One of the most high-profile football boots of modern times is the Umbro Speciali and over at Umbro.com they’re running a competition to add a design to the base of the boot.

The best eleven entries will be chosen and boots will be made up for the winners, carrying their designs.  Whether you want your name, your face, your favourite pub or some psychedelic pattern to feature just follow the instructions and you could be wearing your artistic vision before too long.

The competition runs until 9th October 2009 so plenty of time for dF members to head over there and show them how it’s done.  I don’t think much of Umbro Senior Designer David Blanch’s chances…

Design Middlesbrough Futsal Club’s 2009-2011 home kit

Middlesbrough Futsal Club have teamed up with Sala Sports and DesignFootball.com to bring you a fantastic competition to design Boro’s new home kit as they aim for a place in the UEFA Futsal Cup.

Middlesbrough are one of England’s leading futsal clubs and currently sit at the top of the national league North.  They will contest the English title in October against the best teams from the Midlands and South and your design could inspire them to greater things!  As well as on the court, they are leading the way in futsal off the pitch, already becoming a recognised brand all over the world, with fans in South America, Asia and Europe.

Sala Sports supply Middlesbrough with their kit from Italian brand Erreà.  Fabrizio Taddei of Erreà, a representative of DesignFootball.com and the Boro committee will judge the competition and the winner will receive a kit for their team courtesy of Sala Sports.  Middlesbrough Futsal Club will also give away a family season ticket for 2010 and the winning design will be presented to you at the first home game at Thornaby Pavilion.

Steevo’s Illustrator Tutorial

Fantasy football kit design tutorials are not in short supply both here on dF and on FootballShirtCulture.com. Some great techniques are shown and some excellent tips on how to create designs from templates on PhotoShop.

But I’ve decided to show you an alternative. My tutorial relates to Adobe Illustrator (download Trail @ Adobe Trial Link ) and shows how you can create your own templates for reusing, quick and easy ways to stylishly present your designs and also how the work of a designer is sometimes as much about the client’s requests as it is about our creativity.

I won’t really demonstrate the techniques as others have because I’d recommend videos on YouTube for that kind of guidance. I’ll just show you that you can create effective designs by having the freedom to start from scratch and perfecting your own style.

Firstly, you need to create your basic kit shapes. A handy way to approach this is to use the pen tool and trace the outline on a photograph (there’s lots of videos on YouTube showing this technique) but I generally create my kits by drawing until I’m happy with the proportions. It’s good to have an eye for these things. Play around and you’ll soon get the hang of it.

And the winner is... Well I am not going to give that away just yet, we'll get to that later on, just want to say thanks to everyone who entered the competition. We have had some very interesting and elaborate designs sent in and some quite simplistic too. So again to everyone who uploaded their designs, thank you ever so much and fingers crossed...

Now that little mushy bit is out of the way, onto some of the close runners up, who myself and the 'panel' of judges believe deserve a mention. There was a great deal of delight in visiting DesignFootball every day to see what wonderful works had been created.

Firstly there is this magnificent work by Matupeco. It has a very creative reversible theme, using both modern and traditional Sevilla insignia on either side. In keeping with the theme of modern and bygone on either side of the shirt the font differs from antiquated on one side and a more fresh-looking paint effect on the other. The symbolic dates and script located in different parts of the shirt make it very identifiable to any Sevilla fan and it would most likely be a fans' favourite. The shirt is finished off with a classy ripped look at the bottom, making something of a looking glass effect into the reversed side.

Introducing the Nike Zoom Tiempo City Pack.

Developed specifically for the Nike Sportswear LIVESTRONG Collection, the footwear design team looked at the Nike Tiempo - first launched through the football category - and enhanced the shoe with key elements to work with today’s inner city bike rider.

Constructed with a board last, a process referencing ACG’s history, this provides a stiffer construction of the shoe making the pushdown of the pedal stroke easier on the rider. Throughout the construction of the shoe, the designers have increased the density of the rubber and the derometer. Inside the shoe, the sockliner has been updated to also be a bit stiffer, giving support to the foot. The upper of the shoe mirrors the look of the original Tiempo, however has been updated with a tougher leather to last through the wear and tear of the pedal cages may cause.