This project came together shortly after some friends of mine took home gold at the 2017 Open National Indoor Skydiving Championships in Virginia Beach. They won dressed in scuba diving liners, coming home they came to me and wanted to make their team look more professional. They wanted elements that combined life, energy, yoga and earth. After some research and tons of feedback and iterations we landed on a final piece the team loved. They went on to win many more championships, but also gained a look that became part of their team trademark.
Original wet suit liners worn for most of the team with the exception of Cole in red.
The project began with a team logo. Something that would live on the suit, but also on stickers, patches, and still keep the theme of flying and energy of life. Initially I went with a simple tree of life and had the initials of the team on either side. After some tweaks, the team and I crafted the final tree with a man representing a flyer wearing a helmet, and the team name in the branches.
The final logo needed color so earth tones were used with simple gradients, to keep it zen.
Once the logo was in place I went to work on the suit. Colors took some fine tuning before we settled on the final look of the suit. The team wanted earthy colors, but the kind of orange and green that would compliment the helmets from their sponsor. I included the team logo, added chakras to the back of the suit, and added stripes to the left arm. The stripes on the left arm represent the team members, it highlights a color they wore during their first national gold medal as a team.
The suit manufacturer Boogieman sent me templates for their Marvel suit to design on. They helped craft and shape the final pieces insuring that everything would come out as planned.
The suits came out colorful and vibrant and helped the team stand out against many other teams during competitions.
The video below was part of a series created for iFLY in the lead up to the World Championship in Montreal France, filmed and edited by a friend Michael Cunningham