Blimey – it’s big isn’t it, this Internet?  I thought that volunteering to be blasted off into cyberspace would be a pleasant affair, but once you get in front of a blank sheet of paper it becomes a bit tricky to think of what to write.  Perhaps I’d be better off sticking to drawing pictures?

That, after all, is the real reason why I’m here.  I’m Rob Warner, and I joined Umbro a month ago as Design Director.  I’m leading the design team for our performance football clothing, including England, and am over the proverbial moon to be here.  As usual in these circumstances I’ve developed “Responsibility Tourettes” and volunteered to contribute to the blog on a monthly basis, airing my thoughts on all manner of things from design through to football.  Well, pretty much those two things really.  That’s what you’ll most likely want to read about from me, what with you all being dedicated followers of Fashanu.

My day-to-day job involves working through trend, colour, graphics and of course the performance needs of all parties concerned (namely the clubs and players of this most beautiful of games), and people often remind me how lucky I am to be able to make a career out of something I love.  I agree, and thought that the blog would be a great forum to give you some insights into what we do as a design team and how we do it, as well as offering you the chance to give us some feedback and input of your own.  Let’s face it – just like football, everyone’s got an opinion on design.

I’m sure if you asked the designers they’d say that I spend all day in meetings and only appear at my desk when one of them is about to make a brew.  Nothing wrong with that, though.  Michael Owen’s all about being in the right place at the right time too.  So long as we as a team design the best football product we possibly can then we can all go home happy, and being privy to the work which is going on here at Umbro Towers it’s fair to say we’re all feeling pretty happy at the moment.  The current England home shirt is for me one of our best ever, even if my favourite is the one from Italia 90 – evoking memories of Gazza’s tears, Waddle’s mullet and David Platt’s incredulous volley against Belgium.

We’ve been involved in some pretty scary kits in the past too, though, and I’ll be doing my best to make sure that the crimes of the 80s and 90s don’t get repeated in a hurry.  Unless it’s in a trendy “fashion-irony” kinda way, of course.  But love them or hate them, our kits have been involved in some of the most memorable and poignant moments of football history and they’ll continue to be playing a key role in football present and future too.  I’m lucky enough to have seen one of my designs win the World Cup and that’s an amazing memory for me.  If England lift the trophy next summer, even though I arrived after it was designed and would be basking in reflected glory, it’d still be up there as one of my proudest moments – both as an Umbro employee and an Englishman.

For now, though, it’s back to creating our part in magical football moments that are yet to come – whether it’s Darren Bent scoring a last minute winner for Sunderland or you ‘megging Steve from Accounts in the weekly 5-a-side.  It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.  And I really don’t think I’m cut out for being a milkman like my Dad was…

See you next month, Rob.

The Speciali competition to design your own boot is nearing three thousand entries (I think we’re actually on 2979 but I lost count).  That’s a lot, which is great.  But what we’ve loved is seeing how the submitted designs reflect different styles, reminiscent of skateboard decks and surfboards, from commentary on life and sport to plain weird s***.

As an example let’s look at some of the designs from the last few weeks:

‘Adebayor’ it’s called, can’t think why   Then there’s this one from the previous week:

This time Arsenal get the boot

Then there’s stuff like this, which is just genius.

And the earlier work inspired by Marvel comics (and probably coinciding with Disney’s purchase of them).

A nod toward the Football Casuals of the 80s here:

And a classic modernist piece, which Bridget Riley would have been proud of:

This is perhaps the most thoughtful design and says so much about the type of engagement most of us have with football now:

Brilliant.  And, lastly, what better way to go sliding into a 50-50 challenge than to take your fan club with you, the teenage crush etched to your sole:

You can submit your design to the competition. Umbro, Esquire and and UK designer Stuart Semple will be creating a shortlist from which John Terry, Michael Owen and Gael Clichy will be choose their favourite designs which Umbro will make for them to wear.

See the whole set on flickr and let us know which you like best.

Today we are launching a competition that can be considered anything but run of the mill. We are giving you the opportunity to customise the soles on a pair of Speciali boots. But this isn’t just something to do if you have a spare 30 minutes – the 11 designs judged best will be made for the designers to keep.

Oh, before I forget to mention… Amongst our highly esteemed judging panel there will be Michael Owen, Gaël Clichy, John Terry, Stuart Semple, the head of Umbro footwear design and an icon from the design world. And just in case that isn’t enough to get you motivated, Owen, Clichy and Terry will each pick a design to wear in a match.

Once uploaded, you can download your design as a wallpaper.  You can also share the designs in this flickr stream.

If you want to be in with a chance of being one of the winning designers head over to our umbro.com site for full details. Good Luck!