This Girl’s Amazing T-shirt Design Perfectly Captures Malala’s Message
Update: Olivia has newly printed shirts in stock on her Etsy shop. Order yours here.
Olivia is a seriously talented artist from a small town in Arkansas called Cabot. Earlier this year, Olivia designed and printed t-shirts emblazoned with a design that perfectly captures Malala’s spirit. We especially love Olivia’s design because they’re so bold, beautiful and, kinda punk — just like Malala.
When she was 15, Olivia remembers hearing about Malala when she was attacked, but the true weight of the story didn’t sink it at first. It just seemed like another piece of news.
Once she discovered that she and Malala are the same age (down to the month in which they were born), it hit her. “Someone the same age as me was changing the world with her activism…it was a truly humbling epiphany,” Olivia said.
Immediately, Olivia wanted to figure out what she could do to make an impact. Flash forward a few years later. Olivia, motivated by her admiration for the education activist, created Malala t-shirts to sell with hopes of donating the proceeds to the Malala Fund. Channeling Malala, Olivia said, made her feel empowered.
At first, Olivia wasn’t able to actually make the shirts because she didn’t know how to. The summer before high school she attended a Governor’s school in Arkansas — basically a summer program for uber-talented students — and learned printmaking skills that allowed her to make them.
Olivia carved a linocut (essentially a big rubber stamp) of the design and rolled the ink onto the linocut, printing the design on each one by hand. While she describes the process as “labor intensive,” Oliva says it was definitely worth the effort.
She chose shirt colors based on the palette of the Malala Fund’s website and sold the shirts on Etsy. She even created a flier for promotional use and then used her network and Instagram to help get the word out that her shirts were for sale. Her grandmother’s book club, which was reading “I Am Malala” at the time, were proud customers, too. In the end, Olivia was able to donate $765.87 from selling 81 shirts to the Malala Fund!
Olivia just graduated high school in May and will be starting college at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville to study studio art. Even though she doesn’t have any concrete plans for her designs, she would like to create more shirts to raise money for nonprofits or charitable organizations.
Unfortunately, if you’re wondering where you can get one of Olivia’s creations, you’re out of luck. She ran out of stock this past spring, though she would like to sell them again.
Olivia told us, “Malala is one of my heroes. The more I learned about her, the more inspired I became. I’m so glad I could contribute to her movement. Even in my home town, I found such a large audience of peers, teachers, family, friends, and random strangers who were so happy that they could help support Malala and spread her message.”
