It was a pleasure to design a T-shirt dedicated to expert blacksmith & prominent Japanese knife maker Yoshimi Kato, known as the 'King Of Damascus' (a type of intricate knife pattern). It was to commemorate his visit to Kitchen Provisions for a showcase of his beautiful knives
The image started out hand drawn out in Posca pens, but evolved into a bolder, but still highly detailed, digital vector work. Recreating the Damascus pattern on the knife blade took up almost 3/4 of the time I spent on the design.
The illustration features Yoshimi Kato's name written in Japanese Kanji script as if it's being sliced off some sort of food. If I could've spent longer on the image my intention was to make the 3D lettering look like fish flesh.
I used a few of Kato's knives for reference for the design. I wanted the large Damascus pattern in the background to look like smoke.
I really enjoyed attending the event with Kato-San at Kitchen Provisions in Borough Yards. He took part in a Q&A with the attendees, there was a selection of knives on show, some excellent cheese platters & Kitchen Provisions own beer.
It was awesome to see a display of the T-shirt & poster in the shop & it was the first time I had been able to see the finished prints.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Yoshimi Kato himself. The prior day he made 3 knives at a blacksmiths in the UK with the Kitchen Provisions team as part of the lead up to the event.
It was great to work on a food adjacent company for a change rather than a restaurant etc.
This is a slight edit of my original rough design. Originally hand drawn with in pen, with the additional close up Kato Damascus pattern in the background added in Adobe Illustrator. proportions & details changed quite a bit for the finalised design.