Welcome to Flatball Creative. You are now part of a fledgling group of utmost importance to the growth of the world’s fastest growing sport. We’ve been trickling in for the past few years now, all coming from different places and backgrounds, and I’m really glad you’re here. It’s officially time to get started.
My name is Baylor Watts. I am a 19 year old graphic designer from DeLand, Florida (Between Orlando and Daytona Beach). I grew up playing and watching baseball, which I still consider to be the reason I love design, specifically logos and sports uniforms. I started playing ultimate in high school, helped start a team (not a good one, but still) at my high school, and now I play in college at the University of North Florida.
I’ll say more about myself another time, and I look forward to hearing about you all as time goes on, but for now I want to take a minute and explain the purpose of this…blog, I suppose? Yeah, we’ll just call it a blog. Anyway, my goals for FC are as follows.
Form and grow a community of creative thinkers in the sport of ultimate
I do occasional freelance design for DiscStore.com, and talk often with DiscStore’s art director, Evan Hoffpauir. Evan and I had a conversation a few months ago when I started to bounce around the idea of starting the creative. He said he actually didn’t know most of DiscStore’s freelancers, and didn’t know what they did occupationally or their backgrounds in the sport. He encouraged me to reach out on reddit and call out for artists and make some connections (thanks, Evan). I did that and made a few friends, and I hope you guys are reading this, because this place is for us. I’m psyched to get to know you all and start working with you all more regularly and intentionally.
Cover any uniform, marketing, or art-related ultimate news
Coming from baseball, where the goal of most logos, uniforms, etc. is to last like two hundred years, I tend to support the idea that a uniform should represent a given team over at least a few years. But, as it stands, at least in the AUDL, lots of teams still change uniform sets pretty much every year. So I’ve got some ideas for season previews and otherwise consistent coverage of uniform-related or otherwise notable aesthetic news on the professional, world, club, and college stages.
Share and exchange ideas, musings, work, and discussion
For the past year or so I’ve been keeping track of topics I wanted to talk about on here, mostly relating to sports design and marketing. I’ve been hard at work getting these in writing, and will start sharing them soon. We will also be open to guest submissions from anyone who wants to share their own thoughts and experiences, not only in ultimate but in sports as a whole, because if you watch attentively, other sports are currently providing such great examples of adapting the excitement of sports to digital and aesthetic platforms. So there is a lot to learn and a lot to do.
Those are some early goals for content and structure. There’s so much more I want to do down the road, but we’ve got to start somewhere. So if you’re interested, stick around. Watch this space. I am truly so excited to have you. If you think you have something to offer Flatball Creative, or any thoughts on the outline above, do not hesitate to reach out and offer. Your input and skill sets are appreciated.
Alrighty, that’s all I’ve got. The line is called, the hands are up, so let’s get this thing rollin’.