Monday, December 20, 2010

Miskatonic University Project Update

The Miskatonic University Project is close to leveling up.

Thanks to your generousity there's almost enough money pledged to cover the printing of a vintage-style felt sports pennant. Here's a very rough mockup.



Why red and white instead of the oft repeated purple and black? Two reasons, aside from taste. One, there's no visual contrast between purple and black. Two, given that Lovecraft based Miskatonic on Brown University, and that their colors are red, white, and brown, it seems appropriate to use the red and white while leaving them their namesake color.

I'll be revising the rough mockup above to imitate an actual Harvard sports pennant from the early 1920s. I already know the weight of the Miskatonic seal needs to be increased and I'm going to try and replicate the stylized font. I'll post updated pictures as the work progresses.

Currently there's almost enough money to pay for a 9" by 24" pennant. I had originally thought $400 above the original goal of $1700 would be enough to pay for the 12" by 30" version, but I failed to account for shipping and the setup fee for the printing. The actual threshold for the larger version is around $550 above the original goal- $2250. If the fund drive hits that number I'll upgrade the order to the larger size.

The pennant itself will be red felt with the Miskatonic seal and name screenprinted in white and a sewn white felt border. Unfortunately, at least from the standpoint of authenticity, the felt used is made with artificial fibers. I did price out genuine vintage-style wool felt pennants, but they would have doubled the cost of the entire project. Based on that fact I think artificial felt is an acceptable compromise.

6 comments:

Tyler said...

A pennant?! I've wanted one of those since you first posted the PDF back when.

Suddenly my interest in the MU project has piqued. :-)

Anonymous said...

What's the Miskatonic's sports mascot? Terry the Tentacle? Marvin the Mollusk? We need answers to these vital questions, of course.

Propnomicon said...

@ Tyler

The final version will look considerably different, but it should be a cool little prop.

@ Anonymous

Ben the Badger, after Lovecraft's great-great-uncle Benoni Phillips.

CoastConFan said...

We also need a beanie in appropriate colors too. Go team!

Anonymous said...

Instead of the pop saying in the 20's "23 skidoo!", how about "Cthulhu skidoo!" embossed on that beanie.

Mike J. said...

If you make the pennant a 'swallowtail' style pennant, there will be less compression of the end of the word "Miskatonic", resulting in a hopefully more legible end product.