The vision for this project was centered on designing uniforms that can honor the lands of the Indigenous tribes that University of Montana resides on, with this the school honors these tribes with hosting two N7 games with Nike which come with custom uniforms for both teams.
Apparel
Product Design
Sole Designer
University of Montana’s team uniforms are Griz Maroon and White, during the N7 games that are hosted at Dahlberg Arena both teams wear uniforms that are Turquoise, which symbolizes friendship and fellowship in the Native American cultures.
The proposed design blends the Big Sky Country that Montana is known for with the Salish and Kalispell tribe patterns.
The original idea was to combine both patterns into one uniform, as the Lady Griz and Griz have around the same uniforms currently while either keeping the Griz Maroon or Turquoise as the base. Later on, it was shown that both patterns together didn’t look cohesive as both tribes have a different style.
After deciding the pattern’s needed to be split up, multiple iterations took place till the final flats were chosen. As the Salish pattern was small and detailed, the Kalispell felt out of place with the large white spots so it was decided that the center of the pattern would be a color pulled out of the sunset.
On top of the current University of Montana logos, a vector version of the N7 logo was created as well on top of both patterns needed for the designs.
The current University of Montana colors were used when needed in the designs, but the turquoise on top of white were added. The color palette based off the sunset and sunrise of Montana were created to be used throughout the designs; such as the uniforms.
Gradient swatches can be found in tech packs.
To represent the Big Sky Country that Montana is known for the men’s represent the beautiful sunset and include a starry night sky on the top of the jersey. The men's uniform also represents the Kalispell Tribe, which is shown running down the taping.
To represent the Big Sky Country that Montana is known for the women’s represent the sunrise and include sunrays on the bottom of the shorts. The women's uniform also represents the Salish tribe, which is shown running down the taping.
These items would be seen used by the teams, whether that be their warm-ups, headbands, socks or their court. For these items I wanted to bring back the turquoise as that was the main inspiration for this design and for this I chose to do it with the warm-ups and one of the socks.
For the fan items, I wanted to keep the design pretty simple to not have anything clash with the team items and also allow these items to be worn during any game if wanted. With this the beanies come in colors that support the uniforms, but also come plain. While the shirts have either a color pulled from the sunset or sunrise as representation.
