Jam’s Karaoke & Bar offers traditional Japanese-style karaoke, 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 also a popular destination for surfers. For this project, combining these unique cultures of Japan and Australia, I was commissioned to create illustrations for screen-printing staff uniform t-shirt that would appeal to the younger clientele of the bar.

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, a small flour-ball snack 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.

The design featuring beach sunrise is available for purchase at the bar. All t-shirts are silk-screen printed by a local printing studio, Thirty Three Print Co.

Jam’s Karaoke & Bar