Sports Clothing (RCC)
Alongside my freelance work, I also currently have a job at a sports clothing company, where I design, adjust and print shirts for teams and companies. All the designs shown below were created by me for clients that had an idea but didn't know how to execute it. I use Adobe Illustrator to create the patterns on the print templates, keeping the print quality as high as possible when scaling up and down (because of vectors). I then save them as print-ready files and send them to the large scale printers, making sure everything runs smoothly.
Paisley 1st XV
The shirt shown below was a very intricate design that the client wanted to showcase. They wanted a sharp contrast between the two colours so I used a bright red and blue (to match the teams badge). The sponsors provided fit well aesthetically on this shirt, not adding too much colour over the bright shirt design.
Glasgow High Kelvinside (1st XV Home & away)
This shirt design, although quite minimal in appearance, was quite a challenge to design. The client wanted the stripes on the sleeves to match the body, so I had to adjust my design on the print templates so that when the sleeves were sewn to the body there would be a continuous line. The colours used for this compliment each other so well, and the stylish white sponsors fit this shirt design perfectly.
Underneath this is the GHK away kit, which starts with a white base and uses the blue and green from the home kit for lines that go all the way up the front and back. Again, I matched the sleeves for this shirt. The back uses the same sponsors (but converted to black so they're visible) and the front simply changes to a different logo.
Sale RFC
For this shirt, the client asked for a classic rugby kit design. The thick blue strips work really well for this, keeping the design simple yet effective. Again, I had to match the stripes on the sleeves to the body of the shirt, giving it a consistent look. For the number on the back, I added a white box behind, which is another classic rugby shirt asset. With a lot of white sponsors again, it links perfectly with the white strips down the shirt; the red logo on the chest contrasts with the blue on the shirt really well.
Deri RUFC
There had already been a couple of kits designed for this client (Deri) using the same two colours. However, they requested a different design that was unique but still used those colours. I made stripes that slowly got thinner and closer towards to bottom, layering black and white arrows over for some detail. These arrows worked perfectly for adding the team badge and sponsors, as they no longer got lost in the design. On The back, I simply made it black but added a vector of a horse that was sent by the client, adding more detail. There was a lot of sponsors for this, but I managed to layer them in a clean, appealing way.
Littleborough
For this kit, I was asked to work from a design that was similar but to add more flare to the kit. I created the simple rounded design to start and then added details such as the green outline around the front of the body, the black lines all the way down, accented with thin yellow lines about then. I kept the sleeves a plain green to emphasise the front design. For the back, I kept it a bit more simple, using a rounded design but keeping the body plain to highlight the numbers more.
Yatton Raiders
This kit was interesting to make, as even though it has quite a clean, simplistic design, the wavey strip at the bottom. I used colours that perfectly matched with the teams badges (black and yellow), which gave the shirt consistency all the way through. The sponsors that were needed for this kit work really well, as they're stylish black and white logos. The raiders text logo on the back of the shirt frames everything, giving the plain black area a bit more personality.
Templates
The mock ups shown below are a group of templates that I designed using key elements from previous kits. I simply used black and gold to highlight the different parts of the pattern, and added a logo on the right side of the chest. These shirts are examples of what customers could choose when they buy, which they could then customise with their own colours, badges and sponsors.
