Exclusive: Interview with Liverpool’s 2012/13 Home Kit Designer

Liverpool FC kicks off its 2012/13 pre-season this weekend with friendlies in Canada and the USA against Toronto FC, AS Roma and Tottenham Hotspur. The matches will give soccer fans a first look at the Liverpool Warrior 2012/13 home kit (now available at World Soccer Shop, soccer.com and Kitbag) in action.

For the Michigan-based firm’s first and highly visible foray into the world’s most popular sport Warrior, enlisted their Head of Product Marketing, Kenny McCallum, to lead the design of The Reds new uniform. We recently had a chance to pose a few questions to Kenny about creating the latest incarnation of one of the most storied shirts in world football history.

– What was the most important consideration(s) in designing Warrior’s first Liverpool kit?
Quite simply, producing a kit that works from a performance point of view for the players and one that the fans are proud to wear

– What elements for the new home kit would you say are most representative of Liverpool’s rich and highly-decorated footballing history?
The two main themes of the kit are what we call ‘modern’ and ‘tradition’. It’s a marriage of modernity, as far as performance is concerned, paying homage to the indelible tradition around Liverpool Football Club.

When we looked into these two themes, one of the key points was to go for a pure red aesthetic to recognise the ‘64-’65 Shankly era, where he introduced the all-red kit that signified a winning mentality; a red for power, red for danger and attitude.

The overall aesthetic then gave us the opportunity to deliver impact with a focus on the crest. Liverpool’s crest has changed approximately eight times since around about the fifties and, as we looked at it, there was one crest that stood out the most; the Liverbird in amber yellow.

It was only ever used once, between 1976 and 1985 and over that period of time the club won seven of their 18 league titles, four out of their five European Cups and a European Super Cup. As a result the crest is instantly synonymous with winning and is recognised by the fans as representing a period of success, we felt it was a great way to make impact particularly in a new relationship.

– Why was it important to have the Liver Bird emblem fully embroidered on the shirt?
Once we made the decision with the club to use the Liver Bird emblem the next challenge was the execution of it. We’ve had feedback that some fans view the plastic heat executions negatively and we wanted to produce the crest with the full impact it had when it was originally used, hence the embroidery.

– Will there be any differences between the replica and the authentic or player issue versions of the kit? If so, what will they be?
There is no difference whatsoever; we wanted to create a truly authentic replica product for fans.

Kenny McCallum is the Head of Product Marketing at Warrior Sports, kit suppliers to Liverpool FC. For more information visit www.warriorfootball.com.

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