COLUMBUS CREW 25 AWAY
Service | Apparel Design, Consultancy
Overall Concept: Goosebumps™
Major League Soccer has increasingly championed story driven, visually compelling collaboration away kits, not just as kit designs, but as platforms to showcase creativity, culture, and deeper fan engagement. We saw this as an opportunity not only to join the movement, but to try and elevate it. With the Goosebumps™ away kit, the goal was to push that narrative even further than the league has in the past. The aim was to create a kit that cut through the noise with visual and thematic impact, while also building a storyline strong enough to evolve and stay relevant across an entire season.
Kit Storytelling
It was important to push beyond simply collaborating with Columbus native R.L. Stine on a kit design, the goal was to weave the world of Goosebumps™ into the fabric of the sport itself. The result is a kit that tells the story of an athlete tapping into the beast inside of them, a hidden, powerful side that breaks out in the heat of competition.
Key storytelling elements:
Create design that can go beyond Goosebumps™. One that allows long term storytelling throughout the season. The kit is just the beginning. From launch to match day activations and community engagement, the narrative is able to extend across touch points to build an evolving storyline throughout the season.
The narrative had to be grounded in sport and soccer. Every creative decision was tied back to the game.
Make sure there is a unique element that makes it stand out from other MLS kits launched at the same time. The kit needed an innovation or design feature to give the kit a story-driven edge that pushed boundaries and delivered something truly unexpected.
Ensure Columbus and its people are championed. The collaboration celebrates one of the city’s most famous creative exports, R.L. Stine, whilst building on the Crew’s tradition of supporter-driven storytelling buy acknowledging one of the fan’s best known TIFOs.
Kit Graphic
To bring the concept to life, we set out to design a placed graphic that would visually represent the idea of an athlete’s inner being breaking through the surface, not just metaphorically, but physically through the jersey itself. The graphic features a cracked grey and black texture throughout the front and sleeves. Emerging through these cracks is a vibrant, neon slime colour, a direct nod to the Goosebumps logo™.
With such a bold and contrasted design that uses the same colour on the graphic as that used on the logos, careful attention had to be given to composition and spacing. It was essential to leave clean, breathable space around key elements like the club crest, sponsor, and Adidas logo so that they could remain uncluttered when they move across all jersey sizes, from youth to adult.
The final design was capped off with the first use of UV-activated ink in Major League Soccer history. The slime coloured elements remain bright under ultraviolet light, adding a new layer of interactivity and surprise that elevated the kit storytelling to a new level. This technological addition not only deepened the fan experience but also positioned the kit as a retail stand out. In fact, it marked a major milestone for the club: the Goosebumps™ kit became the first Columbus Crew jersey to be launched into international retail markets.
Photo & Video Credits: Columbus Crew
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