32 Nations is a joint project by M.Willis and Clean Sheet Co. about designing expressive shirts for every single 2014 World Cup team. Questions, comments, etc.? I’m on Twitter at @m_willis. You can check out Clean Sheet Co. at cleansheet.co. If you want to know a little more about me, check out my brief bio. Thanks for reading!

Germany, Portugal, Ghana and the United States form an intimidating group; by the numbers it’ll be the toughest one in Brazil. Amongst the four teams, there are four different tiers of expectation: “Anything less than a trophy will be kind of disappointing.” (Germany); “Maybe we can catch lightning in a bottle while we have this guy.” (Portugal); “[eyes narrowing] Just get us back to where we were last time.” (Ghana); “It’s cool, the matches will get easier once we get to the knockout rounds.” (USA).

(As a US fan, I hold no illusions; it’s not looking overly easy for the boys in red, white and blue. One semi-silver lining: a victory over Ghana will feel great, even if they don’t progress. I expect that, and then draws against Germany and Portugal. That would give the US 5 points in this group, and I think that might just be enough. I say they’re going to be one of the two teams to survive this scrum. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.)

It’s a distinctive looking group, too. Let’s discuss.

Germany

Die Mannschaft expects to be there, in Rio, at the World Cup final. Sure, Brazil are big favorites, and Spain has been almost unbeatable internationally for the last few years. But German fußball is ascendent. The balance of club soccer has shifted to the Bundesliga (The Champion’s League final came down to two German clubs, and world-classmanagers and players are increasingly moving into the league). The national squad expects to beat anyone, and to do so with ruthless efficiency. Like many things German, the team is set up to run like a complex machine, and when that machine is calibrated properly and warmed up, it’s a work of engineering to behold.

This sense of technical wonder informed the way I went about designing for Germany. I wanted to evoke something complex and powerful (owing to German engineering), and also something very well-considered and simple (owing to German design). I also wanted to honor the team’s visual history and the specific design elements that have come to define it. The Germany Shirt is the result.

We start with a pure white base. Of all the national teams with a claim to white, England being the most prominent (and the USA not that far behind), Germany is really the only major team for which no other iconic color could reasonably be used. The Germans will suit up in white first-choice jerseys in Brazil, as you’d expect; it looks like they’ll be going with black for a change jersey this time around, though they’ve been known to feature in red and green as well. None of those colors can touch white for innately expressing the identity of the German side; so white it is.

On top of the white base, the Clean Sheet crest is rendered in black, red and gold — the schwarz-rot-gold of the German tricolor flag. The fields aren’t solid, though; the entire design is composed of one silver-grey line that snakes across the shirt and back, erupting into color when it crosses the crest. The line makes 11 full passes across the shirt, symbolizing the 11 positions on a soccer pitch that, in a German mindset, function as one machine. Beyond the 11-as-one symbolism, the thin lines call back to the Deutscher Fußball Bund’s national team crest, and two of its signature elements: the looped wings of the eagle caricature that it depicts, and the spaced-out black-red-gold stripe at its bottom.

Going into this World Cup, the Germans have the talent and the organization to win; they also have the momentum. This design honors the iconic visuals that represent Germany’s formidable potential; whether they’ll have the luck and the soul it takes to complete the journey will be decided on the pitch.

Portugal

The idea for the Portugal shirt was almost fully formed before I started work on the design. This happened a few times over the course of the project; almost always, the process of creating living designs from basic ideas exposed things that needed changing. Out of 32 nations, in fact, Portugal is the only design that survived, fully intact, all the way from my original mental sketches to the final design.

It’s not an overly complex idea, of course. If you’ve ever seen Portugal’s flag and wondered “so, what’s that thing with all the straps on it?”, then you’re half way there already. It’s what I’ve been wondering for years. Of course, I needed the excuse of a project like this to actually look it up. It’s called an armillary sphere. Here are a few facts I found interesting about it.

• As it’s rendered on the Portuguese flag, it’s not just a cool-looking design, like an extravagant work of heraldry. It depicts a real object.
• That object isn’t flat; it’s round. Go figure. I thought the image represented something with straps; those are really rings around a hollow sphere. Flattened out on the Portuguese flag, I never picked up on that.
• It’s not a globe, but rather a model of the sky — objects in the celestial sphere above the planet. The earth is represented at the core.
• Well-known astronimical bad-ass Tycho Brahe made them, and made them better than almost anyone.
• Because it was useful for plotting and navigation, the armillary sphere became a natural symbol for Portugal — one of the most notorious sea-faring cultures in recorded history.
• I kind of want one, and I’m thinking of acting soon before Dan Brown bases his next book on a centuries-old secret hidden in one, and prices go way up.

From a graphical perspective, the way each band wraps around the sphere’s horizon makes for a perfect visual tidbit, and that’s what I wanted to design around. Luckilly, it worked out. The Portugal Shirt is a minimal paeon to the armillary sphere, and hence the flag and the culture it stands for — one that celebrates exploration and adventure.

As is Portugal’s first choice jersey, the Portugal Shirt is set in a deep crimson — somewhere between red and maroon. The design itself depicts a stylized armillary sphere — well, a detail from one, almost as if we’d zoomed in on the upper-right corner of the machine. A single gold ring traces across the shirt, looping through the hole in the Clean Sheet crest and back down and away. The lines and angles are flat and regular (not particularly spherical) to keep the depiction minimal and crisp; they mirror the design and orientation of the sphere on the Portuguese flagquite closely. The energy from the design almost creates the feel of a sash zagging across the shirt. The crest is finished in green (shield) and white (star) to complete Portugal’s national color scheme.

Oh yeah, and the shape of the design itself? It not-so-coincidentally resembles the number of a certain key player for the Portuguese side.

And that’s it! It’s rare that a design works this consistently from concept to execution. Given what Ronaldo and the Portuguese team are hoping to do in Brazil, I can only hope, on their behalf, that their Cup exploits go to plan as nicely.

Ghana

Ghana has US Soccer’s number; the Americans’ last two World Cups have endedat the hands of the Black Stars, each time with advancement on the line. Some US fans might want revenge; not me. I want the US to stay as far away from Ghana as humanly possible. Let somebody else take up the task of beating them; it’s hard enough to do in 90 minutes without weighty history to compound the task.

From an American perspective, one might think that Ghana would be an easy team to root against, a classic “villian” team like Russian hockey (1980s), Duke basketball (1990s) or Chelsea (perpetually). They’re even called the Black Stars; it doesn’t get much more “bad guy” than that. And yet they’re not a villain; not even a little bit. The’ve played the US fair and square, winning on merit in each matchup. They’ve got skilled, joyful players and play with a positive, non-cynical style. And they’ve been hurt by fate themselves, never moreso than during the2010 Cup. After beating they US, Ghana found themselves a win from the semifinals, rarefied air for any team, and a groundbreaking spot for any African nation. The entire continent, and much of the rest of the world, was pulling for them. In the end, bad luck compounded questionable sportsmanship on their opponents’ behalf, and victory was not to be.

I’ve seen the States play Ghana twice now; I was at each losing World Cup match. No matter the moment, no matter the outcome, the Ghanian fans kept a positive vibe in the air. There was singing, dancing, rhythmic chanting, drumming, smiling and bright color swirling through match-day. I met and embraced Ghanians; they were sweet and jovial and hoped, quite charmingly, for a fair and fun match. (It was easy to believe them when they said that.) I have no doubt that even after their own heartbreak of 2010, there will be more of the same in Brazil.

I originally designed a primarily white shirt for Ghana, to honor the first-choice white jersey that they normally wear. But the more I considered the design, the more it became obvious that everything led back to the Black Star at its center — and the shirt began to echo that above all else. So, though it’s not a traditional Ghanian kit color, I’ve designed Ghana a shirt with a black base — and it’s the only shirt in the field of 32 to receive a look like this. The idea is that the entire shirt is an homage to the Black Stars, one of the coolest team nicknames in the world. (And though the team doesn’t usually wear shirts that are primarily black, its fansare no stranger to the look.)

Ghana’s flag — horizontal bars of red, gold and green, containing a single centered black star — is recreated in the crest; a black circle stands in for the star, which is elevated to the top of the design and haloed in white. A kente textile-inspired bar runs under the crest, solidifying the design and drawing it together. The shirt combines elements of the team’s look, the country’s flag, and the colors that Ghanians wear to celebrate their team.

No matter the occasion — be it one of jubilation or anguish on the pitch — Ghanians will have plenty of reason to make joyful noise. Perhaps a bit of intimidating black will provide that last little push to see them to the promised land.

USA

I’ve been down this road before. Clean Sheet Co. started with one product, The Gadsden, a shirt designed around the idea that U.S. Soccer had more interesting visual directions to explore than it gave itself credit for. The idea for that shirt, in turn, sprang from a series of posts I wrote about finding a unique and lasting American soccer style.

A few years and a few shirts later, here we are. The Gadsden embraced a folk symbol that has captured the hearts of many American soccer fans; The Pasdadena re-interpreted an infamous (and classic) American jersey, and The Dawn celebrated a lesser-remembered, but just as inspiring American kit design. But why stop there?

I’m thrilled, of course, to get to include an American design this project. In a way, it was a different kind of design equation; while the previous US shirts I’ve worked up have had esoteric inspirations, 32 Nations is about embracing big, bold, national symbolism. It was a chance to design a USA-themed shirt that wasn’t a nod to history only those already deeply into US soccer culture would immediatly understand.

When I started thinking about the form a US shirt would take in the context of this project, my mind kept wandering to the previous shirts I’d made. For the first time, I realized that even after three distinct designs, I had yet to make a US-themed shirt that was white, navy, or red — our three national colors, and the colors the team suits up in.

Easy call. Going back to my origin as a USMNT fan, there was only one choice for the fans’ color. Red it was.

Not just red, of course; the 32 Nations USA Shirt nods to the Waldo-style stripes that the US has recently (kind of) embraced, and that not too long ago I arguedshould be the permanent face of the team. It also references the diagonal sash, an element that the US has a proud history with. I wanted to get each into this design, and I did; the fact that the 13 stripes and 50 stars are present makes me even happier.

There’s no mistaking this shirt’s intentions; no wondering about the references. This is as bold and patriotic as it gets. And that’s kind of the point, right?

And that’s Group G. All shirts are available for pre-order over at Clean Sheet; find me on Twitter for comments, and we’ll finish up the 32 Nations project with Group H soon. See you then.