Doing What Your Passionate About
If you read my blog and my About page (and if you know me), you know my passion is sports uniforms. I read about them, have books about them and I have designed them in the past. When I started at Saint Mary's, I was approached by some of the coaches to design their gear, I love designing gear and have enjoyed this side venture of my job. I design the gear that the teams sell for fundraising and I design their warm ups. Our Fastpitch coach asked me to design the fall and spring jerseys the past two seasons and I have designed an alt jersey for the baseball team.
Last spring our woman's soccer coach asked me to work with the captains of the team to design their new sets! I looked at the generic unis we were getting from the vendors (limited fonts and designs) and asked if we could do custom designs. The soccer coach was enthusicastically on board! If you are into unis like me, you know the University of Oregon Ducks started the uni craze. I decided that it would be awesome (and strategic, a key to recruiting) to make Saint Mary's the Oregon of the MIAC. I asked our soccer coach if he trusted me and was willing to be the first to do this and again, he was all for it. I did initial sketches and thought about our brand; we are the Cardinals and it was time to go all in on that. As Oregon is the Ducks and they have made wings a part of their sports brand, I decided to do the same for Saint Mary's Athletics.
After sketching, I researched wings and soccer unis. What stands out on the field? What is being worn now? What I found was simple and clean stand out more than a design that tries too hard. I mocked up the unis in Photoshop and also showed it on some action shots of players so the team could see what they would look like in action. I met with the team captains and our coach and got great feedback from the athletes. It was so cool to hear how excited they were for the new design and to be the Oregon of the MIAC, but to also hear where they would tweak. I went back in, tweaked and edited and the result is what you see here. The team LOVES them and last night they played their first game in them and, yep, they won! Has to be the unis. ;) Unfortunately, there are no photos posted yet. As soon as they get posted, I'll get you a blog post to show them in action!
