Coming together over a mutual appreciation of each other’s work, Brookly-based Participation Trophy Studio and Phoenix-based Bones FC have come together for a special collaboration that’s seen each studio design a special edition jersey for the other.
Whilst outwardly, football is all about opposition, being better than your opponent and winning, it can also bring people together. That’s particularly the case amongst the creatives that feed off the game, where a healthy respect for rivals’ work can bring forward new and exciting avenues. Now, two such entities – Participation Trophy Studios and Bones FC – have come together for a display of mutual appreciation, applying their unique design style to a special edition jersey on behalf of the other.
Start-up creative Participation Trophy Studios and football collective Bones FC first become aware of each another through Calcetto Eleganza’s "Recycling A Football Jersey" workshop, hosted during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. Their admiration and respect for one another grew from there, to the point where they decided that the only way to show off their blossoming relationship was with a good old collaboration.
For Bones FC, that meant the ‘Deadlock Edition’ jersey, designed and produced by Participation Trophy Studio. Riding in under the slogan “Always home, even when away” the design sees an even split between pieces of Bones FC’s black home and white away jerseys. So you can get left half white, right half black, or vice versa. The jersey features Bones’ woven crest patch, and each edition comes packaged in a paper bag with a receipt for a chopped cheese “deadlock style” – a New York mainstay – and a chequered flag reading “Always Home” to commemorate the release and the chequer-styled pattern of the top itself.
Then Bones FC played on the very nature of the meaning behind Participation Trophy Studio’s name for the ‘We Tried’ jersey, embracing the notion that “before we all cared about what others thought, and what the end result of doing something would be, we tried new things just for the fun of it.”
The crest design features an upside down trophy which appears to have fallen off its base, while the text above the crest reads, “We Tried”, and comes from inside the trophy in Participation Trophy Studio’s logo. The chest graphic in the sponsor slot is an abbreviation of ‘Participation Trophy Studios’ in Bones FC’s custom font style, offering up an imaginative shortening of the brand name. Each order comes packaged with a miniature participation trophy with a commemorative collab engraving listing Part-y and Bones.
Photography by Sebastian Ramirez
Pick up the Bones FC “Deadlock Edition” jersey here."
Pick up the Participation Trophy Studio “We Tried” jersey here.
