USMNT Soccer Jerseys
Summary
Ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Nike released kits for the United States Men’s National Team that were widely panned by the fanbase. I decided to try my hand at designing them and sharing them on social media. Soon after, my designs went viral for their wild popularity. Grassroots soccer store Olive & York reached out to me to make the designs a reality. Each of the four kits sold out within minutes of going up for sale.
Failure to Launch
In the months leading up to the 2022 World Cup, leaks began to appear online of the jerseys the USMNT would wear. Many people were left underwhelmed by the designs and many hoped the leaks were inaccurate. Sure enough, on September 15th, US Soccer officially announced the kit designs that were exactly what the leaks showed.
Carpe Diem
Despite having an incredibly strong brand identity, US Soccer has routinely failed to deliver designs that support that brand identity. Kits are often redesigned every year in order to gain new sales and pump more money into the system. However, I find this often means that Nike will stray too far from what the fans love and identify with. Simply put, the American iconography that binds.
So I set out to design something uniquely American while also bringing back fan favorite styles.
The reception for my designs was beyond anything I could have imagined. Within minutes, they’d been picked up by notable USMNT analysts Alexi Lalas and Hercules Gomez as well as famous fans like Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian and screenwriting legend Franklin Leonard. The popularity of the designs led to a profile with the New York Times.
The tweet of my designs ultimately reached over 3 million people, with engagement from hundreds of thousands of fans.
Olive & York
With so much fan fare, I was inundated with requests to turn the jerseys into reality. This is where Olive & York entered the picture. As a grassroots soccer merchandising store, Olive & York makes a concerted effort to give back to the soccer community and ensure the sport is inclusive of everyone. Working with them was a dream match.
O&Y was able to manufacture my designs and put them up for sale in order for fans to have them in time for the start of the World Cup. However, neither of us anticipated just how much interest there was in the kits. The Declaration of Independence kits sold out within minutes, prompting us to ultimately do four more drops, selling thousands of jerseys in the lead up to the World Cup.
In order to print and sell the jerseys, I needed to create a unique brand identity since the US shield was copyright material owned by the USSF. I decided to create an homage to the original US soccer crest with a modern spin on the shield.
I never could have dreamed that my designs would ever become reality but after seeing the reception from fans and then seeing the kits worn AT the World Cup, halfway around the world in Qatar, I felt truly blessed to be a small part of the US Soccer community.
