Illustrations, design, art direction and copywriting for Ipswich Town Football Club and Adidas UK for the launch of their 2020/21 home kit.

The iconic kit marks the 40th anniversary of the famous UEFA Cup win under the legendary Bobby Robson, however, the campaign itself caused a huge amount of challenges for the club due to the worldwide pandemic. Most of all was the delay in manufacturing, which meant no access to any physical kit. This alongside social distancing measures meaning no access to players or the usual photoshoots which would normally take place during the launch process.

Due to the issues mentioned above, alongside the objective of creating something unique and special, I pitched to do the whole campaign in the form of illustrations. I was then able to work from minimal reference imagery of the new kit and draw five current players in it, which formed the bones of our launch campaign. Aside from the illustrations, I created a variety of assets ranging from social media to digital in-store displays to matchday programme artwork. I created the overall campaign messaging alongside the voiceover script for our video content which ties together our current team with the famous 80/81 UEFA Cup Winning side and also formed part of the look and feel for our overall creative. This alongside illustrating club legends from that special season.

As a further incentive I pitched, and we, therefore, went ahead with a series of six collectable postcards, each showcasing one round from the 80/81 UEFA cup winning campaign. Featuring a bespoke illustration on the front and all of the stats and info on the back. These were made available as part of any pre-order purchase and will then be sold in the club store thereafter. You can see more of this project here

Overall the reaction has been immense and the pre-order sales along with fan engagement have hit record numbers at every stage so far since the campaign launched. With the numbers surpassing the entire 19/20 4 week pre-order sales within just 48 hours!!

Due to the success of the kit launch and the illustrative approach, the club and I will now be releasing a series of commemorative illustrative merchandise throughout the season to further monetise this route.

Check out the away kit launch project here