At Tough Guy Book Club we are into our merch. You will be hard pressed to find a group photo of one of our meets without someone in the trademark black t-shirt, proudly displaying our logo. We also love to issue our members a challenge every month, something that will push them to step outside the norm and add a page to their story. This month we combined the two and dared our goons to design a new TGBC T-shirt. Don’t get us wrong, we like our current T-shirt range, it’s got skulls and books and sayings, but there is always room for improvement, and we wanted to put the call out for everyone to get creative and design something new for the club.
The submissions flowed in fast. By the end of the month the Pool Hall Facebook group had a huge selection of designs with a surprising range of ideas, all uploaded with the tag #TGBCshirt. We said at the start that we didn’t care about how well anyone can draw, but for everyone to show us their idea and to give it their best go.
There was a lot of black, with many goons staying on brand but adding new details with slogans about reading, quotes from famous authors, drawings of pubs, and imagery of skulls, beers, and books. Some splashed a bit of colour around, breaking away from the traditional with some subtle highlights, to all out bright pink. Many of the club’s main themes were invoked with references to our two main rules (no work talk, and don’t be a fuckhead) popping up a lot, along with reading, chatting, and goon camaraderie.
Some branched out from the norm and design other types of shirts, with button downs, rugby shirts, mechanic style, and singlets getting a good go. There were some attempts at a re-design of the logo and while it was fun to see the creative impressions for a bit of fun, we can tell you now that the TGBC logo is here to stay. A local flavour shone through in places, with chapter locations included in designs or in patches. Some also looked familiar and grabbed a laugh, but would put us into copywrite infringement territory, with intellectual property from beer brands to classic movie posters given the TGBC makeover.
Time for a quick tip about using AI for TGBC challenges, it is getting more prevalent in many parts of our lives, but that shit won’t cut it here; especially when it does the creative heavy lifting. Huge respect to the guys who had a great idea but are less gifted in their artsy side – they gave it a crack and got their point across. Well done! As always with a creative challenge we were blown away by the skills we have in the club, some of those designs were incredible. Everyone should be proud of the effort put in.
Bryce Applebee from the new Gawler chapter went all out and made prototypes of not one, but two different TGBC shirts, utilising black tie-dye, and bleach in the designs and modelling them himself for his post on the socials.
It is safe to say that the TGBC store will continue to look similar to what it does now. We still think our skulls and books and sayings look good, and they look good in black. But keep checking in, who know what new ideas you will see introduced.
