Retro Spaceship Graphic Tee Design Process

Retro Spaceship” is the second graphic tee I have ever designed and I am quite proud of how it’s turned out. I paid extra attention to small details due to limited workspace, featuring an illustration of myself walking towards an iconic Lamborghini from the 80’s in a distinct outfit.
As with most of my product designs, this tee will be a limited production piece as I am focused on making designs that can last and hold unique value in someone’s closet for a long time.
My previous graphic tee release of “On The Run” was large, bold and extremely eye-catching from a distance. I have used similar characteristics in this project, designing a car in a retro racing livery with various graphics placed around it for a unique appearance. Initially, I planned to have a simple red car with no livery, however I wanted to make it different to a standard illustration, using my creative design processes and research.


Navy, yellow and red stripes were placed around the sharp Lamborghini Countach model that is timeless with its design. It is very similar to a “Martini” racing livery with a flipped color and logo changed to “DHAVDESIGN” using a historic base. I did not add any other extra parts to the car, however I removed elements of the boxy shoulder air intakes featured on the original 1984 Countach as I preferred this flat look way more.
With my character walking towards the car, I decided to use simple shades of white, black and red on his outfit. I avoided over complicating things by including a dedicated one piece racing outfit, as I would emphasize more on such details that would be hard to capture on the tee. I kept it simple with a white hoodie and wording behind that matches the car number, black jeans, white sneakers and red racing gloves.
Mockups shown in the marketing photos may appear clearer due to the digital visualization. With this “Direct To Garment” style of printing, I’m able to capture 90% of the details I imagined with a strong layer of vibrant colors used throughout the design. I also made special adjustments of sharpening some car lines so the bodywork is drawn to the eye, with the focus being distributed by the illustrated human.
Overall, I am very proud to have spent weeks and countless hours on designing this graphic for people to appreciate. I would love to see this on all types of outfits as I believe a graphic tee is needed in someone’s wardrobe – this “Retro Spaceship” tee is perfect to start with.
Link to purchase my graphic tee drop “Retro Spaceship” is now available to pre-order on my website. Each order comes with a clear gloss sticker of the car illustration or logo featured on the unique design.