Ada Lovelace Day 2010 t-shirt designs

The wonderful Sydney Padua, she of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage, has sketched out three possible t-shirts designs for us! Before she goes the whole hog and works up the sketches into proper designs, we thought it would be good to get an idea of which one is most popular, so please take a look at the roughs below and vote! (Please note: These are not finished designs, just ideas so you can get the gist.)

(Oh, and if you haven’t already pledged to take part in this year’s Ada Lovelace Day already, please sign up now!)

Right, so, the contenders!

A. Ada on horseback

B. Ada and punchtape

C. Ada says, We can do it!

UPDATE: I’ve closed the poll now because we have a clear winner! Syd is going to tidy up the design, taking some of the comments into account and I’ll post it as soon as she’s done. Thank you all for voting!

In closing, Syd says:

The final design is bound to change somewhat and probably I’d aim for colour on all 3. The Horse and Ray Gun is a sort of 30s western poster; the second one is an Alphonse Mucha ripoff, like these; and We Can Do It is this one obviously.

Posted in Ada Lovelace Day 2010.

20 Comments

  1. I like the punchtape image, but without the pipe. That’s funny to those of us who follow Lovelace & Babbage on 2dgoggles, but will just look weird to anyone else.

  2. I voted for B but I think my favorite would probably be one of the scenes where she’s crawling inside the guts of the machine to beat it with a pipe. It’s in the blog post of part II of the Economy.

  3. I voted for A in part because with B the pipe would be confusing however historically accurate. My favorite would combine A with “To the Difference Engine!!” from Economic Model

  4. If it’s A, B, or C, then I’d choose B, but – just to expand the options further – I would add another vote for Ada inside the difference engine, or “Let us crunch some numbers” from Lovelace and Babbage vs The Economy, part 2.

  5. B and C are awesome! C is a little trite, but still looks fab, so I guess B. I love everything about it, although I’ll second Sam’s suggestion on the font.

  6. Have to agree about the pipe in B – like the rest!
    Someone’s asked if they’ll be for sale & if so, will be proceeds go to BCS women – which makes me guess you’re UK based??

    Will it be possible for those outside the UK (or outside whereever you are, in case that includes the UK – which is where I am!) to purchase just the image – so that it can be taken to local places that print onto T-shirts? (Or sweatshirts, if this weather doesn’t warm up!)

  7. I like the second one, with the punchtape and the pipe (maybe even with the other style of pipe) but maybe it’s a bit tall. I would cut it to the waist – similar to the “We can do it” cartoon. This one is lovely executed too, but I IMHO the iconic feminist image has been trivialized by overuse…

  8. A. because:
    – RAY-GUN!!
    and also, it’s co-opting traditional male iconography in a way that makes me smile absurdly.

    Rosie and Mucha are just faaar too heavily mined in feminism/gender-equity suchwhats for me to want to own yet more reimaginings of them.

  9. I like A, as is. But it also would be kind of cool if it was a robot or a spaceship–a machine of some sort. I thought the ray gun was a drill at first.

  10. I’ve closed the poll now because we have a clear winner! Syd is going to tidy up the design, taking some of the comments into account and I’ll post it as soon as she’s done. Thank you all for voting!

  11. @andrew, I’ll blog as soon as the T-shirts are available. Proceeds will go towards the costs of Ada Lovelace Day, which currently stand at just a few hundred quid in hosting and event stuff. I’m not going to mark up the T-shirts with much of a margin, so I doubt that we’ll sell enough for me to cover those costs. If, somehow, we do, I am wondering whether I should use the surplus to set up Finding Ada as a proper NGO. Whatever happens, I’ll be transparent about how much we earn and what happens to it.

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