Six strings print alike, and the new ones don't announce it

A headstock, straight on and large across the chest. Six tuning pegs, three to a side. Six strings run down from them in parallel, every one the same bright copper against the cream of the wood.

Half of those strings went on a few hours before a show. The print doesn't say which half.

What's actually printed on the chest?

A guitar headstock and the top of the neck, drawn plainly, filling the chest panel.

Six pegs, six strings, a nut where they gather into the neck — nothing else in the frame. No hand, no body of the instrument, no stage behind it. Every string is rendered the same width, the same colour, the same weight of line as the one next to it.

Why don't the new strings look any different from the old ones?

Because a print in one string colour can't draw a difference it was never given a second ink for.

The design uses exactly one copper for all six lines, so nothing on the shirt distinguishes the three that went on that afternoon from the three that have been on the instrument for weeks. That was the decision, not an oversight: the shirt shows the instrument, not its maintenance log. Anyone who restrings before a show knows the actual gap in brightness fades fast anyway, under stage light and after the first few songs bend it out of anyone's notice but the player's.

Why change three strings and not all six?

Because restringing all six the night before means none of them are settled by the time you play.

A fresh string stretches and slips out of tune for a while after it goes on — replace every string at once and the whole instrument is still finding pitch when the show starts. Swapping only the ones that actually need it, the ones that have gone dull or won't hold a bend cleanly, leaves the other three doing what they've already proven they can do, and cuts the number of strings still settling in half.

What makes a convincing version of this?

Keeping the headstock ordinary rather than reaching for a specific maker's outline.

Tuning peg arrangement, headstock silhouette and logo placement are usually a specific maker's own design, so a generic six-in-line layout with plain pegs reads as any guitar's headstock rather than one particular instrument's — closer to a rosin block shown for what it is rather than for whose stamp is on it.

Do I need to reproduce a real maker's actual headstock shape?

Only if that maker's specific outline or logo is the point, and then it's theirs to licence.

A distinctive headstock silhouette or a printed name on it functions as a trademark the same way a logo does. A plain six-in-line shape with unbranded pegs, like the one here, isn't anyone's proprietary design — it's the generic form most six-string instruments share, which is why it reads as convincing without needing anyone's permission.

Does this work for an instrument that isn't a guitar?

Any instrument with parts that get swapped out on a schedule invisible to an audience.

A violin's peg box and its four strings, a set of drumheads changed the morning of a show, a reed swapped between sets — the shared shape is upkeep nobody in the room is meant to notice, done anyway because the player will notice everything. It's the same private maintenance as tape wound round a peg that won't hold, with a tag that admits what the fix actually is, just done well enough this time that nothing shows.

Does it print well?

Yes — a headstock is mostly straight lines and circles, which is an easy shape set at chest size.

The pegs are simple curved forms and the strings are straight parallel lines, both of which hold their edges cleanly at large scale on fabric, the way hard-edged shapes generally do. Charcoal, black or a deep bottle green all let the bright copper and the cream woodgrain sit forward. Two inks.

How do I get one made?

Describe the headstock at JustOG — how many strings, what colour the wood reads as, and how large across the chest you want it. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

By the second song nobody in the room could have told you which three strings were which.