The Trojan Records T shirt colour combo conundrum

The Trojan Records T shirt colour combo conundrum

So, after a long wait for sunflower yellow T shirts, the Trojan T shirt reprints are done. I had created an ‘artist’s impression’ of the new yellow T shirts, thinking red and green print on yellow would not only look great, it’d be perfect for a reggae based T shirt. However, the mock-up posted on the product page suggested otherwise. I dismissed this and put it down to it being a mock-up and not a picture of an actual real printed T shirt! I was confident that when actually printed, the colours “will look dope on that colour T shirt!”.

They didn’t. It did remind me of having an eye test. On the yellow T shirts, the depth of the red and green colours was two close. The whole print was too dark to show the Trojan emblem prominently enough through the text – the opposite of what I wanted. The mock-up turned out to be accurate after all.

Trojan men's T shirt - Red Gold and Green

Trojan men’s T shirt – Red Gold and Green?

I was a little disappointed, but (and you have to stay on your feet in this game), I remembered that the last yellow uchi T shirt was printed using a dark golden yellow and the same green we were using, so…

We overprinted the poorly chosen red with the dark yellow and this is what we got.

Trojan men's T shirt - Sunflower Yellow detail

Trojan men’s T shirt – Sunflower Yellow

They say hindsight is a beautiful thing. And with further hindsight, or, by paying attention to the rules of colour instead of getting sentimental about red, gold and green combos, maybe even these current colour ways could be better? If instead, green and gold were printed on the cream and the yellow T shirt had the green/orange combo. Perhaps? It is a very limited run, so the next cream and yellow Trojan T shirts will probably see a reversal of colours… maybe clear and red inks?

Feel free to let me know what colour combo you’d like to see on a future uchi Trojan T shirt.

Trojan men's T shirt - Black and Cream

Trojan men’s T shirt – Black and Cream

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Love vinyl T shirts

Love vinyl T shirts

It’s the end of the sixth uchi album of T shirts. All but two of the designs on this as yet untitled album are music related. I am pleased that these last two designs follow the music theme, with a particular focus on vinyl.

There are a couple of new designs that were going to be included, but were not finished in time. On reflection it worked out fine. The two unfinished pieces are very illustrative and more like designs in the pipeline than the ones recently done. So, maybe the next album will be all illustration? We’ll see.

Here are the latest two uchi vinyl-related T shirts and the stories behind them…

Trojan and The Big Payback were influenced by our neighbours here in Bristol – Payback Records.

Founded in 1968, the British founded Trojan Records has one of the most iconic and recognisable logos and a host of equally iconic and renowned artists under its belt.

Trojan Records T shirt detail

From reggae, ska, rock steady and dub, its endurance is a testament to the music and culture. We haven’t included the complete list of all the artists that appeared under Trojan Records, but hope we’ve caught a few of everybody’s favourites.

For me, growing up in a house full of reggae records has made the Trojan logo as recognisable as the Nike swoosh, but with a ton of more meaning. It’s no coincidence that they also use a heavy robust and solid typeface like Rockwell Extra Bold.

The Big Payback T shirt

Although a reggae specialist Payback Records have a great selection of non-reggae vinyl. Their HipHop section is featured on The Big Payback T shirt. Coincidentally, the record store is named after the 1989 EPMD track of the same name; perfect uchi. I was unaware of this connection before I added the type. The Big Payback is one of my favourite EPMD tracks and is somewhere in the stack of old school vinyl in the image. In the shot, I’m actually standing in Payback Records.

Only thing left to do is name the album!

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