If the design can represent a people, a culture or a celebration, what does it look like? And how does it look for the Nashville Predators?
To answer these questions and give the Smashville team a tailored look ahead of Wednesday’s Black History Month Celebration, the Predators enlisted the help of Kaleena Sales, chair of Tennessee State University’s art and design department and associate graphic design teacher.
A passionate artist and storyteller, Sales seized the opportunity to weave history and contemporary cultural undertones together into a challenging new canvas.
βIt was honestly very personally rewarding,β Sales said. βAs a design professor and design researcher, I’m really interested in expanding narratives and honoring different perspectives in design. And the majority of my work really seeks to broaden our understanding of what design means to different cultural groups.β
Helping sell her design was Predators graphic designer Tayshaun Hassell, a Western Kentucky University graduate and proudly black artist.
For Hassell, working with sales and exploring themes of Black culture and celebration has been a truly rewarding experience.
“Having a hand in it was an amazing thing,” Hassell said. “Being able to do something much bigger than yourself and tell a nice story along the way, while also giving people a chance to learn and explore what that design is, serves as an opportunity to get to know a little bit more than you usually did.”
The design began in the research phase, with the duo eventually striking gold after meeting the NBA’s ‘City Edition’ uniforms.
“We were really inspired by the way these designs really accurately reflect the cities they were designed for, and that’s really what sparked a lot of the initial ideas,” Sales said. “How do we come up with something that feels like it doesn’t celebrate Black History Month in general, but actually honors the people and the culture in an authentic way?”
To capture the vibrancy of contemporary black culture, the designers interwoven a jazz-inspired geometric wallpaper with improvisational shapes, colors and textures.
“These dynamic shapes and lines have an energy and make the design feel alive in the same way that jazz music is improvisational and fluid and fun,” Sales said. βAnd that part was really important, because when I think about my own culture, when I think about the people that I know and the community that I come from, there’s just a lot of vibrancy and energy there. And I wanted that to be reflected in the design.”
Sales and Hassell also drew from history, landing four West African Adinkra symbols that represent universal themes of holiness, wisdom, love and harmony.
“What I like about these particular symbols is that they represent universal principles,” Sales said. “No matter what community you come from, these principles connect us and connect our humanity.”
Another exciting design element can be found in the jersey’s numbering and lettering, which it uses “Martin” font.a font that closely resembles the text on nonviolent protest signs from the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike.
The finished jersey, which Smashville will get a first-hand look at on Wednesday, combines all three elements into a design emblematic of all the essentials of Black History Month.
“I think if you really sit down and take the time to explore what this whole thing means, it’s going to hit even harder,” Hassell said. “It was definitely a cool piece and I’m very honored and grateful to work with someone with such a creative mind and to be able to produce something like this.”
From now until the second halftime of Wednesday’s game, fans can bid on the custom, player-signed jerseys by texting PREDS to 76278, with proceeds benefiting GUIDER – the Preds’ diversity initiative and inclusion – and the Preds Foundation grant program, which will fund a nonprofit organization working in Nashville’s African-American community.
Additionally, fans who purchase a special Black History Month Celebration package will receive a T-shirt with the design along with their ticket. Click here to secure yours.
The Predators will celebrate Black History Month in a variety of ways. Click here to learn more.