Do you draw any inspiration from rally cars as well? How do you feel about sports like soccer in England and NASCAR, where the prominent design on the jerseys or the car/driver are logos of brands?
Soccer is a big source of inspiration. It is a global game. Having an identity that reaches people globally is powerful and something that I try to understand. Race cars like rally and F1 are big sources of inspiration as well. I think collectively what’s happening in other sports that hasn’t happened yet in America is the visibility of corporate sponsorship on jerseys and vehicles (except for NASCAR). I think it’s only a matter of time until we see this happen. The arenas and stadiums are filling up more and more, just look at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. The owner is a former advertising executive and he has ensured that everywhere your eye can see in that stadium has advertisements placed.
Can you explain some of the symbolism on some of the pieces? Like the the arrows on the front of “Strikes” and the back of “Success.”
The Strikes graphic was a way to play with the traditional layout of sports jerseys. I used the bolts to resemble the numbers that are found on football jerseys. For the Success graphic the idea was to draw inspiration from WWII bomber planes: Upon completing a successful bombing run a bomb or another symbol was painted on the side to mark the planes successful return. We thought it would be cool to do the carry this over to a tee.
There are a lot of groups or “teams” in Hip-Hop like the A$AP Mob, Two-9, Odd Future, Wu-Tang Clan, Hieroglyphics, etc. Is there any “team” in Hip-Hop, dead or alive, that you’d like to design a piece for?
I would of liked to have worked with Gangstarr. They were important to me as I grew up. Daily Operation, Hard To Earn, and Moment Of Truth were hugely inspirational for me and helped to shape my outlook on the world.
Guru and Premier were always rugged but fly, so working with that would have been interesting.
What’s next for Baumer?
We consider ourselves to be a global brand rooted in America. We want our audience to grow with us as we reach new markets and new retailers. Growing the line into new categories and some collaborative projects are on the horizon for us.
Bryan Hahn (@notupstate)
