Please Help Me Design an Inconspicuous Consumption T-shirt

Your input is hereby requested.

Yesterday I announced that the Brannock device is now the Official Foot Measuring Tool of Inconspicuous Consumption. As I mentioned in that post, the Brannock folks have also given their blessing for me to sell Brannock-themed Inconspicuous Consumption T-shirts. But before I go ahead with that, I’d like to get some feedback from you folks regarding the design. Here are four possibilities:

1. The simplest approach would be to just have IC’s circular Brannock icon (which matches my tattoo) on the front of the shirt. The result would look a lot like the mock-up shown at the top of this page — no text, no context. Sort of a secret code that will befuddle most observers but will produce knowing glances from inconspicuous cognoscenti. (Just to clarify: The T-shirt version would be rendered as line art, like my tattoo, not as a color photo.)

2. If that’s too austere, we could add the words “Inconspicuous Consumption” below the icon. Most people still won’t understand what shirt is referring to, but at least you’ll be repping the site name.

3. We could have the icon on the front and “Inconspicuous Consumption” on the back. (This would cost a bit more, because of the separate front/back printing.)

4. Or we could flip that approach by having “Inconspicuous Consumption” on the front and the Brannock icon on the back. (Again, it would cost a bit more.)

For now, I’m thinking the shirt will likely be white, off-white, or light grey, because the Brannock Device itself includes a lot of black, so the Brannock icon won’t look good against a dark background. (I could use a negative or reverse-field version of it, but I don’t want to do that to the Brannock Device. It just doesn’t feel right.)

With all of that in mind, which approach do you like best? Cast your vote in this poll:

Thank you for your feedback!

Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.