AWOO – Custom Made Sports Apparel

It all started when the freshly appointed race director Steven Carr paid us a visit to chat about T-shirts for this new race Hard As Nayls – also known as the Hong Kong Trail Racing League finale.

We went through some of the usual basic cheap options that race organizers usually go for. But as at that time we were at the final stages before the launch of AWOO we thought we would introduce also some other, nicer and finer options. And soon the cheap cheap tees were forgotten and off the table :-). After a bit more talking and punching the calculator we worked out the costing and the shirts were go. And we agreed to make them both in mens and ladies styles (as well as small sizes to fit kids).

Being a supplier is great but our idea was more along the lines of being a partner. We prepared few samples in different sizes to test the cuts and sizes – after all no matter how nice the shirt looks it won’t be of much use if it does not fit. We passed AWOO Jersey made of the same material we intended to use for the racing tees to the race director to test it on his runs – we wanted to make sure he likes the material as much as we did.

The Hard As Nayls logo creator and tee designer – Nic Tinworth – then came up with several colour schemes for the shirts. Online vote generated a shortlist of two – two shades of blue and the red/blue options. The inner circle then picked the blue one for the race tees and the red/blue one for the volunteers.

As is the good custom the race tee design included logos of partners and sponsors of the race. Thanks to the production technology used all these logos could be produced in their full colour versions. The volunteer shirts however featured the large “Ka Yau” message to the runners – idea that we came up with and race director liked pretty much immediately.

While awaiting the final numbers of the Tees we produced few samples as a part of final fine tuning. When we saw them we were all very excited. They turned out great.

We still decided to make a minor adjustment to the cut for better comfort but otherwise we were ready to go into production. The race registration was still in progress but in order to play safe time wise we went ahead with production of shirts for those already registered. We added another lot few days later.

Few days later – Monday of the week of the race – the shirts were ready.

We did our best to mark the cartons clearly “Ladies” and “Men” for the people distributing the Tees. As we found out later this was not sufficiently fool proof – we know for next time 🙂 .

And then came the race day. It was hot and humid day – proper test for any sports shirt. We were so happy (and frankly also relieved) by the reception the Tees got. The sight of so many people running in our shirts was awesome (or awoosome 🙂 ). We were also taken by surprise when several people asked if they could purchase more Tees for their friends – we definitely did not expect this. This was the first big day for our brand and it was great. Here are few images of from the race day – you can see more on our Facebook page.

It was a privilege for us to be part of this great event. We wish to thank all who were part of this more than 4 months long process from the basic idea through the design, testing, feedback, production and distribution. Special thanks go to Steven Carr and his team! Should this race return in 2016 (and we are hearing that is the plan) we aim to be back too!