2022 Evil Geniuses Championship Jersey
Worn by Legends: The Design Behind Evil Geniuses’ 2023 Worlds Jersey
Role
Graphic Designer
Timeframe
2 weeks
Tools
Photoshop
Illustrator
Skills
Merchandise Design
Brand Development
Marketing
Overview
Evil Geniuses (EG) is a globally renowned Esports organization celebrated for its excellence in competitive gaming, holding multiple championship titles across games like Dota 2 and VALORANT. In 2022, EG made history as its League of Legends team qualified for the prestigious League of Legends World Championship (Worlds) for the very first time.
League of Legends is one of the world’s most popular video games, a team-based strategy game where players control unique characters in teamwork-focused battles. Worlds is the game’s pinnacle tournament, often referred to as the “Super Bowl” of Esports. Held annually, it brings together the best teams from around the globe to compete for the title of World Champion. The event is massive, with a global audience of over 6.9 million concurrent viewers during peak matches and a cumulative viewership exceeding 100 million people worldwide each year.
Evil Geniuses’ debut at Worlds marked a historic moment as they represented North America on the global stage.
The design team was challenged to craft a bold championship jersey within two weeks, reflecting the team’s spirit, North American pride, and the gravity of their first Worlds appearance.
Understanding Our Design Challenge
Setting Up For Success
Before ideating, we outlined all the restrictions and non-negotiables from the brief, identified and considered our stakeholders to ensure our design framework aligned with their expectations and needs.
The Challenges
Balancing feedback from numerous stakeholders was challenging—we had to navigate and reconcile competing priorities, from upper management’s emphasis on brand identity to business requirements demanding precise logo placements, and the players’ preferences for a jersey they’d feel proud to wear and represent.
We also needed to consider fan opinion—what design would resonate with the broader audience, particularly North American Esports fans?
For a better understanding of the solution to this question, I examined popular jerseys among Esports fans and analyzed previous EG jersey iterations released in the past.
A Comprehensive Approach to the Initial Design
Ideation Phase
The team created more than 30 unique design iterations, incorporating diverse motifs such as the Seattle skyline, symbolizing Evil Geniuses' headquarters, and a topographical map representing the team’s global journey to compete.
The mockups shown below are renders that were conceptualized and designed by me.
Final Design
After two weeks of iterative design and multiple rounds of feedback, we arrived at the finalized design shown below.
