Nine Inch Nails “The Fragile” T-shirts

Index was used for two T-shirts sold by Nine Inch Nails to promote their album The Fragile from 1999. While the cover art for the record didn’t feature Index, this early release by Joshua Darden and Tim Glaser was prominently featured in the follow-up release, Things Falling Apart, from 2000.

One T-shirt shows a crop from the back cover of the album featuring David Carson’s characteristic cross-processed and out-of-focus photography, with the band name set in tracked-out caps from Index, without word spaces. The back depicts a single flower, again taken from the album art, with the title. This shirt is still sold in the NIN shop. The second one features an undefined blue cloud. The caps from Index were mirrored and rotated individually, for a puzzling reading experience.

It’s not clear if the shirts were designed by David Carson, who worked with NIN on The Fragile and several other occasions, or by Rob Sheridan, who is credited with the album art for Things Falling Apart (as well as for many of the subsequent releases). The shirts were both manufactured by All Sport Events.