2023 Saskatoon Jam jerseys

Last summer I had the opportunity to design a light and dark jersey for my ultimate frisbee team, Saskatoon Jam. While ideating with teammates, we decided that we wanted two seperate styles: one for the spread-type of jam, and one for the music-type of jam.

The spread-type idea eventually became the light jersey: I created some sticky, jammy letters and we placed them front and center on the jersey. We used some complimentary colours for the cuffs and I created a graphic of a piece of toast for one of the sleeves. We used the music theme for the dark jersey: frequency spectrum bars are featured along the bottom of the jersey, and the same bars are used to create the JAM letters on the chest.

Below are two of the mockups I used to try and visualize what our designs would look like. I found the mockup for free online. It was split into three parts: one graphic for the torso, and two graphics for each of the shirt sleeves. It took some trial and error to get the graphics placed in just the right way, but it was useful for visualization purposes.

The two images below show me wearing the actual jerseys, a couple days after they had been printed (and before they had been played in!) As you can see, there are some slight differences between the mockup versions and the final versions. The team decided they wanted the dark jersey to be blue instead of purple, so we used the purple colour as a slight gradient behind the music bars to provide some contrast. We also added the asymmetrical cuffs to the dark jersey to match the light.

This jersey project was, by far, the most stressful creative project I have ever worked on. This was due to a few different reasons:

1. I did not take enough time at the beginning of the project to gather information from teammates about what sort of jerseys they wanted. This feedback came in once the designing process had already begun, which resulted in having to re-work certain items, and a lot of wasted time.
2. Trying to please everyone, I was working on multiple different designs, which I showed to the team to gather feedback. I thought this feedback would be helpful, but it really only served to pull me in multiple directions, needlessly complicating the already-complicated process.
3. My naive estimate at the time it would take to finalize the design (via communication with the garment printers) caused a lot of last-minute stress. If I would have asked at the beginning what timelines could be expected for finalizing/printing, I would have been able to structure my time more efficiently.

Next time I design jerseys (and there will be a next time!), I will orchestrate the process in a more formal manner. I will take everyone's input all at once at the beginning, and then use that information to inform my own creative decisions during the design process.

Overall it was a great experience, and it is a lovely feeling seeing friends wearing jerseys that I helped to create.