Tradesman T-shirt with the line "Messen. Fluchen. Nochmal messen.": a tape measure twists into a figure eight, two pencils cross behind it, and a fist holds the third. On the back two hammers cross between torn pieces of tape.
Product description
This tradesman T-shirt carries the three-step rule of every workshop as its motto: Messen. Fluchen. Nochmal messen. Measure. Curse. Measure again. And because that sequence famously never ends, the tape measure in the design has been bent into an endless loop itself.
The eye-catcher is the tape. It swings in a wide arc around the whole emblem, cream white on the scale side, copper brown on the hatched back, with a narrow green line running along the edge. The numbers stand sideways, upside down, at an angle, however the bend happens to demand.
Inside that arc the same tape folds into a figure eight. It alternates between the numbered side and the hatched back, crosses itself in the middle and keeps running without ever arriving anywhere. That is exactly where the joke sits: the most precise tool in the workshop is describing a figure here that cannot be measured out.
Three pencils lie in the picture. Two of them cross behind the loop like swords behind a coat of arms. They are round, glazed in copper, the light wood is bare at the sharpened tip and the lead stands out in dark green. At the lower end sits a ribbed ferrule in cream white with green markings, closed off underneath by a copper brown cap.
From the lower left a forearm reaches into the picture. The sleeve is pushed up past the elbow, the muscles are modeled in dense line work, the fist holds the third pencil. Its tip is already at the tape, waiting for the mark. So the tradesman is measuring his own coat of arms, of course he is.
At the bottom right the tape simply stops. It is torn off, the edge jagged, three splinters flying away, one of them clearly larger than the others, and on the last piece sits a field backed in green. Anyone who has ever over-extended a tape knows exactly which part of the saying they are standing in at that moment.
The saying stretches in an arc over the emblem, set in a heavy serif face with halftone dots inside the letters and a copper offset shadow behind it. Every word tilts along the curve, three sentences, three periods, no exclamation mark. Anyone who knows the routine needs no emphasis.
The back tells the second chapter. Two claw hammers cross, heads and handles in cross-hatching, the claws curved upward, and between them torn pieces of tape swirl like curls of paper. Measuring happens on the front, striking on the back, and the cursing, as everyone knows, lies in between.
Everything is drawn like a woodcut: hard contours in warm charcoal, surfaces built from line work, cross-hatching and halftone dots, plus copper brown, cream white and a muted fir green as an accent. The color separations sit a touch out of register, the way they do on an old proof print.
From two paces away you see a round guild sign with an arc of lettering. Up close the searching begins: the halftone dots in the letters, the line work on the forearm, the fine graduation marks between the numbers, the green-backed field on the torn-off piece.
The design is made for the honest ones: for the woodworker whose tape collects more mileage than his van. For the DIYer who trims the board twice and is still off. For everyone who knows that the second measurement is not weakness but experience.
It is worn in the workshop as an attitude, in the hardware store as an ID and during furniture assembly among friends as a friendly warning. On light tones such as sand or soft rose the emblem looks like an engraving on handmade paper, on light blue the green of the leads comes through more clearly.
As a gift this tradesman T-shirt has a rare double effect: first someone laughs at the saying, then they lean in over the hatching. For a passed journeyman's exam, for a birthday at the company or as a thank you for the Saturday when someone showed up with their own tools.
