylized plasma focus you created here for the background.

Thanks. You have no idea how much time I spent trying to get that to work right.

[Glenn Millam]

Here is what I feel is an improved version. The H + Boron fuel in the middle of an energetic plasma-colored starburst, with the tag-line and the URL.

[Glenn Millam]

(cough) Lets try that again.

Attached files

[Rezwan]

Glen! This is great! I love the burst of energy. Really cool. I can’t wait to wear this shirt!

Oh, but first the pesky details. Don’t worry about giving too much technical info to people. Having the whole equation is fine. Like e=mc2, we want to make this equation a standard that everyone knows by heart.

The positioning is key to making it work.

Have the h+b11 combining in the upper 1/3 of the design. An arrow comes down from that to the unstable-fused inbetween molecule in the middle. Then arrows of helium radiate out from the center along the lines of the purple energy.

Where

Attached files

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