Elegant and Sophisticated Chess T shirts - Please provide feedback on the design

Hey guys, I'm close to launching a new website featuring my T shirt design ideas and I would like to get some feedback on one of the designs. I'll post more of them in a subsequent post if I get permission from chess.com to post my website URL.

The designs are fully custom and created from scratch. I handle all the design work but I incorporate feedback from my wife who has a lot of experience with marketing.

I carefully selected the best t shirt material which is very durable but also very comfortable. My goal was to create a higher end product with some sophisticated designs to pair with,

Ultimately I'm putting this out to get some feedback on the design from the market to see if there are any changes which need to happen before launch. Thanks for your time.

Thanks for your comment.

When it prints on the shirt, it actually blends in pretty well. I added design features to make that happen. Trying to blend the design into the shirt is something I've been trying to do since I started, but I'm somewhat limited by the T shirt making software.

Happy to explain the connections between the brand name and the slogan. I assure you these were not thrown together quickly. A lot of thought went into the design. The slogan is  a signature and thus why it is cursive and in the bottom left. They are different by design. The Poetry of Chess is the slogan of the company and Infinite Variations is the brand name. I go into detail on my website what each of them mean. What you are seeing here is not the proof with the crisp details because I am not posting the source photo.

The photo is a professional shot and the text has some design features to give it some blended color. The photo is then edited. You aren't seeing the full detail.

The position of the knight is deliberate so we can achieve the effect of fading the board behind it. It plays on the theme of infinity and actually has several metaphors sprinkled in the design of the image.

I have other designs that have the pieces in context. These designs were specific to highlight the piece itself.

I think the third design is the best of the three. the other two are lacking a fluidity of movement that is necessary to convey the idea of "infinite variations". the romanticism of the bishop pair also conveys " The poetry of chess".

Those are pretty cool pics, I have to say.

I appreciate the feedback. I think so too.

"You need one good catchy phrase, which should both have something to do with the graphics"

A campy catch phrase is how a lot of others design their shirts but its not what we are going for. We are taking a different approach in establishing a brand name paired with custom elegant photos. All of our photos are professionally done and completely custom. We use all of our own materials.

In our designs, the words have very direct ties to the ultimate design. You just need to know a little bit more about what we are looking to do before you make that kind of comment. Thank you for your time.

"the other two are lacking a fluidity of movement that is necessary to convey the idea of "infinite variations"."

Infinite Variations means more than what it appears to be on the surface. We have established a series of meanings on the website associated with the term and the foundation of the brand name. It's not just a term slapped on a shirt. It has several relevant meanings including a poem I wrote previously.

When you're wearing it, the knight looks like it's wrongly placed, it should sit in the center of your chest I think.

Otherwise, I think they are amazing.

I appreciate that for sure. I made a slight adjustment when I created the Black Knight to adjust for this centralization and try to add some metaphorical content to the image.

No, we don´t, a T shirt should work the other way round: you see it and think "Wow, I want one, I wonder what else they do?" THEN you go to the website. You don´t see a T shirt which doesn´t appeal to you and think: hmm, I should maybe go to the website to see if there are any hidden meanings or concepts behind the phrases. Sorry, but asking for feedback carries with it the possibility of receiving negative views, and while I appreciate the high standard of the photography, the T shirts are not for me.

And that's totally cool.

I work in engineering design as a professional and I'm used to getting all kinds of feedback. I have no ego when it comes to the design process but there are certain aspects that should be considered during the process. You didn't fully appreciate what the design was about an certainly made erroneous assertions without knowing what we were going for. In turn, that gives you limited ability to make quality comments.

Typically when someone asks for feedback, they are expecting good feedback or at least constructive feedback. Was hoping you could dial back the sarcasm and condescension and provide something meaningful. It seemed more like an opportunity missed IMO.

Black knight: This one is my favorite of the lot.
Two bishops: This is my #2 choice.
White knight: I would rather have the knight centered on the shirt, not off to one side.
Black pieces: Don't like this one at all. I'd like it better if the board were angled, so you could get a better view of all the pieces.
Text: I would like it better if you had either "Infinite variations" or "The poetry of chess" instead of both. The shirt makes more of a statement if my attention isn't split. If you must have both, then I would significantly reduce the font size of "The poetry of chess".
The photography is visually striking. I feel you're on the right track with that.
Good luck with your endeavor!

Oh, one more thing... when you reverse a photo, the colors of the squares get reversed as well. The white knight shirt looks like the squares are all the wrong color!

Super comfortable. We opted for poly blends that don't shrink.

The colors aren't reversed however. The knight in the photo is a different knight from the white pieces. It's the same board, just a different square.

I don't know anything about designing, but maybe making the background a gradient might help ease the transition between colors?

This is great feedback. I really appreciate you taking the time to post your thoughts. I will certainly take your comments and make some adjustments. It's funny you mentioned the text size of The Poetry of Chess. We also felt the same way and made it smaller on some of our newer designs.

We have a series of boards at an angle that I will post and hopefully get your thoughts on them.