Designs - Three-Brains designs, design principles and notes

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Three-Brains Design Notes

You can find three-brains designs on T-shirts and other merchandise at leading online e-commerce stores like Redbubble, Spreadshirt, Society 6 and Zazzle.

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Three-Brains Shop at Redbubble

Three-brains T-Shirt designs are available through redbubble.com. Orders shipped from your nearest warehouse in Australia or Europe. Includes other merchandise.

Three-Brains Shop at Spreadshirt

Three-brains T-Shirt designs in multiple styles and colours through spreadshirt.com. Order shipped from the USA. Best for North America based T-shirt fans.

Three-Brains Shop at Society6

Three-brains T-Shirt and merchandise designs are now available at society6.com. Orders shipped from your nearest warehouse in the USA or Australia depending on the product ordered.

Three-Brains Shop at Zazzle

Three-brains T-Shirt and merchandise designs are now available at zazzle.com. Orders shipped from the USA.

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Latest three-brains designs

About three-brains designs

About Three-brains designs

We love great design.

Our T-shirt and merchandise designs bring together the three ‘brains’ that make up what we do. Marketing, creative and e-Commerce.

Designs based on market research and consumer insight. Creative development based on applying design principles. And selling those designs through our online shop.

Think about the consumer appeal.

This is the marketing part. We’re called three-brains. Our brand essence demands we think about the target audience and what they might find appealing.

Think about the design principles.

This is the creative part. We outline basic design principles in our articles. So we always try to follow those to aim for great design. Colours, typography and strong design principles, we take our time to choose wisely.

Think about the shopping experience.

We’re trying to sell our designs to real people. The story or image in the design should speak to an opinion, an observation or an insight. Something that people seeing the design will identify with.

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design notes

Come and have a go …

A big part of game psychology is to be confident in your game. And if you are confident in your game, you won’t be afraid to challenge your competitors. We like the attitude that sits behind this statement. And that the words form the number 1.
We created this design in Adobe Illustrator.
This design started with finding the right font for the outer shell of the “1”. It need to be a bold font that also had a tail on the 1 to allow us to fit all the text on. We ended up choosing Bigfish as the font. It has a cool retro feel to it.
We then added in the main text line by line using a serious of layers to fit into the outline of the 1.
Adobe’ Illustrators Envelope Mesh applied to each line then helped us to “pull” the text to fit the outline of the “1”. We had to take care that the text remained legible but also still formed the outline of the “1” when seen from a distance.
We then used Hex Red (#ff0000) and a slight white off colour (#dadada) as the two contrasting colours for the text.

Pocket Rockets – I’m all in

This design was inspired by our love of all things competitive and in particular poker. Pocket Rockets is slang for having a pair of Aces as your starting hand in Texas Hold ’em poker. This is the strongest starting hard and so if you have them, it’s the safest hand to risk putting all your chips in to the game.
The main colour is a rich Red (#e52541), close to a colour called Alizarin Crimson. We think it really ‘pops’ on the black background.
The poker chips were ‘built’ in two stages in Adobe Illustrator.
Firstly, a simple elipse circle was drawn and then four rectangles drawn across it in a Union Jack shape. The Shape Builder tool was then used to cut all the unnecessary parts of the image to leave a ‘flat’ chip.
This chip was then put through the 3D Extrude and Bevel tool to make it look 3D.
Two versions were made – with Red as the primary and white as secondary or vice versa.
The chip stacks were then created by taking the single chip and pasting it in on top of the previous chip to create the stack effect.
The text has two fonts, the GAME is written in Top Secret Bold font and the PLAYER in Impact.
We added a WAVE effect when we grouped the two words together, with -12% horizontal bend, and a 10% vertical distortion to give it a slightly 3D rolling into the distance effect.

Pocket Rockets – Bring it on

This design was inspired by our love of all things competitive and in particular poker. Pocket Rockets is slang for having a pair of Aces as your starting hand in Texas Hold ’em poker.
The main colour is a rich Red (#e52541), close to a colour called Alizarin Crimson.
The cards were hand-drawn in Adobe Illustrator.
As only you see your own cards in Texas Hold’em poker, we add a slight curve underneath the cards to simulate the view when actually playing the game.
The A-Aces font style is Libre Baskerville, a serif font.
The diamonds and clubs were built using the Shape Builder tool.
The text has two fonts, the GAME is written in Top Secret Bold font and the PLAYER in Impact.
We added an ARC effect when we grouped the two words together, with -5% horizontal bend.

Checkmate – you wish

This design was inspired by our love of all things competitive and in particular chess. The King used the same outline we used on our Indian invention T-shirt design.
The main colour is a rich Red (#e52541), close to a colour called Alizarin Crimson.
The ‘knocked over’ king effect we created using the 3D Extrude and Bevel tool in Adobe Illustrator. We adjusted the Extrude depth and added a rounded bevel. We then adjusted the rotation to make it sit on the chessboard at the right angle.
The chess board effect was created by making a white square and then duplicating it and recolouring it to red. These two squares were then copied to make four squares. Four squares become eight squares and we keep going until we have an 8 x 8 chess board.
These squares were then grouped and a 3D Extrude and Bevel effect added. Adjustments were made to the rotation to have it sit under the chess piece.
The text has two fonts, the GAME is written in Top Secret Bold font and the PLAYER in Impact.
We added a WAVE effect when we grouped the two words together, with -12% horizontal bend, and a 10% vertical distortion to give it a slightly 3D rolling into the distance effect.

Checkmate – Come and have a go if you think you’re smart enough

This design was inspired by our love of all things competitive and in particular Chess. The King used the same outline we used on our Indian invention T-shirt design.
The main colour is a rich Red (#e52541), close to a colour called Alizarin Crimson.
We also added some shading to the King piece to give the design more of a 3D effect. These are in a Dark Red (#be1622) and started off as rectangles. We added extra anchor points and used the Direct Selection tool to pull them into the right place.
The chess board effect was created by making a white square and then duplicating it and recolouring it to red. These two squares were then copied to make four squares. Four squares become eight squares and we keep going until we have an 8 x 8 chess board.
These squares were then grouped and a 3D Extrude and Bevel effect added (in Adobe Illustrator). Adjustments were made to the rotation to have it sit under the chess piece.
The text has two fonts, the GAME is written in Top Secret Bold font and the PLAYER in Impact.
We added a WAVE effect to the longer sentence so that the design wasn’t all flat text. We also picked out the word ‘smart’ in white, since it’s the word that’s different from how most people know this phrase (come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough)

Game player – Blue Controller

This design was inspired by our love of all things competitive and in particular video gaming. This design was intended for fans of Playstation gaming
The controller is positioned so that it sits over the heart when you look front on at someone wearing the design It has a stretched heart shaped outline when you see the controller from that angle.
To get the design, we start by taking a photo of our PS4 controller and then tracing the main lines with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.
There was a lot of manual adjusting with the direct selection tool to get this design looking right – we didn’t want an exact PS4 controller replica. We played around with some of the dimensions for a more artistic interpretation.
The main colour is a Deep Sapphire Blue (#1e3d85).
We added some lighting levels to make the controller look more 3D – on the sides and around the main circle areas. It’s a slightly lighter shade of blue (#3e64ad)
The text has two fonts, the GAME is written in Top Secret Bold font and the PLAYER in Impact. We used the same White / Blue contrast colours as used in the controller.
We added a WAVE effect when we grouped the two words together, with -12% horizontal bend, and a 10% vertical distortion to give it a slightly 3D rolling into the distance effect.

Game player – Red controller

This design was inspired by our love of all things competitive and in particular video gaming. This design was intended for fans of X-box gaming
The controller we positioned so that it sits over the heart when you look front on at someone wearing the design – and it does have a (kind of) heart shaped look to it when you see the controller from that angle.
To get the design, we start by taking a photo of our X-box controller and then tracing the main lines with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.
There was a lot of manual adjusting with the direct selection tool to get this design looking right – we didn’t want an exact X-box controller replica and made some adjustments to give it a more artistic effect.
The main colour is a rich Red (#e52541), close to a colour called Alizarin Crimson.
We added some shading levels to make the controller look more 3D – on the sides and around the main circle areas. It’s a medium dark red (#a81918)
The text has two fonts, the GAME is written in Top Secret Bold font and the PLAYER in Impact. We used the same White / Red contrast colours as used in the controller.
We added a WAVE effect when we grouped the two words together, with -12% horizontal bend, and a 10% vertical distortion to give it a slightly 3D rolling into the distance effect.

Scottish invention

This design was inspired by John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer who invented the first working televsion in 1926.
We sourced and checked the Scottish flag colours of Blue (#0065BF) and White (#FFFFFF) to highlight the Scottish credentials of this claim.
We used a warp effect on the Scottish flag to create an impression that it was fluttering rather than flat.
There is a slight warp effect added into the text using Adobe Illustrator’s Envelope Distort / Mesh tool so that the text wraps a little around the image of the TV.
The TV has a metallic grayscale gradient applied to create a polished aluminum look.
The font used on this design is called Impact. It is a Sans Serif font. We adjusted the leading to make sure the two words started with the same width.

New Zealand invention

This design was inspired by Arthur Lydiard, a New Zealand athletics coach widely credited with inventing the new running training technique, we now know as jogging. Two of his proteges won gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
We sourced and checked the New Zealand flag colours of Black (#CF081F), White (#FFFFFF) and Silver (#C0C0C0) highlight the New Zealand credentials of this claim.
We put a slight warp effect into the text using Adobe Illustrator’s Envelope Distort / Mesh tool so that the text wraps a little around the image of the fern and the two joggers.
The Silver Fern as used by the New Zealand government and many of its national sports teams is copyright protected, so we were inspired by the design but had to create our own version of it
We also liked the 3D effect of the silver fern so that it slightly resembles a running path
The font used on this design is called Impact. It is a Sans Serif font. The leading has been adjusted to make sure the two words started with the same width.
We chose a female and male runner to create more of a unisex appeal. We originally had the man running behind the woman, but it did look like he was chasing her, which is why we’ve flipped them the other way around.

Indian invention …

Did you know chess was invented in India around the 6th Century BC and used to be called Chaturanga? Check. Mate.
We sourced and checked the Indian flag colours of Saffron (#FF9933) and Green (#138808) to highlight the Indian credentials of this claim.
There is a slight warp effect added into the text using Adobe Illustrator’s Envelope Distort / Mesh tool so that the text wraps a little around the image of the two chess pieces.
We chose the king and queen as these are the most important pieces on the chess board. We also thought it would create appeal having both a ‘female’ and ‘male’ chess piece.
The font used on this design is called Impact. It is a Sans Serif font. We adjusted the leading to make sure the two words started with the same width.
There are light curve strokes down the centre of each chess piece to create a 3D effect using the pen, direct select and curvature tools.

English invention

This design was inspired by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, an English engineer widely credited with inventing the World Wide Web back in 1989.
We sourced and checked the English flag colours of Red (#CF081F) and White (#FFFFFF) to highlight the English credentials of this claim.
We put a slight warp effect into the text using Adobe Illustrator’s Envelope Distort / Mesh tool so that the text wraps a little around the image of the WWW and flag.
The WWW has a Clipping Mask layer with the England flag behind.
The font used on this design is called Impact. It is a Sans Serif font. We adjusted the leading to make sure the two words started with the same width.

Chinese invention …

This design was inspired by Li Tan, a Chinese monk, widely credited with inventing fireworks by combining bamboo andgunpowder back in 1,000 AD
We sourced and checked the Chinese flag colours of Red (#DE2910) and Gold (#FFDE00) to highlight the Chinese credentials of this claim.
We also used the large gold star and four small gold starts from the Chinese flag for inspiration on this design.
There is a slight warp effect added into the text using Adobe Illustrator’s Envelope Distort / Mesh tool so that the text wraps a little around the image of the fireworks.
The font used on this design is called Impact. It is a Sans Serif font. We adjusted the leading to make sure the two words started with the same width.
For the fireworks effects, we mainly used the width tool on stroke items. There is a lot of deliberate repetition in each firework effect to create a more consistent and cohesive impression.

Australian invention

This design was inspired by Dr John O’Sullivan, an Australian engineer with CSIRO widely credited with inventing wifi back in 1998
We sourced and checked the Australian flag colours of Green (#00843D) and Yellow (#FFCD00) to highlight the Australian credentials of this claim. These colours come from the Golden Wattle flower.
The font used on this design is called Impact. It is a Sans Serif font. We adjusted the leading to make sure the two words started with the same width.
We put a slight warp effect into the text using Adobe Illustrator’s Envelope Distort / Mesh tool so that the text wraps a little around the image of the wi fi signal.
The wi-fi signal has a 3D Extrude and Bevel effect added in Adobe Illustrator to avoid the design feeling flat.

American invention …

We believe good ideas can start anywhere. But we believed not a lot of people knew where some of the ideas that impact our lives every day came from.
This design was inspired by Martin Cooper, an American engineer at Motorola widely credited with inventing the first mobile phone back in 1973
We sourced and checked the US flag colours of Red (#BF0A30), White (#FFFFFF) and Blue (#002868) to highlight the US credentials of this claim.
The font used on this design is called Impact. It is a Sans Serif font. We adjusted the leading to make sure the two words started with the same width.
We put a slight warp effect into the text using Adobe Illustrator’s Envelope Distort / Mesh tool so that the text wraps a little around the image of the phone.
The phone has a metallic grayscale gradient applied to create a polished aluminum look
We would ideally like to have set the time to the year of US independence but 17:76 is clearly not an actual real time – so we picked the next significant US historic milestone which could also be a time – the 1812 was with the English.

Archive design notes

What were we thinking with some of those designs and how did we do them?

January 2020 designs

Click on the links to view the archived design notes for January 2020 designs

December 2019 designs

Click on the links to view the archived design notes for December 2019 designs