As I participate in the SAISA Boys Volleyball tournament again this year, I also volunteered to design a new kit. The kit that is designed for each tournament consists of a Gecko Athletics Shirt (used mostly for traveling) and two sets of playing wear, consisting of shorts and shirts, the latter usually of different colors. I designed the shirts last year as well, together with my classmate Joshua. I find designing shirts very satisfying since once the shirts are printed it is great to have one’s own creation being worn by other people. Furthermore, it is a fun challenge to find a simple logo or symbol that is intended to represent an event in an interesting and creative way.
The previous year’s logo.
The team was presented with new playing shirt designs, but most of us were more happy with previous year’s design, so we decided to keep that one. This is also of an advantage as the players who traveled last year (including me) do not need to get a new shirt, which saves money and material.
The Gecko Athletics shirt followed a similar approach, although we changed the design slightly, by correcting things that we didn’t like from last year. We used Adobe Photoshop to change the design, which consisted of adding a new ball to the silhouette of the player, as the previous one was not a perfect sphere (because I had drawn it by hand); and changing the text. I experimented with the ball, trying both a black and white and colored variation. I found a simple ball outline online, and added the detail on Photoshop. These are the final two editions of the ball:
The two options I designed using Photoshop.
In the end we decided to take the second design as it fits more to the player by having the same color. Additionally, the ball in the first design seems to be a bit too light and not dominant enough. In that design I changed the player’s shape as well, as in the original design the front of the body is too vertical. I took some color away from the edges below the arm and above the hips to make it look more natural.
The text below the design was changed to “Muscat 2019” with a slightly different font than the text above the player, which had a nice effect, in my opinion. The shirt below does not show the design with the colored ball, because the latter was sent to the shirt suppliers separately.
The final design of the shirt, although the ball is not the final version in this image.
These shirts will be worn by the team during the opening ceremony of the SAISA tournament, so I am looking forward to that, in addition to simply playing volleyball, seeing a new country, and sharing fun time with my team. This will be my last SAISA, so I intend to make the most of it. I feel really fortunate that this school gives me the opportunities to participate in such kinds of events, as they are a lot of fun and make great memories, but have also opened my eyes to other cultures and how other people live, which I think is a very valuable experience.