Three Designs, Three Stories | Part 1: The Academy Ultimate

Taiga is excited to release the first of a three part series on the team history and design process of three valued customers. We love the fact that every team is unique and has their own story. The creation of the team, how they got to where they are and how there uniforms accent their team brand. We want to help share that story. 

The Academy Ultimate

Special thanks to the leadership, Jon Hallett and Andrew Lefler!!

In the Waterloo-Kitchener area of Ontario holds two teams who have one goal in mind: Develop highly competitive ultimate players in the Waterloo-Kitchener area (and beat the neighbors down south when they have the chance). These two teams, Maverick and Goose, are known under the brand of The Academy Ultimate.

The Academy’s story begins in 2010 simply as Maverick Ultimate with the intentions to not only have a highly competitive team, but to improve each and every player on the team. Shortly after the team started they expanded to have a B team, Goose, and decided to merge the two teams under one brand.

Fellow player and designer Tristan Rea had to come up with this design with these thoughts in mind:

• They wanted to make it look appealing to the eye and have a professional look due to the competitiveness of the team
• They wanted to incorporate both identities into the logo
• And they wanted to make the colors simple but bold to give it a more serious look

Overall the logo itself is beautiful because it hit everything that the team was going for. The two Bulls heads represent the A team, Maverick, and the wings represent the B team, Goose, as well as having a crest to bring the two together to show a unity of the two teams as one large family.

When it comes to the whole jersey set overall, The Academy had the challenge of making a unified look of both teams while giving the two an identity all their own. That being said, I believe that Tristan did a good job of that.

The Idea of keeping the same design among both teams while adding the Gray adds a bit of life to both jerseys, yet gives the teams a uniformity and relation to each other. As for the individuality of each team, I’d say that adding the team names to the light jerseys and the bull and goose logo to the dark jersey worked out perfectly for while not taking too much away from the main crest.

Overall the identity and story of The Academy is one that, in my opinion, most teams strive for. They have a good feeder system going, talent, and a unity that would make any team envious. Good luck to Maverick and Goose and I wish you luck at CUC and getting to the USAU fall series.

-Steve out.