Jam’s Karaoke & Bar - Uniform T-shirt Design
Akane Yabushita
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Posted Jan 12, 2026
Staff uniform illustrations for Jam’s Karaoke in Newcastle, Australia, blending Japanese karaoke and Australian surf culture for a youthful bar audience.
Jam’s Karaoke & Bar offers traditional Japanese-style karaoke experience, izakaya-style bites and a wide selection of drinks to create a fun evening for the locals in Newcastle, Australia.
Located on the east coast, Newcastle is a popular destination for surfers and the town has its own vibe. For this project, I created unique illustrations for screen-printing uniform t-shirt, by combining these distinctive cultures of both from Japan and Australia, that would appeal to the younger clientele of the bar.
Idea sketch
Design Inspiration
Featuring an octopus, I depicted motifs representing karaoke, izakaya, and surfing with a humorous touch, and accompanied the designs with the bar's tagline "Such a good moment（最高の瞬間）" and "Cheers（乾杯）" in both Japanese and English.
An octopus wearing a headband is a typical motif representing takoyaki: small flour-ball snacks with a piece of octopus leg inside, a popular local street food in Osaka, Japan.
The headband is also alludes to the image of drunken Japanese salarymen on Friday nights, tying their neckties around their heads while drinking at bars and karaoke boxes. This quirky tradition served as inspiration for the design of these octopuses.
Design A pencil draft
Design B pencil draft
Design A penning with Japanese calligraphy brush
Design B penning with Japanese calligraphy brush
Design A finalised
Design B finalised
Outcome
All shirts are silk-screen printed by a local printing studio, Thirty Three Print Co. The design B is available for purchase at the bar.
© Thirty Three Print Co.
© Thirty Three Print Co.