HOUSE OF LEWAN
@ Dartmouth College
2023Background
The House of Lewan is a recently founded Drag House on the campus of the prestigious Ivy League university, Dartmouth College. The student-led club was founded in hopes to make drag accessible by hosting workshops and performing in shows, such as their annual TRANSFORM event. The club is named after Stuart Lewan, an alum of the class of 1979 who was one of the first advocates for queer student rights at Dartmouth. Now, decades after Lewan’s time at Dartmouth, Dartmouth has a space dedicated to the art of drag.Objective
The House of Lewan wanted to create a couple of shirts for their organization merch to attract new members and to be sold at shows and meetings without breaking the bank on their alotted student organization funds. They requested one logo tee with a front print, and a second tee with a more complex design as a back print.Audience
College students, ages around 18-25. Most focused on LGBTQIA and women. Tone
Colorful, casual, fun, feminine, unconventional.MOODBOARD
The House of Lewan came to me with notes and reference images that I was able to build off of to create a moodboard that we both loved. One of the main reference points was the merch from Beyonce’s Renaissance World Tour. My goal was to emulate that while creating something original for the organization by using color, layout and similar design effects.
FINAL DESIGNS
Shirt 1
Shirt 2
Colors
We opted for one-color designs in order to keep the cost of the print job down, but that didn’t limit the execution of the work. Mocked up on Los Angeles Apparel 1801GD tees, the color options shown above are to give the House of Lewan the idea of being able to print these shirts in different colors at different times during the school year to build up a rainbow of sorts amongst the members within their organization and meetings. These colors will stand out and represent the house as they wear them with pride throughout the campus of Dartmouth.