Back in 2015 the manager of a Dutch band called Marvin Dee, contacted me about a commission to design the cover for one of their singles. Earlier this year I reopened my archives to find my initial sketch from that project. I’ve got many similar sketches, but this one was special. At that time, I drew them for almost everyone without including them in the bill, as if knowing that the client would sign it off at the first stage. But that wasn’t the case for this project. Although the client liked the sketch, my price tag was out of their budget and the project was shelved. Looking back at the sketch years later, I was reminded of how good it looked and I regretted not being more flexible on the price. So, I decided to make it happen 8 years later and at my own expense.

The original brief for the cover was for it to be designed with Victorian-style lettering, like that used by traditional signwriters. But 8 years later, in 2023, I had the idea to get the design embroidered onto a military patch, to echo the name of the track itself. I redesigned the sketch in Illustrator, fixing the shape of the letters and adding colours, before giving it to an embroidery designer to produce the embroidered patch.