A History of the White Sox’s Fan-Fueled Uniforms
From Paul Lukas at ESPN.com on March 24:
If you run a major-level team these days and want to redesign your uniforms, there’s a pretty standard course of action for you to follow: You consult with your league’s properties office, confer with the company that manufactures your uniforms, check to see which colors are forecasted to be “hot” over the next five years or so, go over some sales figures to see what the kids are and aren’t buying, convene a few focus groups and then hire a branding firm to handle the job for you.
Thirty years ago this month, however, the Chicago White Sox embarked on a much simpler process: They announced a contest for design submissions, with fans getting to vote for the winner.
And that is how a 25-year-old who had no particular interest in the White Sox, and who’d never designed a uniform before, ended up creating one of the most iconic uniforms of the past generation. His name is Richard Launius, and this is his story. It’s also the story of a team’s playful, almost quaint approach to its visual design program — an approach that would never fly in today’s more corporate-style sports world.
Read the full article here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lukas/110324_white_sox_design&sportCat=mlb
Originally published: March 24, 2011. Last Updated: March 24, 2011.