About Designing Springfield

I'm a graphic designer - illustrator - cartoonist with a fondness for typography and a liking of the Simpsons. It seems only natural to put them together and have a little fun with the world of Springfield. It might also lead to paying work....

Monday, August 3, 2009

My First Tattoo

This one goes past pretty quickly on the show, but I liked the sound of it.

In the episode "My Sister, My Sitter" (season 8), Marge and Homer go to the grand re-opening of the Springfield Squidport and leave Lisa in charge of Bart and Maggie, with dire consequences.

Meanwhile, at the Squidport, which is one of those formerly-skeevy industrial areas that's been gentrified into a yuppie retail/entertainment complex, Mr. & Mrs. Simpson survey the new shops and restaurants, one of which is a tattoo parlor where a bunch of the Springfield children are admiring one kid's new ink.

As usual, the signage in the episode is fairly perfunctory, plain block lettering with a passing effort at a graphic. In this case, the word "First" is emblazoned on a ribbon traversing a heart, in a classic tattoo motif. I decided to go in a different direction, playing up the idea that it's a parlor specializing in young customers (which is certainly illegal just about everywhere in the US).


I decided to use a childish handwriting font (Lemonade Bold) for "My First", with bright pastel coloring, and a spiky medieval font (Ironwood) for "Tattoo". The red-to-black gradient fill and multiple outlines add a little edge of menace in keeping with the usual tattoo aesthetic.

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