Bringing some global flavour to a project, British creative agency Patterns of Play have partnered with Japanese artist Takeru Amano to produce a special kit for Amasokolara, a local football team from Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Football really is the global game, and if ever a project encapsulated its enormous reach on a small scale, it would be this. So you have Patterns of Play, a creative agency that specialises in working with brands and artists all around the world, helping people understand the beautiful game in beautiful new ways. Then you have Amasokolara FC, a grassroots football team from Alexandra that plays SAB league (4th tier league), and they seek to develop footballers and take them out the streets. Add in a bit of Takeru Amano, a Japanese artist with a signature graffiti style and what you get is a proper bespoke kit, created across all corners.
The kit itself is the first from the TheBallsProject, and it takes inspiration from Amano’s famous graffiti styled artwork, with a reimagined interpretation of the team crest and the Pattern Of Play logo, created and sprayed by Takeru in his Tokyo studio. He also sprayed the set of individual squad numbers, which will feature on the back of the shirts for the jersey.
The project was also assisted by South African football culture collective, Kasi Flavour 10, while the presentation of the kit to Amasokolara was shot by photographer Thapelo Masebe.
Available for purchase, each shirt comes with hand sprayed number 7 on the reverse, a number widely considered lucky in Japanese culture. Each shirt comes with a certificate of authenticity.
The Amosakalara FC shirt is sadly already sold out at patternsofplay.com, but keep your fingers crossed for a restock...
A chunk of the profits from shirt sales are put back towards supporting the team.
