There wasn’t a brief. There wasn’t even an assignment. These t-shirts were catnip in our quest to sell in a bigger platform about stopping girl-on-girl cruelty. We wanted to elicit a visceral “ooo – I want that” reaction. The client loved it and immediately said “go do it."

We wanted to make the design absolutely irresistible to our target. So we chose fun, bright colours. Big, bold, unique script typefaces to create a hand-made, one-of-a-kind feel rather than a generic, mass-produced one. We insisted on high quality shirts from a well-known brand; shirts we knew our target would be proud to wear. And we wrote the slogans to be self-deprecating, funny, edgy and young.

The shirts are a definite hot ticket item. Everyone who sees them wants one. And to the chagrin of girls (and their mothers and teachers), Secret isn’t selling them but giving them away to girls who post on the Facebook “Mean Stinks” wall. Given their popularity, we are currently working on an e-commerce solution to satisfy the demand.