The Babies Sound Like Raptors design has existed, not in this form, for quite some time now. Probably about two years ago or more Cody’s nephew, who was just a baby then, was crying and screaming all the time. So, she randomly said out of frustration, “Babies Sound Like Raptors.”

I had been trying to think of new designs and that little phrase made me laugh out loud - or LOL, if you will. However, back then I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d do the design. I hadn’t started really drawing the designs - just kind of arranging pre-made graphics. I didn’t know how to screen print multiple colors. I was pretty much clueless.

Fast forward to about a year ago and the idea still lives. I really wanted to do something with it, so I just made it into a pin design. It’s fairly simple but it gets the message out. Then, I get encouraged by some people on T-Shirt forums to make it into a shirt design. So, as I’m getting a little more familiar with Adobe Illustrator, I give it a go.

The first attempt was, what I still see as an awesome drawing, of a raptor holding a baby in a blanket in it’s mouth with a speech bubble with the phrase. It was pretty boring as a t-shirt design, I have to admit. Then, comes the raptor in a bassinet inside a stroller. Bam! That’s it. That’s the one we’re going to go with. The only problem was that I couldn’t really afford to get it made. However, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

After letting the design sit for about half a year, I began to notice things I didn’t like about it. Mainly the text on the shirt. It just looked really messy and kind of tossed in there too quickly. So, I go and I start tinkering with the text and I smooth it out and change the line breaks. This time I really hit the nail on the head. The text works so much better than the older designs and it just looks all around solid. This is probably my best t-shirt design yet.