(Un)fortunately, our recent work on the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s First Fridays series yielded a bevy of such unused work. For those unfamiliar, First Fridays combines DJs, live music and drinks with scientific discussion and behind-the-scenes tours. Each season is programmed with a theme in mind. For 2012 “This Time It’s Personal” was coined to expose scientists as more than lab coat wearing nerds, and to involve the audience with the idea that everyone can be a scientist.

Two of the initial approaches involved treating the artwork like indie rock posters, which often use simple but odd imagery to capture the tone and core ideas of the band. Applying this to Dr. Michael Brown and his discussion “How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming”, we came up with one version in which Dr. Brown is visually explaining how he blew up Pluto with his eye, like the Death Star destroying Alderaan. In another version, an X’d-out Pluto sits in front of comic strip panels in which discussion attendees share their opinions on the death of Pluto. Both good solutions, but…

Ultimately, the third approach was chosen. This direction focused on what the scientists were wearing underneath their lab coats. In our minds, they were hiding witty graphic tees inspired by the topic each of them was to present. This resulted in a series of postcards with t-shirts as key art. Additionally, all of the shirts were actually produced and made available for sale.

That is, all of the shirts that were accepted were made available. Several designs were thought to be too irreverent for the discussions, including the ones for “Is it Good or Bad that the World has So Many Languages?”, “Wicked Bugs—Fearsome and Ferocious Creatures in Your Backyard and Beyond”, and “The New Science of Darwinian Feminism: Evolutionary Insights from Bonobo Social and Sexual Interactions”. In addition, the First Fridays season shirt we designed also fell by the wayside.

Take a look at the gallery, and let us know what you think. >>

One of the accepted designs.

An accepted design.

One of the accepted designs.