This year’s Lawrence Ultimate Summer League shirt went over so well that we decided to make another, slightly different version of the same design for Lawrence Ultimate Fall League, complete with it’s own particular level of inclement weather indication. Fall is a crazy time in Kansas.

Our annual contribution to the Lawrence Ultimate Summer League is ready for print. This year’s shirt provides a safety briefing to summer league participants through a “Back to Safety” campaign based on airline safety pamphlets.

Alupa Creative has been providing shirts to various Ultimate Frisbee Summer Leagues in one way or another since 2004.

In addition to the shirt, this year’s ultimate frisbee disc has also been completed and is ready to go.

* Editor’s Note *

Thanks to Jon UB for the feedback re: Shirt Cone Number Issue. The cones in the image have been changed from four to the appropriate 8 in both the mock ups above and on the updated shirt design that we gave to the printer. Should be good to go.

Also, here’s the disc, since Noble asked.

Word x2.

- AC

For a designer, creating one’s own portfolio is a nearly sisyphean task. From the very beginning you know that it’s going to be a brutal, teeth pulling experience based primarily on the idea that you’re selling the project to the toughest client ever: yourself.

That same pixel pushing, hex code spewing, idiot font savant that was making the calls on all of those other projects, telling the client why it was the right thing to do, why the approach was best, why this graphic wouldn’t work, why this one would…yeah, that guy.

He’s now the one to which you have to present these digital assets you’ve created. The catch is, the presentation to sell him is ongoing, because he’s sitting on your shoulder the whole time.

If you are that guy (and I am) it’s maddening.

That having been said, things are moving along nicely. The flash site is nearly ready for release and when it is, we’re sure that you’re going to hear about it. In the mean time, here are a few slides from a slideshow on the site.

Every year I do a shirt for Bolle to sell in their booth at the US Open. This year’s shirt is above.

Apparel has always been an important part of my creative framework. I enjoy the simplicity of the design limitations, the application of functional creativity and the chance to get down to some serious graphics work. A shirt’s image is more than just a straightforward graphic, it’s a chance to tie multiple layers of meaning into a single work.

You can file this under “stuff you wish you had thought of first.”

Teemagnet.com is a daily shirt site aggregator which combines the best one-day-shirt sites into a central location. In addition to displaying the image of the daily shirt it also tells you handy information, like where to buy, cost and how much time is left. Also, as a handy little guide they also have incorporated a shirt blog, as well as links to some great shirt sites.

Click on the header image of the site for a special treat. Don’t be surprised if it slowly drives you insane, however. It’s strangely addictive.

This shirt was produced for the Lawrence Ultimate Summer League, in Lawrence, Kansas. In addition to the apparel design, which we have done for the past five years, frisbees (discs) are produced in conjunction to the yearly design.

Hundreds of our shirts have been printed and thousands of our discs are hopefully still flying on ultimate discsport fields across the country.

Apparel designer Glenn Jones is a personal favorite of mine. I originally ran across his stuff on the mother of all online shirt shops, Threadless, and then tracked him via a series of tubes to his online not-a-hideout at Glennz Tees. Every time that his online store releases a new product a little voice in the back of my head whispers, “You should have thought of that.” It’s maddening.

Glennz Tees is now in the process of offering laptop skins, desktop downloads for mobile devices, calendars and apparel. The site currently has a voter-based setup where new designs are uploaded to a staging area, then produced based on user submitted rankings. The whole thing, as a friend of mine likes to say, is Tabasco.