Last month we ran a competition to win a set of custom kit designed and made by ourselves for one adventurous crew. We had plenty of entries but the lucky winners drawn out of the casquette were the Race Around Devon group headed by Jason Wright.

Jason explained to us the plan for their ride:

"Sometime at the end of June this year (Weather & COVID pending) Myself Simon & Darran will be attempting to ride around Devon County outline. We will be tracing as close as possible to the Devon boarder cycling in a anti clockwise route starting and finishing on Exmouth Seafront. Having mapped the whole route and recced the first third of it we know it’s going to be a tough cookie to crack, currently at 440 miles total distance & 46,000ft of climbing in total and we aim to go none stop to complete it in under 48hrs.

We have chosen a Devon charity as it’s a Devon challenge and after looking at who needs our help we all agreed that The Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital’s Starfish Appeal was the one to help. The Starfish Appeal is trying to raise £450,000 in order to redecorate the children’s ward for in & out patients in a less sterile more engaging and fun way specifically aimed at children."

Onto the design of the kit and as we always do for every project we asked Jason if he had any thoughts about what they wanted:

"So we kind of thought the colours for any design should replicate the Devon Flag, Green, Black & White and somewhere on the jersey there should be a Devon Flag we like the idea of one of the jersey sleeves (Like a pro rider has to represent their country). I have already received Vector files from the RD&E Charity for their Charity logo and the Starfish appeal logo these are both attached to this e-mail, It would be nice if these logos were placed on the left chest and the opposite arm sleeve to the Devon Flag so maximising media coverage for the appeal in any potential TV and social media posts. We would also like the words “Race Around Devon” placed either on the front or across the back of the Jersey with the RD&E Charity Logo central below the collar and the starfish Logo on the central rear pocket.

"Can you tell we are excited and given this some thought LOL, so let me know what you think and if this kind of thing is possible? Also if you have any creative ideas yourself having most likely designed countless tops with a similar objective." 

 From this information we could see three clear routes to work up with a couple of colour options for each. The ideas were explained as follows:

Option 1 > Heritage: Inspired by the Devon flag

Option 2 > Race (not shown): For this one I wanted to express the race, the speed and the heartbeat, so it's a mix of these notions - a time trial against disease.

Option 3 > Mission: They go on a mission to raise money for Charity, they help people to fight disease - I thought a camo could work as a visual metaphor for the mission.

The idea for providing several options is we aim to get clear preferences of likes and dislikes so that we can get to a final design and thankfully Jason's feedback was very clear:

"Absolutely outstanding we love em, love em all can we have one of each lol. Really impressed and love the design interpretation behind each style, we have looked at them all and chatted over the points of each design. Myself & Simon loved the Mission interpretation of the camouflage style but felt the Logos were lost in the jersey.

But we can say that we were unanimous on 1 design, it was classic, Simple and showed every element of what we are doing, why & for who. It’s crisp, classic and simple it’s also practical with the mid section and shorts being black. This will be more flattering for those who enjoy a beer or two as well as looking sharp longer on some of the muddy Devon lanes for us."

We took the feedback about the camo and offered to try it on the green section of the jersey knowing that we can make it subtle enough to provide a bit of drama without effecting logos.

Here is the final design...

We discussed with Jason if we could offer the jersey for pre-order to the public so that we could raise more money for The Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital’s Starfish Appeal and so we are now delighted to give you that chance HERE.

The jersey is only available for 2 weeks until 25th April with profits to the Starfish Appeal.

If you would like Milltag to make your custom kit please click HERE or email hello@milltag.cc