All thirty-two shirts are out; the ten (eleven if you count this piece) part project has been published. Now what? It’s time to take a quick look back at 32 Nations, to review some highlights, answer some questions, and reveal a few final items.
THANK YOU!
I’m no longer surprised by just how many of you drop by to check out these little design projects I work up, but I am more flattered than I’ve ever been. I started working on 32 Nations more than a year ago - before it had a name, or a focal point (the upcoming World Cup). It was just a design exercise, and it was my baby. Though other design projects I’d worked on had been well received, I can look back and realize everything had been leading to 32 Nations. Clean Sheet Co., my now-year-old apparel business, sprung directly from this project - as soon as I started to see where the designs were headed, I knew I wanted to make these shirts and give people the chance to buy and wear them. More than a year after starting the process, that’s what’s happening - and it’s a great feeling.
The response to the shirts has been really satisfying - both the feedback and the business I’ve received. I owe a special thanks to all the 32 Nations pre-orderers: I was pretty sure a US-themed shirt would sell (we’d done it before), and I could have predicted a handful of other designs would be popular, but I wasn’t sure if there would be a market for all 32 teams out there. You guys proved that there was. Thanks for making my shot in the dark look prescient! Suffice to say: the production process has begun, and your shirts will be on the way soon. (If you want to join the elite group of 32 Nations wearers, get your order in by February 7 - more on that in a second.)
I’d also like to thank the folks who have given 32 Nations and Clean Sheet some awesome visibility. To my great pleasure, this project has spanned the soccer, design, and fashion spectrum. Under Consideration’s Brand New, perhaps the most revered design critique website out there, featured 32 Nations both online and - how cool is this - in their print quarterly.
I republished the project on Medium, an emerging blogging platform for well-considered content, and ESPN FC picked up the series and published it under its curated World Cup Stories collection. It’s been thrilling to get feedback from a large audience I might not have reached otherwise. UniWatch, everyone’s favorite sartorial-sports site (and a friend to my work), gave 32 Nations a writeup, which always makes us feel part of a large community of folks who care about the designed side of sports. And Kckrs, one of our favorite soccer fashion destinations, gave the project a fantastic full-page spread. Awesome.
Author’s note: This is part of a recurring series on designing beautiful graphic identities for the 32 Nations in 2014 World Cup. When you’re done here, feel free to read on:
Introducing: 32 Nations
The Rules
Group A Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Cameroon Group B Spain, The Netherlands, Chile, Australia Group C Colombia, Greece, Côte d’Ivoire, Japan Group D Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy Group E Switzerland, Ecuador, France, Honduras Group F Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran, Nigeria Group G Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA Group H Belgium, Algeria, Russia, Korea Republic Epilogue
All of the 32 Nations designs are available to order over at Clean Sheet Co., my apparel shop. We make shirts in batches, so pre-order now! All shirts ship later this winter.
Click here to see & order all 32 Nations shirts!
Finally, if you’re interested in discussing this article, getting updates, etc., you can find me at @m_willis on Twitter, or leave your email at the very bottom of this page. Thanks for reading!
The project has been tweeted, blogged, hashtagged, liked, re-pinned, and favorited more times than I can count. I sincerely appreciate every last bit of time you guys took to sharing this project with others - it means the world to me. Thank you.
POWER RANKINGS
When you release 32 different things at once, you’re going to get some interesting data back. Most intriguing to me? The popularity of each design. To figure it out, I sketched up a little exercise: I ranked each shirt from 1 to 32 by a) number of people who’d visited its page on the Clean Sheet Co. website, and b) number of shirts that have been purchased to date. Because purcahses carry a bit more importance than views, I doubled the weight of a purchase in the equation.
Ranked by a weighted mix of viewing and purcahsing, here are the top 10 most popular designs:
USA
Cameroon
Germany
England
The Netherlands
Brazil
Spain
Australia
Belgium
Italy
Mexico, Argentina and France follow just behind this top ten. The US is on home turf, of course, and the rest are a mix of traditional soccer powers, English-speaking countries and (I must believe) designs that people liked the best. In the cases of Cameroon and Belgium, I’m particularly sure that the designs helped elevate their ranking.
ONE LANGUAGE: FÚTBOL.
With national-themed designs, it makes sense to meet partisan audiences on their own terms. English can only take you so far. I debuted translations for each of the 32 Nations shirts earlier in January, and the feedback has been quite positive. We have 15 languages on the site now - everything from Arabic to Bosnian to Spanish to Japanese - and it’s been a thrill seeing the project connect with native speakers of all kinds. Just because I think it’s fun, here’s the same sentence (“The_____ Shirt is part of the 32 Nations project”) in every different language we offer.
A Camisa Brasil é parte do projeto de 32 nações (Portuguese)
Hrvatska majica je dio projekta 32 Nacije (Croatian)
La playera de México es parte del proyecto de 32 naciones (Spanish)
Le T-shirt du Cameroun fait partie du projet des 32 Nations (French)
Het Netherlands T-shirt is onderdeel van het 32 landen project (Dutch)
Το Ελληνικό μπλουζάκι είναι μέρος της συλλογής των 32 Χωρών (Greek)
日本のシャツは32カ国プロジェクトの一つです (Japanese)
La maglia da gioco dell’Italia è parte del progetto 32 Nations (Italian)
Das Schweiz Trikot ist Teil des 32-Nationen Projekts (German)
Majica Bosne i Hercegovine je dio projekta 32 Nacije (Bosnian)
한국 공화국 셔츠는 32 Nations Project (Korean)
تی شرت تیم ملی فوتبال ایران بعنوان یکی از 32 تیم شرکت کننده در جام جهانی (Farsi)
32 قميص الجزائر هو جزء من المشروع الأمم (Arabic)
Футболка Россия является одним из 32 национальныльных проектов (Russian)
There’s one more easter egg dialect on the site. I’ll let you guys find it.
QUESTIONS? ANSWERS.
There’s been no shortage of questions, feedback, and dialog generated by 32 Nations readers. Here are some of the items I’ve been getting consistently.
When do the shirts ship?
We’ve just started the production process, which usually takes a few weeks. They will ship right after that - sometime later in February is what we’re aiming for.
Is there still time to order?
Yes, but not much. We order almost exactly as many shirts as we need, with only a few extras in each design. When the pre-order period ends, we’ll take all the shirts off sale, finish making them, and ship them out to orderers. Any leftovers will be put back up for sale, but there won’t be many. The bottom line: if you want any of the 32 Nations designs, order by Friday, February 7. That’s the last day we’ll take pre-orders. After that, you’ll be taking your chances.
Like a 32 Nations shirt? Click this button to order:
32 Nations Shirts at Clean Sheet Co. »
How do the shirts fit?
Really nicely. They’re comfy and (from my experience) they’ll definitely take a spot in your “favorite t-shirt” rotation along with the old heather-grey pocket T and that Furthur Fest concert shirt from ’96. If you’d like exact sizing, you can see the Clean Sheet sizing page. One other trick might be useful as well: Clean Sheet uses the same shirt stock as American Apparel. If you’d like to guage your fit, and you can get to an American Apparel store, try on their Jersey T (model #2001) - it will match exactly, in feel and size, to Clean Sheet Co. shirts.
When are you going to make a [my favorite country] shirt?
We have big plans at Clean Sheet Co., and your favorite country is probably included! As soon as we have the 32 Nations shirts out to our early orderers, we’ll see about new countries. Among many others, I’ve had a ton of requests for Ireland, Scotland, the Nordic countries, and Canada. (Basically, everywhere up near the Arctic, I guess? Go figure.) We hear you, and we’ll definitely be making shirts for you very soon. And that goes for other places too - maybe states, provinces, cities… we’re figuring it out as we go.
What about my favorite club team?
We make shirts inspired by all kinds of things - and though we don’t make club shirts by name, our Color T line is inspired by some of the great color combinations found in the global game. Look for more Color T options soon that match up with the colors that inspire you to be a fan.
Can my I outfit my own team in Clean Sheet shirts?
Yep, that’s another thing the Color T series is great for, and we’ve already set a few teams up. Give us a holler (info@cleansheet.co) for bulk purchasing prices or to ask about new color combinations.
I know somebody who might want to sell these in their store.
That would rock. Same deal - you can find us at info@cleansheet.co for all retail inquiries.
When the #$@#$@$@# are The Pasdena and the The Gadsden coming back??
Soon. Like, before-the-World-Cup-soon. Stay tuned.
Many questions surrounded the designs for specific countries. On Mexico:
Why the luchador theme?
I liked the visual, also how (in this particular design) it dovetailed with the fascinating tradition of calavera (decorated skulls). I know it might seem a bit clichéd to some, but then, so is wearing a big Uncle Sam hat and stars-and-stripes suspenders as a US fan. Sometimes (at least to me) it’s just fun to indulge the fun side of our national identities.
On Iran:
That design (with kufic script) might not represent all Iranians.
Totally fair point. I went with the national jersey as an inspiration, which uses almost all of the same design cues as the shirt I designed does (the white base, the colors, and the flag with kufic script on the crest). But I’ve learned a lot about the culture from this project and will continue to roll that in to future designs.
On Portugal:
The “7” could be a little too reverential to C. Ronaldo.
I have to be honest - discovering a “7” in the Portugal design was a total act of serendipity; I didn’t design the shirt that way or even notice it for a long time. When I was writing the capsule on Portugal I threw it in there as a little “extra” tidbit - because it was a nice discovery, and because I do actually believe no team will rely on one player more than Portugal on CR7. But to be clear, the design idea stands alone and is not based on Cristiano.
On Australia:
Dude! Boxing kanaroos are so 1983!
I had some fun with the Australia design, and it’s been pretty popular. As with Mexico, there’s a light-hearted spirit that tumbles through some of the designs, and that works perfectly with how I feel on gameday (i.e., as a US fan, wanting to throw on every piece of red, white and blue clothing I own.) Australia’s team is known as the Socceroos - surely a stray pair of boxing gloves doesn’t conflict to harshly!
THIS CLOSE
A few teams almost made the final 32, but fell just short. I had prototype designs in the works for them just in case. For fun, here are a few (in various stages of completion):
Iceland
If you read the Rules piece, you’ve seen this design. I really liked how it came out, and really wished Iceland would have made it. It will be on sale soon.
New Zealand
It doesn’t get simpler, or more beautiful, than the New Zealand fern and a silver, white and black color scheme.
Sweden
Similar to Iceland, but a bit more minimal, I was hoping for Sweden to make the field so I could use a navy base. Maybe next time.
Burkina Faso
This one was still in the idea stage when the Burkina Faso dream died. I liked where it was headed, though.
Ukraine
I worked on this one, on and off, for a while, and it looked for all the world like I’d be using some variation of it, too - but France just wouldn’t give up. The Ukrainian trident is a brilliant national symbol to design with.
Alternative & “Second” Shirts
Though the final 32 shirts I published are meant to stand alone, at various points I entertained alternative or second versions of many. For instance, I worked on putting England in a cream heritage-white (similar to recent traditional shirts the team has worn), Brazil in royal blue (it looked amazing), Ghana in white (their traditional color), the Netherlands in black (very intimidating), and the USA in navy (which has grown into an important color for the squad and its fans).
Some of these shirts might still see the light of day - find me on Twitter, or by email, to let me know if you’d be interesting in wearing any of these designs (or design concepts). If we get any big responses, we’ll make it happen.
SERIOUSLY. THANK YOU.
The project has been one of the highlights of my year, and my career as a designer. Please drop by any time, here or over at Clean Sheet Co., for more design work. And remember, if you want a 32 Nations shirt, order by Friday, Febrary 7! (Really: when they’re gone, they’re gone.)
Much more, from Clean Sheet Co. and from me, to come.