PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE. At the beginning of the process, Homestead actually started out as a cryptic exploration for one of my puzzles. I was very interested in ‘breaking’ the letters apart in a way that if you physically moved them around, only when they were aligned could you read what they said. I started with the letters, H, O, M, E and posted it to Dribbble. It seemed to be a pretty popular shot so from there, I quickly developed the rest of the alphabet. Honestly, that was only the beginning. I won’t get into the details of turning it into an actual font, but needless to say, there were many frustrations and difficulties. The most difficult (and excruciatingly tedious part) was dividing the layers into 3 separate fonts and getting them to line up. There were some unpredictable and quirky bugs that happened (seemingly for no reason) so learning to deal with those and problem solve as I went was essential.

From there, I’d say I was in the right place at the right time. Riley Cran and Tyler Galpin (who I had become friends with through the social medias) had not long before created Lost Type. I seriously can’t thank those two dudes enough for putting this concept together and selflessly giving myself and other designers the opportunity to contribute. And when you have a typeface displayed adjacent to ones designed by the likes of James Edmondson, Joe Prince and Dan Gneiding (among many other talented designers), it was simply like riding coattails.

I’ve always thought exploring the boundaries of technologies at hand is important. Homestead, being a modular type system, depends heavily on the designer’s capabilities and programs at their disposal. The concept that Homestead hinges on is the idea of creative freedom and exploration. Giving the user the option to layer with so many styles makes for tons of possibilities and aesthetics. It’s been amazing to see how it’s been used and interpreted.

SOCCER’S IN MY BLOOD. I grew up playing, I coached, I still play and since I was little, I looked up to my older brother playing all over the world and eventually ending up in the MLS playing his career for the Red Bulls. This background must have given me a bit of credibility when the [then] Wizards came to us in 2011. And with this, again I’d say right place, right time.

For many reasons, the process itself has definitely been one of the more interesting I’ve been a part of. From my understanding at the time, the Wizards had already been working on ideas with Adidas for at least a year. There were visual elements that the organizations wanted to include and the name was already decided. At the time, the term “Sporting” in US sports culture didn’t quite make sense so this seemed to receive a bit of criticism. (Now, people don’t even flinch at it because it’s assimilated.) Sporting has some damn smart people and in my opinion, I think they were way ahead of the curve and got it spot on.

From the aesthetic standpoint, our design team had certain graphics that had to be incorporated. And with all the layers for creative approval (our agency, Sporting’s Marketing, Sporting’s Ownership, — Adidas also had a say) it was (for lack of a better term) a design-by-committee effort. Some of the specific elements that I personally worked on were typography, stripes, the shape of the crest. We looked at the direction of stripes, the thickness, the order of the words (because it’s not Kansas City Sporting). Literally thousands of iterations were done before a final design was agreed upon. One of my favorite details is that the final crest has 11 stripes (with positive and negative) which coordinate to each player on the field.

As a designer, this is the first time I have truly witnessed a logo becoming more than what it looks like, but truly what it stands for. Kansas Citians wear it proud in every detail imaginable and it’s surreal being a part of it. I never lived up to my brother’s playing ability, but I’m honored to have had the opportunity to contribute and be a part of this great league and club.