How a kit design is born: from concept to submission

1. Reading the concept, turning it into a brief

A weekly concept is one sentence: “80s away shirt”, “port city club”, “single-colour discipline”. That sentence isn’t a brief — it’s a constraint. The first job is to reduce it to three workable questions: which era, which club identity, which prohibition.

Writing the constraint down helps. A three-line note — “no sponsor logo, two colours, V collar” — keeps the design from falling apart mid-week. The concept description on the challenge page is where that note starts.

2. Reference, not replication

Keep two separate folders while collecting reference: “era” (fabric texture, collar type, logo placement of those years) and “identity” (the colour logic in the crest, the city’s texture, the supporter culture).

A one-to-one redraw of an existing shirt is not a concept kit, and it doesn’t land in voting either. The dividing question: can someone read a story from this design without knowing which club it belongs to?

3. Palette first, pattern second

Experienced entries share an order: two base colours and one accent get locked first, the pattern comes after. Work it the other way round and the pattern looks good while the colours eat each other.

The accent should not exceed about ten percent of the surface — collar piping, cuff, number outline. In kit design that ratio isn’t an aesthetic preference but a legibility rule: from a distance a shirt is recognised by two colours.

4. Template and the detail pass

Template choice (flat vector, 3D mockup, fabric-textured render) gets debated as much as the design itself. Whichever you use, front, back and collar detail must be shown under the same light.

The detail pass comes last: seam allowances, number typeface, sleeve band alignment. Skip it and the design stays at “idea” level — a gap that becomes obvious once entries sit side by side in the gallery.

5. Submission and the note

The description field on the entry form is often left empty, and that’s a loss. A two-sentence statement of intent — “the yellow of the harbour cranes on the cuff, midnight blue on the body” — changes how a voter reads the design.

Once submitted, the design goes to the challenge gallery and waits there until the voting stage opens. Entry is one-shot, so a final checklist before upload (resolution, crop, description) earns its keep.

Takeaways

• Reduce the concept to a three-line constraint note; that’s what prevents a mid-week collapse.
• Lock the palette before the pattern; the accent stays under ten percent of the surface.
• Show front, back and collar under the same light — the detail pass comes last.
• Don’t leave the description empty: a statement of intent changes how voters read the design.