Linkin Park Design Custom ‘Hybrid Theory’ Shirts for Giving Tuesday
Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda and turntablist Joe Hahn have teamed with designer Blaine Halvorson’s lifestyle brand MadeWorn to create a unique run of shirts utilizing the original street soldier design from the band’s debut LP, 2000’s Hybrid Theory. The sale launches today, November 29th, as part of Giving Tuesday, and a portion of each sale will benefit Linkin Park’s nonprofit Music for Relief, which aids survivors of natural disasters and promotes environmental conservation.
The band will donate $10 from the sale of each white T-shirt and hoodie, and $100 from the sale of each limited-edition black T-shirt.
In a video announcing the project, Shinoda, Hahn and Halvorson work on the custom, handmade shirts using stencils and spray paint. Shinoda discusses how graffiti artist Banksy influenced the Hybrid Theory art design, which he and Hahn created with photographer/graphic artist Frank Maddocks as a visual representation of their music. The singer explained that the soldier represents the group’s “aggressive” side, with the dragonfly wings behind him marking their “delicate” side.
“We made it to represent the duality of the band’s sound – the intersection of contrasting elements, and the hard-versus-soft tension in our band’s music,” he said in a statement. “It’s an image that’s synonymous with the band’s name at this point, and one that has become a cornerstone of our group’s visual language over the years.” The shirts are available at MadeWorn’s site.
“MadeWorn is about the process, about craft,” Halvorson said of the project. “This collaboration with Linkin Park was the perfect way to express that. It’s about putting that kind of intense attention to detail into every piece, integrating artistry and the touch of the human hand.”
In January, Shinoda told Rolling Stone that Linkin Park were deep into work on their upcoming seventh LP, originally expected to see release in 2016. “We’ve been making so much new material,” he said. “A lot of this stuff is, we’re just kind of experimenting a lot with all the different directions the band can go.”