BERKELEY – When a team of Under Armour designers came to visit Cal in search of a story that could be turned into a brand, it didn't take them long to get enamored with a certain 307-foot tower overlooking campus and beyond.

"We just couldn't get past Sather Tower," Under Armour Senior Creative Director Adam Clement said. "It is truly one of the iconic pieces of architecture on any collegiate campus in the nation. It just kept rising to the top, how it really stands out as the defining icon on campus. Your eyes keep going back to that."

The team of seven UA employees spent several days touring campus, inspecting buildings, looking for the cultural clues that would ultimately lead them to a new era at Cal. They kept returning to Sather Tower, or as it is more commonly referred, The Campanile.

As the team studied The Campanile more closely, they became fascinated by the vertical lines created by the beveled edges that the bricks of the tower create. Knowing that stripes or lines traditionally work well on sports uniforms, they knew they were on the right track.
 

"There are some really neat lines in the tower," Clement said. "We love the vertical nature of it, but we also love the beveling. It became very, very special for us."

But there was something missing. While the Under Armour design team knew it was imperative to tell the story of Cal's campus, there still needed to be an athletic component to the brand. Further inspection of Cal's athletic facilities revealed there were other stripes to be found as well.

This was especially true at California Memorial Stadium, where lines and stripes are found on the donor wall and in the landscaping outside, among other places. But as opposed to solid lines, these lines are broken up and uneven, something the UA team thought would be a perfect complement to the vertical lines of Sather Tower.

After returning to Under Armour's headquarters in Baltimore and spending the better part of a full two weeks looking at over 1,000 pictures and discussing ideas, the design team finally found the solution to the Cal story – The Sather Stripe.

It's a design element that will appear on all of Cal's uniforms, with two solid lines on the outside and four broken up lines – two on each side – on the inside. The broken up lines are the final step in the evolution of the vertical lines formed by the beveled edges on Sather Tower, and represent the infusion of athletics into the brand with campus.
 

 
"I thought they nailed it," Cal Senior Associate Athletics Director Ashwin Puri said. "What really stood out through the entire pitch process was their attention to detail, their investment in learning about Cal and understanding who we are as a university and a brand. We were blown away."

The Sather Stripe will be more prevalent on some of Cal's uniforms than others, depending on the sport. But it will be a constant presence in the story of Cal Athletics.

"I've been around a lot of campuses, and there are few that have icons that really stand out and are special and unique," Clement said. "There's the Golden Dome at Notre Dame, the Duke University Chapel and The Campanile at Berkeley. The way it stands above the entire campus and the shot from Memorial Stadium looking down – you basically see the Campanile and the Golden Gate Bridge. From a scenic perspective, it's one of a kind. You can't get that anywhere else."