Messiah Shirt

I designed this shirt with an older shirt I used to have in mind. The shirt I used to have prominently featured the word "Messiah" in a font that looked like bones, hanging over the cross with a prominent Jesus. There was blood running from his hands and head, and it pooled at the bottom to form the reference for John 3:16.

I had that shirt for over a decade and I wore it out. It was a very cool shirt, and fit the 'band-t' aesthetic that I had in the metal scene in high school. I've never been able to find it since and my brother-in-law, who got me the shirt (almost 20 years ago now), can't remember where he saw it - it was an impulse buy for him.

I figured if I'm not able to have that shirt, I will just make my own! So after a lot of tweaking, playing around with different fonts, and various design choices, I settled on this design.

It features Christ's arm nailed to the cross, most of the blood and other details are in white or negative space, with blood in the background as an accent.

I chose some pretty gnarly fonts for the verbiage, and opted to put a paraphrase of John 3:16 on the bottom instead of just the reference.

I think the shirt, much like the Chi Rho shirt, does a great job of showing the visceral nature of the Gospel. Behind the vestments and the veneer, behind the fancy preaching, and all the polished Ciboriums and Chalices in the modern church, we must always remember that our God suffered and died for us as a man.

Hope you like it!