It’s just a month to go before Sean Conway begins his record breaking attempt, cycling across Europe. Sean has sorted his route, bike, training and nutrition; but he has left the design of his jersey to us. The pressure is on, and we are all going to feel a little embarrassed if Sean sets off from Cabo de Roca in Portugal with nothing to wear.
We put a call out last week to help us come up with a concept we could put into print. Design competitions often make companies a little nervous, but not only did we get a bunch of entries, they were all of an exceptional standard. We were able to tell our backup designer to pack away his felt tip pens, and we were able to have an actual argument in the office over who the eventual winner should be.
Check out the slideshow below for our top picks, our winner, and the final jersey design.
Runner up, Jake Teale
“The design for the jersey was based around the journey that Sean Conway will undertake, most obviously the map of Europe and the terrain he will cover on the front and back of the jersey. The vibrant design on the side-panels, cuffs and collar of the jersey were inspired by weather system data recorded over Europe.”
Runner up, Cindy Siukonen
Cindy submitted two designs for the competition, so we included both in our slideshow. You can find her portfolio here.
“I think being a cyclist and having the passion for cycling gave me the inspiration to design for this competition. I am also a big fan of Sean! I think what he does is just truly amazing! I just find so much joy in designing for cycling and about cycling because it combines both of my passions, graphic design and ride my bike. ”
Runner up, Glenn Marvell-James
You should follow Glenn on Twitter, you’ll find him here.
Runner up, Mike Mercer-Brown
I managed to use up a good chunk of my morning flicking through Mike’s portfolio, and pass it off as work. You can see all of his design work here.
We have copies of The Draft magazine signed by Sean which we’ll be sending out to each of our runners up.
Winner, Alex Dyson
Our winning design was submitted by Alex Dyson. You can find his portfolio here, or follow him on instagram.
“When homing in on a design concept, you often find yourself looking at the smallest details, background stories, related thoughts/feelings and telling a story. In this instance however, the first thing you notice about Sean is the wild red hair that frames his face whether he is running across a rugged landscape or cycling fully loaded across a country. I wanted the focal point of the design to be a direct relation to this and work through the central panels of the jersey in race-inspired stripes.”
We loved the thick, animal fur like pattern Alex created to represent Sean’s wild beard. It immediately made us think of this photograph, it suits Sean perfectly, and we knew he would love it before we even showed it to him.
We made a few minor changes, but we wanted to keep as much of Alex’s design as we could. We had a couple of surprise extra logos to add that weren’t in the original spec (sorry everyone) so needed a little bit of a rearrange. Sean’s beard has also grown significantly since last year so we increased the size of the logos on the chest to make sure they weren’t obscured by a mass of hair in the publicity photographs. Sean was also keen to keep the back of the jersey as bright as possible, so we reduced the logos and brightened the orange up to the Yellow Jersey yellow, which also made our boss very happy.
Alex will get a signed copy of Sean’s record attempt jersey, free bicycle insurance, a bunch of goodies from sponsors and an invite to Seans celebration after Sean breaks the World Record.
Thank you to all of the entries. We were delighted to have got so much interest and had a lot of fun seeing what you produced and hearing about the inspirations behind your designs.