In 2012, reader Steve Speicher DIY’d himself an Eli Manning shirsey, which he wore while watching the Giants defeat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. Since then, his Super Bowl DIY project has become an annual tradition. Here are some of the designs he’s made along the way:
As for this year, Steve wrote to me this morning to say:
With your looming retirement from Uni Watch coming up, and with your favorite team making it back to the Super Bowl, I figured I had to pick the 49ers for this year’s jerseys. Plus, I’d already made three KC jerseys over the years, so, any more would be maybe too many. I decided to go with the current 49ers white jersey, with No. 19 for Deebo Samuel, for my wife, Anne, and the current red throwback with No. 54 for Fred Warner, for myself.
Here are the iron-on components followed by the finished products:
Love it! Thanks so much for making this an annual Uni Watch tradition, Steve. Gladdens my heart even though (or maybe especially because) the Niners lost last night.
I’ve come to enjoy Steve’s annual DIY shirsey project every bit as much as the game itself. Great job, as always, Steve!
As always, these are fantaistic. I hope to feature his 2025 shirseys after next year’s SB!
These are great! Looks professionally done!
Great stuff as always. As I’ve mentioned here before, Steve’s Colin Kaepernick project years ago rekindled my interest in making jerseys (which I had attempted several times over the years) and is what inspired me to finally do it. These two 49ers ones look amazing!
Thanks to all of the above!
Better than anything Fanatics is creating right now.
I so incredibly appreciate this post every year. Pray tell, what is behind your back (to the left of your number 17 Chiefs jersey) in that pic? Something to do with bottle caps?
Yes, that’s some “bottle cap pixel art” that I made for my wife (who was at the time not yet my wife!) as an apartment-warming gift for when she moved to New York.
It might have been in an earlier post, but I would love to know how the shirts were made!
Paul’s mentioned the process in older posts and I’ve discussed in some comments over the years, but the quick summary is: I print the graphics onto iron-on transfer paper, cut them out, and…iron them on! As far as actually making the graphics…I’ve been able to find free fonts over the years that are pretty close approximations to NFL jersey fonts, though adjustments are sometimes needed, which I do in Photoshop. For this year, I had to tweak the “tail” of the 9, and I had to create the drop-shadow effect for the 54. Other graphics / wordmarks are easily available on the internet, and things like stripes / collar graphics I just make in Photoshop myself.
Great tradition with every single year similar great results. Wonderful shirts.
Amazing work! These look so professional.
I’m also curious about that board behind you in the kelly green Eagles and the Mahomes KC photos. Bottle caps, maybe?
I forget about this every year but get the same level of excitement when I see it. So fun!