Damian Lillard Consulted On Trail Blazers Statement Jersey Design

A new animated promo from the Portland Trail Blazers’ social team reveals that star guard Damian Lillard was heavily involved in the design process of the team’s new Statement Edition jerseys, first leaked late last month. The design features a red backdrop, the classic pinwheel logo, hashmarks, and a Rip City shoutout.

For the hearing impaired, we’ve transcribed the promo here.

What’s up? My name is Dame. I have a couple pretty good part-time jobs in the sports and music industry. But recently I took a gig as an art director, helping to design the new Statement Edition uniform for my favorite team, the Portland Trail Blazers. I figured, no problem. I got this. I definitely know what looks good and I can put a fit together too.

Anyway, it was pretty cool. I went to the design sessions and we brainstormed, looked at samples, and tossed ideas out. They really wanted to know what I thought the look should be. From the jump, I told designers I want it to feature our pinwheel logo. I mean, seriously, can you believe that this logo, which has been part of the Blazers ever since the team has existed, has never been central design feature on our uniform?

Not only did I think it would look good, but it actually represents something that I’m all about, something the Blazers are all about: teamwork and unity. Not many people know that our logo has some pretty cool meaning. It’s built right into this design. You see, these lines here actually mean something. They symbolize 10 players, five-on-five, coming together in competition and locked in battle at center court. Teamwork.

So that’s where we started; by honoring the teamwork, unity, and history represented by that iconic design. Then we started talking about other design accents. And the designers were testing out a bunch of ideas. They were like, ‘Dame, what would you do here?’ And I was like, ‘let’s try this.’ I figured I’d add some simple touches to get it just right, like locking in my favorite color, red. Luckily that works pretty well here in Portland. I wanted to keep the lines clean and have a super minimalistic but modern feel, but it needed a little extra down the side, so we put pinwheel hashmarks on it to tie it all together. Yeah, that’s the look.

But it still felt like something was missing. And then it hit me; we have a unique bond. It’s not just those of us who wear the uniforms on game night. It runs deep in the community. And that’s why I had to make sure the uniform shouted out to all of Rip City to honor the greatest fans in the world. Yep, that’s the look. Perfection.

So, things will be getting busy for me pretty soon with my other gigs, but this was fun. So, hit me up if you need an art director. I still need a name for my business, though. How about ‘0.9 Design’ or maybe ‘Designed By Dame Time’? Uh, I’m sure it will come to me last-second.

What do you think of Lillard’s design, Blazer’s Edge community?

You can see the official jersey at the Trail Blazers team store.