Overview
Spring Reign is one of the largest youth ultimate tournaments in the country, involving 38 teams from across the PNW. The tournament is organized by DiscNW and in 2018 was merchandised by Five Ultimate. Five Ultimate hired me as a freelancer to create the visual language for the 2018 Event
My Role: Freelance Graphic Designer
My Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, iPad & Apple Pencil
Inspiration
The tournament director knew he wanted the "animal" of this years artwork to be an Owl or a Bee. I did sketches for both animals, but ultimately we decided on pursuing the Bee motifs.
The bee resonated well with the area, Skagit Valley, renowned for it's annual tulip festival. This created a strong meaningful foundation for the designs.
Design Process
Even though this wasn't a UX Design project, I still approached the project with the same process in order to find an intentional and relevant solution. The participants were middle and highschool students, so the merchandise needed to be "cool" and attractive to a younger audience. The purchasers of the jerseys though, in most cases, were going to be the parents, so the gear had to appeal to them too.
I also took into account the history of the event's visual aesthetic. Up until this year, the tournament had used Northwest Coast art as an aesthetic style. The bee artwork deviates from that, but the geometric style similarly uses block shapes to create its subject.
