If design can represent a people, a culture or a celebration, what does that look like? And what does it look like for the Nashville Predators?
To answer those questions, and to give Smashville's team a custom look ahead of Wednesday’s Black History Month Celebration, the Predators sought the help of Kaleena Sales, chair of Tennessee State University’s department of art and design and associate professor of graphic design.
A passionate artist and storyteller, Sales jumped at the opportunity to weave history and modern cultural undertones together on a challenging new canvas.
“It was honestly very personally rewarding,” Sales said. “As a design professor and a design researcher, I'm really interested in expanding narratives and honoring diverse perspectives within design. And the majority of my work really seeks to expand our understanding of what design means to different cultural groups.”
Assisting Sales in her design was Predators Graphic Designer Tayshaun Hassell, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a proud Black artist.
For Hassell, working with Sales and exploring themes of Black culture and celebration was a truly fulfilling experience.
“Just to have a hand in it was an amazing thing,” Hassell said. “To be able to do something way bigger than you and tell a cool story along the way, while at the same time giving people a chance to learn and investigate what this design is, it serves as an opportunity to get to know something a little more than you probably usually did.”
The design started in the research phase, with the duo eventually striking gold after coming across the NBA’s ‘City Edition’ uniforms.
“We were really inspired by the way that those designs really accurately reflected the cities that they were designed for, and that was really what sparked a lot of the original ideas,” Sales said. “How do we come up with something that feels like it does not generically celebrate Black History Month, but really honors the people and the culture in an authentic way?"
To capture the vibrancy of contemporary Black culture, the designers wove together a jazz-inspired, geometric tapestry of improvisational shapes, colors and textures.
“Those dynamic shapes and lines have an energy and it makes the design feel alive in the same way that jazz music is improvisational and fluid and fun,” Sales said. “And that part was really important, because when I think of my own culture, when I think of the people that I know, and the community I'm from, there's just a lot of vibrancy and energy there. And I wanted that to be reflected in the design.”
Sales and Hassell also pulled from history, landing on four West African Adinkra symbols representing universal themes of sanctity, wisdom, love and harmony.
“What I love about those particular symbols is that they represent universal principles,” Sales said. “No matter what community you're from, these principles connect us and connect our humanity.”
Another fascinating design element can be found in the jersey’s numbering and lettering, which uses the ‘Martin’ typeface, a font closely resembling the text on nonviolent protest signs from the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968.
The finished jersey, which Smashville will get to see in person on Wednesday, combines all three elements into a design emblematic of all the core tenets of Black History Month.
“I think if you really sit down and you take the time to investigate what all this stuff means, it'll hit even harder,” Hassell said. “It was definitely a cool piece, and I’m super honored and grateful to work with somebody that has such a creative mind and to be able to produce something like this.”
From now through the second intermission of Wednesday’s game, fans can bid on the custom, player-signed jerseys by texting PREDS to 76278, with proceeds benefiting GUIDER - the Preds initiative promoting diversity and inclusion - and the Preds Foundation’s grant program, which will fund a non-profit working in Nashville’s African-American community.
Additionally, fans who purchase a special Black History Month Celebration package will receive a T-shirt of the design along with their ticket. Click here to secure yours.
The Predators will be celebrating Black History Month in a number of different ways; click here to learn more.
