cycle
a branded system for producing reusable t-shirts - 2019
textile waste
92 million tons of textile waste is created annually from the fashion industry. This is unsustainable as most textile waste is quickly sent to a landfill. Additionally, manufacturing textiles uses many resources and has vast negative social impacts.
The environmental cost of a t-shirt
Many valuable resources are used to manufacture textiles as well as systems of human labor that have adverse effects on communities in the industry.
Clothes donated from the United States
A high percentage of clothing donated from the US are t-shirts. These shirts and other textiles go to landfills, often with little reuse or recycling in between.
aesthetic inspiration
A collection of images that I found inspiring as I developed the form language for the system, graphics for branding, and photographic styles for documentation.
creative strategy
Convenient
Make an option that is more accessible and enjoyable than the current unsustainable option
Within the system
Create a reusable t-shirt line based around a subscription service that fits within our current society and systems
Educational
Promote a system that has brand outreach at events to help teach about textile waste
Cohesive
Design a brand and a suite of products that work as a system to convey the process of printing reusable t-shirts
Impactful
Determine which small changes have the largest impact for printing t-shirts sustainably and target those areas
sketches
thermochromic ink process
Thermochromic screen printing ink is heat reactive. It is visible at normal temperatures but when heated to a high temperature, the pigment in the ink disappears leaving only the screen printing substrate. The process illustrated below details the small scale cyclical version of the t-shirt printing process for display purposes.
build process
A collection of photos taken as I built each piece of the reusable t-shirt product suite.
screen printing
The screen printing press and screens demonstrate how the thermochromic printing process would function on a small scale. The system is aesthetically simple and easy to use. Each frame has a notch routed on the bottom to register it with the hinge on the press for easy alignment. The screen frames and hinge were made with fine wood joinery out of hard maple, the metal pieces on the hinge are machined aluminum, and the base of the press is baltic birch. The screens were stretched by hand and the designs were applied with photo emulsion.
display rack / sample tees
After the shirts are printed, they are placed on the display rack to dry. The display rack is minimal and does not distract from the presentation of the shirts and their designs. The designs printed on these shirts were created by me, however, on a mass scale of production the designs would be crowd sourced or made for specific events.
ironing board
The ironing board was designed to be a portable way to demonstrate the removal of thermochromic pigments from the shirts. On a mass scale of production, the shirts would likely be heated in industrial dryers to remove the thermochromic ink. However, for demonstrative purposes it is magical to watch the ink disappear from the t-shirts as an iron passes over them.
branding
Cycle is a subscription service brand for t-shirts that can be reprinted and reused until they wear out, reducing textile waste. Customers can sign up online to receive a new design on a shirt each month. The shirts are delivered in metal canisters rather than traditional packages to reduce the footprint of the subscription service model. The canisters are outfitted with a top sticker that details the design each week in addition to more permanent labels with the cycle logo and information about the brand. The logo mark is based around a continual loop to represent the reuse that the brand promotes.
In addition to the online subscription model, Cycle travels to events where it prints shirts for participants and demonstrates the thermochromic printing process. Cycle does this both to promote the brand and to target single use shirts which are often printed and used only once at events. The packaging for the thermochromic inks was designed to be shown off at these events.
