First Person: John Hartwell
When the Birmingham Barons unveiled their "new look" for the 2008 season, it was Portfolio Center graduate and instructor John Hartwell's design they revealed. This was the first time the AA team had changed their uniform color since the strictly black, white and silver color scheme they began sporting in 1993, and the first time they'd changed the uniform design since Michael Jordan played for the team in '94. John began working on the assignment to re-energize the Barons' brand back in May. This work, along with his determination to get the job in the first place, is a testament to his passion and perseverance, things we always try to foster at PC. Here, we asked him to tell us a little about the project and his process:
I’m quite proud of this Birmingham Barons project. Not only do I think it’s good work, but it represents a small victory for me in professional development. I have had the stated goal of working in the sports market since I graduated from PC back in ‘01. I was fortunate after graduation to land in a small marketing firm that was pursuing Olympic sponsorship work in ‘02. After leaving that gig in ‘06 and weighing all of my options, I decided that, dammit, if I wanted to do the kind of work that I wanted to do, I may as well throw a stake in the ground here in Atlanta and make a run at it.
I had done work for a variety of sports properties and sponsors previous to going on my own, but they were for other firms, working for their clients. More to the point, I really wanted to do team identities, and I didn’t have any “real” teams in my portfolio yet. I knew that if I wanted to build credentials as a sole practitioner, I was going to need a ball club running around a field with my logo on the head and chest. It was, however, a classic Catch-22: how do I get the work without having done it before?
To that end, I knew that the only way I was going to get the kind of sports work I wanted to let the people who buy those kinds of services know that I exist. I’ve always wanted to work with minor league baseball clubs. Nobody was going to come knocking on my door; I was going to have to introduce myself to them. So, I literally wrote out a little phone script and started cold calling all of the general managers in the Southern League, the Class AA league based in Marietta. In the course of making those cold calls, I talked to the Barons. They just so happened to need a logo for the 20th anniversary of their stadium for the ‘07 season. I got that gig and completed it in October of ‘06. It was my first official minor league gig, and I was pleased.
In April of ‘07, I drove out to Birmingham to collect some of the items on which the Barons used the logo. In the course of that visit, the Barons GM mentions that he’d like to talk to me about doing a new logo and uniform designs for the team. Bingo. There it was. The opportunity I was looking for. One small gig leads to another. And of course, one would hope, another and another and another.
My process for the project itself was pretty standard. The GM already had an idea of where he wanted to go with the project, actually, noting the brand identity updates of the University of Alabama and Auburn of the mid-90’s. He wanted to retain the traditional baseball equity of the Barons as a team while giving it a more updated and contemporary feel. I went to Birmingham to do some visual research, including taking pictures of a ton of old uniforms, photographs and programs. The team had a lot of great stuff in closets that the GM was kind enough to pull out and let me rummage through.
After that, it was to the drawing board. Tons and tons of drawings. I must have drawn about a million “B”s, trying to get the right look and feel. It’s the part of the process that I love the most, pushing the pencil around, trying out ideas, seeing what works. If my students think I’m abusing them with all of the sketches I have them do, they haven’t seen me put myself through that very same process. As a sole practitioner, though, it sometimes feels as though you’re working in a vacuum. I’m grateful to PC colleagues such as Holger Kappenstein who were gracious enough to provide feedback during the refinement and production phases.
In the end, the Barons were very, very pleased with their new logo and identity. It was the first major revision of their identity since 1993. They’ve gotten good press out of it, and they’re looking to have a strong year of merchandise sales in ‘08. My hope is that this is the first step in establishing a higher profile in the sports market, one that will lead to more opportunities of the same kind.
