Welcome to the Design Team, Etán!

A new technical and creative designer has joined the VC team! Meet Etán Santiago.

Etan wearing a pair of sublimated shorts he designed

We are thrilled to introduce you to our new designer! He, along with our Lead Creative Designer Marijo Zlatić, is keeping VC's merchandise lines' incredibly high design appeal with very current concepts and striking new apparel.

Etán, tell us about yourself! Where are you from, how did you get introduced and involved in ultimate?

Hey everyone I'm Etán! Nice to make everyone's acquaintance. I was born in northern México in a little municipality of Tamaulipas called Madero. I'm 20 years old and I've been playing ultimate since I was 13 along with my 3 brothers.

We were introduced to ultimate by chance actually. When I was 10 we moved to Monterrey NL and during a casual stroll my eldest brother, who was in university at the time, spotted a group of people playing ultimate and as curiosity got the better of him, the rest is history haha.

Over the next few days he took us with him to check it out and we've been involved ever since. I find it funny because we essentially moved from a state in which Ultimate was THRIVING and we never noticed to a state in which it was about to die out and we fell in love with it there. During a very long period of time we were the only 4 people getting together to play frisbee in this completely available full-sized football field.

As time went on more people started to come due to the consistency of assistance and Ultimate just kind of bloomed again here. We are still one of the more compact communities in comparison to our central neighbors but we do alright.  Despite being a small community we have big aspirations and we train hard to be out there with the top teams.

We have yet to hit the spot just right but everytime we chose to be a national caliber team, we are 💪🔥

You’re a great designer. How did you get started with design?

Haha thank you very much! I've always had a knack for creative things but design struck a good feeling on me when I was just a wee lad messing around with photo editing apps on the iPad.

I began my journey making logos and graphics for some gamer friends I had back in the day and everyone seemed to like the things I did so I just kept doing it!

I haven't been designing for that long though, that was kind of my first contact and then I got caught up in school so I didn't really start looking at design as a profession until I was 15 more or less.

I've always thought of myself more of a graphic designer since that's what I've been doing the longest and what I enjoy doing the most but I don't shy away from other things!

One time I landed a job at a creative agency when I was 18 and I did pretty much everything under the sun there 😅 (Was I good at everything? no... Did I have a lot of fun, darn right!). 

Etan's first creative project for VC: Merchandise designs and promotional images for USA Ultimate Club Nationals

How do you like to approach a project? What are some things that inspire you?

I like to approach projects as personally as I can. I'll usually go and have a long-winded talk with my client and just make sure that I get everything I can from them. Knowing where we are coming from makes it just so much easier to know where to go!

I find inspiration in a lot of things but more than anything I get inspired the most by thinking about the potential value I'm able to add to people's things that they care about. Being able to tune up someone's small business branding so that they can feel a little more proud of it or making a cool jersey design that will rile up a team of high schoolers every time they get on the pitch! Things like that inspire me! 

When you’re not designing, or playing frisbee, what’s your favourite thing to do?

I like learning new things! Be it something related to design that I can add to my repertoire of tools or just some type of skill I can hone for entertainment.

Although most of the time these days whenever I have some free time I really enjoy putting it towards doing something for my betrothed. One time I went knee deep into 3D designing for the first time to make her a prototype of a plushie I want to make of our precious boy Vito.

Hi Vito!

I always pick up new hobbies but right now I've been really feeling calligraphy, writing horribly cheesy poems and sewing 😅

OK, some quick "hits"...

Bucket List Tournaments:

1. WUGC! Representing México.
2. WUCC! Representing CASA
3. A college run from sectionals all the way to natties preferably with UCSB Black Tide so I can shout I BLEED BLACK as the legendary Dan Schneider (from UCSB) smiles upon me over the horizon.

Favourite Meal

I really enjoy eating. I can't pinpoint my exact dream-meal but I can tell you Mole is my favorite sauce and I can eat it with anything.

What are you looking most forward to joining the VC team?

I'm really looking forward to getting to know everyone in the team and working along with them to bring the community some sweet apparel!

Also looking forward to learning a lot, getting involved with any kind of project that's going on and tackling as many challenges as I can 🔥💪

*****

VC prides itself on its design team and the creative-yet-professional custom apparel we offer. Can we help you with your next project? Let's Talk!