In our second installment of Painting the Corner, we get to explore what happens when a passion project becomes reality.
Sarah Allis is quite popular on Guardians Twitter and a great follow for sports takes,
but unexpectedly grew her following with a passion project revolving around the city connect jerseys. Over the last few years both the NBA and MLB have rolled out city edition jerseys to give teams the ability to highlight their city’s identity. MLB did a multi-year roll out and, naturally, the Guardians were one of the last teams to unveil their city connect jerseys. In that space between the launch of the city connects in 2021 and the Guardians reveal in 2024, Sarah found inspiration.
Since 2023 Sarah has been creating digital designs centered primarily around the Guardians and Cavaliers. As a self taught graphic designer (a skill she picked up shortly after college in her first marketing job) Sarah was fascinated by the idea of the city connect jerseys being used as a means to showcase different facets of Cleveland and as a way to express pride in this city. Sarah tapped into her life long experience as a Clevelander to begin drafting up ideas for Cleveland Guardians city connect jerseys.
During the 2023 season Sarah found herself inspired by Cleveland fans and designed the above Major League inspired jerseys. The designs were a viral success and from there, Sarah took her new found confidence to push her boundaries of ideas and designs.
Sarah dug into the history of the city, referencing less common nicknames and other pop culture icons associated with Cleveland. The North Coast jersey design was my personal favorited of hers. It features a very subtle wave design not all that different from the sandstone design on the current city connect jerseys and leaned into the sandstone color to bring in the famous Berea sandstone into play. Each detail is incredibly intentional and thought through. For the above Forest City design, Sarah incorporated a pine needle pattern and a tree line on the sleeve. She also made a nod to the original Cleveland Forest City baseball club logo for the cap, rooting this jersey in the long and storied history of baseball in Cleveland. Naturally, with the most recent silver screen iteration having been filmed in Cleveland, Sarah made a Superman design in the summer of 2024. With the creators of Superman being from Cleveland, Sarah took care to incorporate the design of the iconic hero without going over the top. Opting for a darker color palette, she still kept a comic feel to the design by incorporating the cell-shading dots iconic to American comics. The peak of the red featured on the back of the jersey mimics Superman’s suit by drawing reference from his traditional blue body suit and red cape design.
Once the official city connect jerseys were rolled out Sarah pivoted to some Cavalier designs until an unbelievable opportunity presented itself.
For those not on social media or who cannot make it to Classic Auto Group Park during the season might not be aware at how involved with the greater Cleveland community that the Lake County Captains are. The High-A affiliate for the Cleveland Guardians are constantly involving local companies, organizations, fans, and artists throughout the season. Last season was no different.
In 2023 what started as a fun creative challenge meant to improve her skills and form further connections with fellow Cleveland fans evolved into a dream come true.
In a partnership with the Cleveland Monsters, Sarah was contacted to design a jersey for the Caps incorporating the Monster’s logo.
Sarah also had the opportunity to create and original design for Lake County. Refining her original Forest City design, the Captains took the field in the below jerseys for Forest City day at the ballpark!
From pop culture inspirations to on field designs, it has been quite the journey for Sarah. She still makes new designs for both the Guardians and the Cavaliers. Her designs can be found on her Twitter and her graphic design Instagram. Her Instagram features additional Guardians designs, including one based on the city flag and one paying homage to the Sixth City nickname. It also features some of her Cavalier designs with jerseys inspired by the local restaurant scene and some clean WNBA inspired looks.
Every single one of Sarah’s designs is not only creative but so intentional. She researches the city’s history and puts a lot of effort into making the designs truly representative. Despite the constraints of expressing creativity through a medium like sports jerseys, Sarah still finds endless ways to capture the numerous aspects of Cleveland’s rich identity in fresh and functional designs.
I look forward to seeing what brilliant ideas Sarah comes up with next.
