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Brief:
Designing England's Rugby World Cup 2015 shirt
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Role:
Concept / Research Designer
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Target market:
England rugby team and rugby supporters.
CONTEXT:
The Rugby World Cup was hosted by England from 18th of September to 31st of October 2015. Canterbury has been selected to deliver the official gear for the national rugby team.
Starting this project with over hundred years of Rugby shirt manufacturing technical knowledge, we decided with the Design team to keep this strong heritage and push the innovation to a side they have not fully explored yet.
CANTERBURY: Rugby pioneer since 1904.
At the dawn of the 20th century Canterbury began making hard-wearing products that soon became the first choice of the world's growing rugby playing community.
Canterbury would provide kit for fans, clubs and Rugby World Cup champions. It would develop revolutionary training gear and post-match items that would become fashion favourites.
But for all the technology, the heart of Canterbury is in its deep sporting roots and its incomparably rich heritage.
PROCESS:
We started by diving deep in the Brand product archives to find what could still be relevant today on both technical and aesthetic levels.
- Interviewing players on existing shirts and rugby gears to see how we could further improve the products and establish a more accurate user journey.
- Exploring different fields on focus groups around rugby and high sports practice with a good representative of the staff surrounding the players allow us to get into applied behavioural sciences.
- Prototyping and testing the new generated ideas directly on team and customers to then develop them to test in “real world” situations prototypes and refine, when necessary, based on feedback.
CHALLENGES:
- The World Cup rules in terms of gear and equipments is really precise and no padding protection, no exoskeleton are allowed.
- To respect the brand and country heritage, the shirt has to be 100% white.
- The technical specifications of the shirt were already of top quality in terms of material and manufacturing process.
- The rose Logo must be reintroduced as a notional emblem.
- England being the tournament hosts, one of the favourites and also the biggest rugby nation in the world, all looks would be focused on the national team and what they wear. This shirt must be designed clean and classic but forward thinking and innovative to be sure to please the players and the crowds.
OPPORTUNITIES:
1 - The focus was put on the psychological aspect of high performance sport. Research helped uncover the importance in the animal kingdom of posture before a fight, in order to intimidate an opponent. Body positions that make animals look larger and more physically fit help them gain the psychological upper hand by proclaiming their strength.
Amy Cuddy:
Social psychologist and Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, uses experimental methods to investigate how people judge and influence each other and themselves. Her research suggests that judgments along two critical trait dimensions – warmth/trustworthiness and competence/power – shape social interactions, determining such outcomes as who gets hired and who doesn’t, when we are more or less likely to take risks, why we admire, envy, or disparage certain people, elect politicians, or even target minority groups for genocide.
Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions — and even our own body chemistry — simply by changing body positions.
- Powerful Body Language can increase your actual power and defeat your rival.
Across the animal kingdom, this is called: Agonistic. It implies any social behaviour related to fighting. The term has broader meaning that aggressive behaviour because it includes threats, displays, retreats, placation, and conciliation.
Some forms of agonistic behaviours are between contestants who are competing for access to the same resources, such as food or mates.
Other times, it involves tests of strength or threat display that make animals look large and more physically fit, a display that may allow it to gain the resource before an actual battle takes place. Although agonistic behaviour varies among species, agonistic interaction consists of three kinds of behaviours: threat, aggression, and submission.
While any one of these divisions of behaviours may be seen alone in an interaction between two animals, they normally occur in sequence from start to end. Depending on the availability and importance of a resource, behaviours can range from a fight to the death or a much safer ritualistic behaviour, though ritualistic or display behaviours are the most common form of agonistic behaviours.
In the Rugby world, the Haka is the perfect illustration that combine powerful body language and Agonistic behaviour can give you a psychological advantage on your opponent.
The haka is a ceremonial Māori war dance or challenge. Haka are usually performed in a group and represent a display of a tribe's pride, strength and unity. Actions include the stomping of the foot, the protrusion of the tongue and rhythmic body slapping to accompany a loud chant.
- CONCEPT -
Look into ways to make shoulders appear wider, the waist slimmer, the general body bigger in order to influence the players mindset before entering the field.
2 - Work on monochromatique white with textures and visual effects to create the illusion of a more defined, sculpted physique: illusion lines embossed in the mesh on the sides of the shirt to make waist appear slimmer, contoured ball-deadening grip on the chest for improved ball carrying and further focus on the chest .
For this project I studied more specifically some designer works such as: Gareth Pugh, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Walter Van Beirendonck, Thom Browne, and more to understand how they play with graphic lines, cuts, optical fabrics, shapes and proportions to modify the body or give the illusion of a modified body shape.
I then focused my research on fabric texturing as the must me fully white. The idea is to cast shadows on the players body using only white fabric.
3 - Using body mapping we could define:
an adaptive fabrication combining materials for a dynamic heat management.
a new cut that allow the shirt to stretch more organically.
some specific areas for a better grip on the field.
an optimal placement for the wearable technology.
4 - 3D model & 3d print prototyping
With the help of the Senior 3D Design and Tooling Developper at Pentlands Brands-, we used the same concept of graphic lines and optical illusions to create a fresh version of the traditional English rose.
Working on variants 3d models and manufacturing technics, we ended up with a new 3D injected moulded red rose for the jersey.
5 - Time now to sum-up everything and come up with the new design .
OUTCOMES:
- On the pitch, players will benefit from a range of innovations, including reduced fabrication weight, minimising moisture absorption for Canterbury’s most lightweight kit ever.
- The Rose has been 3D injection moulded, developed through rapid prototyping technology to standout in a way that merits the significance of the rose for players and fans alike.
- The 360° loop bound neckline has evolved to withstand every physicality of the game, providing resistance to challenges with enhanced elasticity and shape retention, resulting in Canterbury’s toughest collar to date.
- The shirt also features contoured ‘ball deadening’ grip placement to complement the players’ physique.
- The super-enhanced fit technology developed through position-specific 3D body-mapping supports the varied physiques of the modern rugby player.
- The shirt also includes adaptive fabrication; with dynamic heat management properties ensuring a constant temperature is maintained in any climate to drive the ultimate performance.
Speaking about the new shirt at the Twickenham Stadium launch, England Head Coach Stuart Lancaster said:
“Every player in the squad takes enormous pride in pulling on the England shirt. As a group, we talk about the unbreakable bond of the rose between former, current and future players and for this symbol to be emphasised in 3D form is a key feature. We are grateful for the support of the fans and in the year of a home World Cup the power of the nation behind us can be the difference. It is great that it was the supporters who launched the shirt and that they have been central to the day.”
Canterbury CEO, Chris Stephenson, said:
“We’re proud to have developed a shirt that benefits both the players who are entering the biggest rugby tournament of their lives and the fans across the country that will be following every moment of the action. Bringing both players and fans together at Twickenham was the perfect way to reward their shared commitment to the rose and we now look forward to what will be a fantastic Rugby World Cup”.
