Lancaster Archery Shooter Jersey Design

Earlier this year us two designers at LAS were tasked with designing new archery shooter jerseys. We usually launch a new design each year. This year we happened to launch four: two unisex designs and two female designs. This was my first year really designing for a shooter jersey. I looked at a LOT of motocross jersey designs for inspiration. Overall I really appreciate their minimal designs so the focus can be on sponsor logos while still being cool. Thor, FXR and O'Neal all use blocks of color in a very interesting way.

The design that was liked and ultimately put into production was a retro-focused design. It features a large, bold, modern typeface on the front. I added a bunch of sharp angles on the front and back balancing a dark blue and light gray. The light gray has a subtle honeycomb texture applied. Finally, the LAS logo is featured on the one sleeve to pull it all together.

Initially I wanted the stripes to be simply different shades of blue. After reviewing with Management they asked to include a red stripe as well to pull in more target colors. Below is a final mockup of the jersey.

Below are all of the designs on display at the Lancaster Archery Express that travels to the various archery shoots.

Get your jersey here! 

Chester County APA Monday North Champions

On Monday our 8 ball team played the final match of the Spring 2021 session in Chester County's APA Monday North league. The previous week we had qualified for regionals with a win. This week we were playing for trophies and the number one spot this session. 

Typically we play 5 matches a night with a ton of strategy in who we call and when. We were fired up and managed to win the night with only having to shoot 4 matches. I would have shot the 5th and final match if it came to it, but we were all excited to clinch the victory as soon as possible.

Now we look forward to regionals in both 8 ball and 9 ball come the end of July!

Lancaster Archery Camo Apparel

 Last year I had designed some camo apparel for Lancaster Archery. Many companies apply a camo pattern as a fill to their logo and I thought it'd be perfect for Lancaster Archery. I also wanted to incorporate the American flag on the sleeve. Not only does the flag appeal to those who have served our country, but with 2020 being an Olympic year, I wanted to incorporate some USA pride.

I designed a t-shirt and hoodie simultaneously. I went with a black hoodie and a brown shirt. To keep the cost down on an already 4-color design, I made sure the same camo coloring would look good on both colored garments. Below are the design mocks I sent over to the screen printer.

I worked with the printer to select the right Pantone colors that would work for both garments. Once we got the samples in, our in-house photographers were able to take photos for our website.

Archer Chris Bee was rocking one of the t-shirts at the Lancaster Archery Customer Appreciation Event this month:

Get yours at Lancaster Archery! T-shirt | Hoodie

PA Hunting & Trapping Digest

Each year we run advertisements in the surrounding state hunting & trapping digests. They have a great reach, so the ad ticket price is relatively high. To help offset the cost, we typically look to use co-op advertising funds and co-brand our advertisements. In 2019 we linked up with Black Eagle Arrows to produce the ad below.

In 2020 and 2021, we have advertised alongside Easton. Easton has their own source of hunting lifestyle photographs, which makes it a smooth process to design and get an ad approved. Below are the two most recent advertisements.

This year we are featured on page 47 of the PA Hunting & Trapping Digest distributed by the PA Game Commission. Check it out!

Galaxy Ads in Bow International

 Below is an ad refresh for the Galaxy brand in Bow International's printed magazine. The ad features more copy than we traditionally include on advertisements as well as the composite photo I had done for the Galaxy catalog (view post). 

Below is a half page ad for Galaxy that was also included in Bow International's print publication. This one featured the Olympic risers and also included a composite from the Galaxy catalog.

Lastly, below is another full page ad refresh we had run in the past. This ad focused on including a composite of a recurve riser and pairing it with various limb options.

Inside Archery Advertisements

Inside Archery is a printed and digital magazine that focuses on dealers within the archery industry. We have a great relationship with Inside Archery and run monthly advertisements in addition to content pieces. Our messaging and advertising revolves around wholesale, dealers and the benefits of being a dealer with Lancaster Archery Supply. Below are three examples of various advertisements we have run around this direction.

Checkout the digital edition of Inside Archery here to see our latest ad and content.

LAS Bowhunter's Extravaganza

Each year the Lancaster Archery showroom hosts the Bowhunter's Extravaganza in August. It's one of the biggest sales for LAS and allows archers to get geared up for the hunting season. In Marketing, we design, print, cut, finish all of the sales signage needed for the pro shop. Additionally, we run several print advertisements in local publications. We also design and send out a mailer to LAS customers within a specific radius. 

The Extravaganza mailer is 12 page mailer printed in color, front and back that we get printed locally. We have a tall list of products to include in the mailer to get archers excited. When designing, it can be a good challenge to make all of the products fit within the 12 pages in an organized manner. Below is the design I came up with for last year's event.

Casey K's Archery Scorebook

Casey Kaufhold had an idea to create a target archery scorebook to track her arrows for indoor and outdoor shoots. I started designing based off of a printed example that had a lot of the content Casey wanted to include in her version. After a few rounds of proofing, we added some additional fields for note taking that her and her coaches thought would be relevant information to document. From there I used a local printer to get an estimate.

I wanted these booklets to be durable for Casey and other archers as they travel a lot. For outdoor events, weather and other elements occur, so I considered this as well when choosing cover paper. We also wanted to go with a wired spiral for durability and also being able to have the booklet lay flat and be compact for use and travel.

I kept the inside of the design black and white to keep the cost down for printing. On the outside, Casey wanted blue for indoor and green for outdoor. I designed a graphic-forward cover in Illustrator that included splatters, targets, arrows and a silhouette of Casey herself.

The 5" x 8.5" 48-page booklets are available on the Lancaster Archery website.

APA - American Poolplayers Association

Towards the end of 2019 I was convinced by a bunch of friends to join their pool league team on Wednesday nights. I was a total beginner, trying to learn all of the basics and fundamentals to play 9 ball. It was a bit of a rough beginning filled with a ton of nerves and matches lost. I worked myself down to a skill level (SL) 1, but through a lot of coaching and studying and practicing I managed to get my first win. We had gotten an 8 ft. Gold Crown pool table for our basement and I continued to practice and try pool drills, all while working on my stroke. I won and loss a few more times and then in 2020 covid shut down the world including league. What a time to have a pool table in your basement.

The endless "stay at home" weekends turned into pool practicing weekends, which truly turned my game around. We were having a lot of fun while I was racking up hours on the table. When league started back up for a few months, I felt like a different player at league. Before the shutdown I had a losing record with 5 wins, 10 losses. After shutdown, I had 6 wins and only 1 loss and I had moved up to a SL2. From there we had another shut down for about three months. When we restarted again I landed at the top of the MVP boards for 9 ball with a final record of 8/9 for the Fall 2020 session. Our team placed in 1st and scored a ticket to regionals.

Come the Spring 2021 session, I was convinced again to join an 8 ball team on Mondays. I came in as a SL2 and after a win my first match I got bumped up to a SL3. While still being a SL2 in 9 ball, I ended the session with a 5/8 winning record. Our 9 ball team qualified for playoffs and we get to see how that shakes out yet this week and next. While already being qualified for regionals in 9 ball, our focus was primarily on 8 ball. Playing a different game, I ended my first session with a 3/8 record but the team made it to playoffs. We had our first playoff match last night and won huge, punching our ticket to regionals with the 8 ball team now as well!

Regionals will be held the end of July, so the whole team is looking forward to those matches and trying to get as much table time as possible until then. The winner of both 8 ball and 9 ball will each get tickets to Vegas to play in the World Championships; the ultimate goal.

Below are my top patches I have earned over the past couple years. Our team had a clean sweep in 8 ball the other week. Earlier this session I got a 9 on the snap and then a Rackless match in 8 ball. My proudest match to date is a 20-0 win in 9 ball that I had this session. I look forward to collecting more patches, practicing and improving my skill and most of all shooting with our teams. It has been a way more rewarding experience than I ever could have imagined, and I can't wait to play with both of our teams at regionals in a month!

Lancaster Archery Belt Buckle

One of the more unique projects I have done at Lancaster Archery is design a branded belt buckle. I had worked with Montana Silversmiths to create a custom, archery-specific buckle design with the Lancaster Archery logo in the center. I had pulled a lot of inspiration and landed on a classic design overall with some small archery components including targets, broadheads and arrows.

Check it out on the Lancaster Archery website here.

Story Crane

Last year I had done a freelance logo project for a friend for the brand Story Crane: a video production brand. Before I received the project, other logo design attempts were made, but weren't exactly what the client was looking for. So by the time I got the project, the client had many notes and sketches to better showcase his brand. The fact that the client put so much thought into the concept of the Story Crane brand, really made this an appealing freelance project. Not only did he provide a thorough description of how he came up with the name, but he also sent a Pinterest board with logos and graphics he liked, but also explained what he liked about the graphics. He had some loose sketches, and the one really resonated and got the wheels turning. Here is a glimpse of the Pinterest board with inspiration

I took to pencil and paper initially to sketch out a concept that incorporated a book (for story) and the letters S & C. I started stacking the S and C in a very simplistic and geometric way. I went into Illustrator to see if the sketched concept would make sense in vector form. And sure enough, I could see it coming together as I had initially envisioned. 

Below is the initial mark I created for Story Crane. I worked initially in grayscale to separate the interwoven letterforms. I also made it one color to see if it would still translate. Then I experimented with how to use two different shades to create different looks. Overall this design incorporated the pages of the book, opened and stacked, the S and C letter forms, and then also the structure of a building to reference construction cranes.

The bottom left seemed to translate the best to me, to separate the S and the C letterforms. However, the one on the right really spoke to me as a skyscraper structure. The coloration represented shadows on the building, giving the mark a lot of dimension.

From this point I threw around some other ideas in Illustrator, but every now and then you hit the nail on the head on the first attempt. I don't believe the other sketches came anywhere close, but I still sent them off to the client to see what he thought. Fortunately, him and I were on the same page.

From there I cleaned up the lines, experimented with subtle rounded corners and created some color options. For the color I wanted to stick with a monochromatic design to continue with the building shadows concept. I had also added a simple, clean typeface and stacked Story Crane underneath the mark. I had sent over the below options.

The client liked all of the versions and could see using each one in different applications. So quite honestly, this was an insanely painless freelance project! I really enjoyed being able to create something that was so well-received, following the client being initially disappointed in the designs he had received from others in the past.

Check out Story Crane: www.storycrane.com