Hello. I have a problem. Help me sort it out.

So all the various newsy-whatnot San Francisco sites were aflutter over these t-shirts. And that’s fine. I love Muni, love it lots, but I don’t particularly care for these shirts. Honestly, I don’t particularly care for t-shirts in general, and that is part of the reason I live in San Francisco. It’s a year-round sweater show here.

But! I had been working on the top half of the design you see above, oh, a year or two ago. I rather like the 22, you see, and the goofy string of neighborhoods it so-sluggishly connects. I also like drawing type. And so, a tribute. But!: didn’t really know what to do with it, realized it would probably be best suited to a t-shirt, realized I don’t particularly care for t-shirts, never really finished it, let it lie.

And then yesterday, clicking around, I see the t-shirts linked to above. And I rather like the spirit behind them, I really do, but to be perfectly mean about it I think they do a disservice to the fine typographic history of San Francisco in general and of Muni in particular. And so last night I roughed out a new design for a line I find myself on too-frequently, the 49 Van Ness (properly the “49 Van Ness-Mission,” but this is still conceptual, so). None of the 22’s good-natured funk on that line, rather the misguided pomp of our city’s lousy old Civic Center and the roaring blandness of Van Ness Avenue itself. And still, 49, there is something sprightly about you, and so here, this.

So! Would you wear a hypothetical t-shirt? It would look something like this:

Or like this:

See how uncomfortable I look in a t-shirt? They simply aren’t for me.

But if you like these (they will be slightly improved before they are called “finished,” okay?) I’ll go ahead and get them made (silk-screened?). And sell them somewhere. How does that work? I don’t know how anything works. I just sit in front of a computer and move lines around.

So: help.

Also: which additional lines would you like to see?

Best,