Serpentijn bike kit

Problem: Design a new kit for Serpentijn’s 2026 bike team by creating and incorporating a toile pattern that incorporates Serpentijn’s brand values of racing, friendship, and charity. Other notes were Serpentijn’s passion to grow, stand out and have notoriety, and be able to reveal things from within the kit. The final concept had to incorporate Serpentijn’s ‘celeste green’ and was to be swappable with other pieces of kits from prior years. The logos of the brand and manufacturer had to follow the product guidelines and each of the sponsors on the jersey had to be visible without destroying the artfulness of the design.

Solution: I decided to make my toile design out of forms that represent community, exploration, Serpentijn’s connection to Milwaukee, and incorporate snake imagery that was present on prior designs. Because the mission of Serpentijn is “Making a positive impact on kids through art and athletics”, I ultimately decided to make these forms out of Play-Doh to represent the idea of a child-like imagination. Ichose to break away a small portion of the pattern in the chest for increased readability without creating abrupt breaks within the elements of the pattern. I also wanted to emphasize the thicker strips of fabric with Serpentijn’s signature ‘Celeste Green’ for increased brand recognition and a point of contrast. I chose to put the logos of the sponsors in a straight line down the sleeves of the jersey to avoid interference with the design while maintaining visibility. Finally I added ‘Racing, Friendship, Charity.’ to the inside of the collar as another way to represent the team’s values in a subtle way. All of our concepts were judged by the rest of the Serpentijn team and ultimately my concept was not picked; however, we were all assured that all of our concepts were great and it was hard to decide between the ten different directions.