For this issue of Stylin’ Strings Customs, we had the honor of making 24 lacrosse heads themed after 12 of the countries playing in the Euro World Games held in Amsterdam. They were themed based on the countries flag, logos, emblems, and colors.
Unfortunately our creative dye and string team comprised of myself (Dustin), Justin, Brie & Frank did not actually get to go to Amsterdam. We did the job for a buddy of ours that owns Stick Doctor, John Moriorty. He was setting up a booth and reached out to us to make some sticks. We also did 6 Stick Doctor customs in which we will show in a few weeks. This article was big so we decided to split it into 2 parts so this issue you will only see 6 of the 12 countries up close.
The first stick I designed was the English Lax Stick. The top of all these STX Proton U’s gave us the real estate to get creative. The flag was centered on the top and the English team logo mirrored on the top of the head. The rest of the stick we marbled.
This view shows the nice shape of the Stylin’ Strings Mesh X Pocket. This sample has red down the center.
We customized three English heads, one of which had white mesh at the top, and the other two had red. The two with red mesh we used red leathers in the center channel and white outers. The white mesh was opposite.
The next stick we did was very challenging. The Flag of the Czech Republic has a white and red stripe projecting out of a blue triangle from left to right. The top left we used the logo from the Czech Lacrosse Union website.
The stick on the right shows the difficulty in getting the lines on even and proportioned. The pocket was colored to match the dye as close as possible. The one blue leather gave it a unique look.
We made a pair of twins on these sticks. We spun this full order in 2 weeks to make the morning of the flight to Amsterdam.
Italy was a lot more basic and could be pulled off with a clean fade to represent the flag. We stylized it with our signature glu fade and used the logo out of Lacrosse Italia’s shield emblem on their website.
This is a cool shot showing the two faced look with the string and leathers on the green side green and red on red.
We used all white shooting string so you focused more on the true colors of the Italian Flag from the dye job and the pocket.
Sweden was next on the roster of heads. We know that their blue was a bit brighter but good luck going over yellow. The crowns we made right from their website. This shot shows the flag at the top with and pattern of the crowns on both sides. We glu faded the bottom to give splash in a little more yellow.
The supplemental pocket views show that we used yellow sidewall, navy outers, navy leathers, yellow inners, navy hard mesh, & navy with white striker shooters.
This view shows the two variations we came up with. The head on the left uses the traditional 3 crowns as seen on the Sweden Lax site. The head on the right is the one from the previous pictures.
The Netherlands sticks were pretty simple as far as replicating their flag. The red to white to royal fade with the logo from their website in all white on the lip made this head cut and dry. We used a simple glu fade to spruce it up because again we were trying to keep them affordable with the Plastic head, Dye, & Pocket included in the final price.
The side view and pocket channel display the clean lines of the pocket.
We had some fun switching up the colors to enhance the somewhat simple dye job in comparison to the other countries.
One of our favorites is this custom dyed Israel stick. The dye fades represent the flag with the Star of David at the top and Israel Lacrosse written in Yiddish arced on the top of the lip in white.
This side and pocket channel view shows the blue mesh version.
This final image is the two sticks hanging out side by side prior to a 3,700 mile flight. Stay tuned to Part 2 of Stylin’ Strings Lacrosse goes to Europe for 6 more countries sticks. Check us out on our website www.stylinstrings.com and on our Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/StylinStringsLacrosse