The Heroes of Champions Way font and the Bombers 19 font are two Winnipeg Blue Bombers design projects Ross McKernan helped bring to life — and a night out in Dublin is to thank.
McKernan is from Northern Ireland, but that night out eight years ago set his process of moving to Winnipeg in motion. His girlfriend, Laura, is from Winnipeg and was travelling Europe when they first met at The Temple Bar, a tourist hot spot and an old pub in Dublin. The couple got along right away, and when Laura’s trip was over, they didn’t want their relationship to come to an end.
“We were doing long distance for a couple of years, we would intermittently fly across the ocean to visit each other,” said McKernan. “In the different times I visited Winnipeg, usually in the summer, we went to Bombers games, Goldeyes games, Folk Fest and things like that. I just loved the city, so I thought it was a good time to make a move.”
McKernan moved to be with Laura, but the idea of being able to turn graphic design into a full-time job in Winnipeg also excited him. After graduating graphic design in college, McKernan couldn’t find a full-time job in Ireland. The job market wasn’t great because of the recession caused by the European sovereign-debt crisis in 2012 and 2013. He freelanced for some local bands before packing up and moving overseas in the summer of 2015.
McKernan, a graphic designer with the Blue Bombers, is the second subject in our Unsung Heroes series where we profile some of the staff who work behind the scenes with the football club.
“Before I moved to Winnipeg, I remember looking on Indeed in Belfast and I think there was only three design positions available and they were all asking for 10 years experience,” McKernan said. “Comparing that to Winnipeg there were 30 positions for design, and I was like ‘this is going to be an amazing opportunity for me and my career.’”
When he landed in Winnipeg, McKernan quickly found out that although the job opportunities were there, his lack of Canadian experience hurt him. He applied for all the jobs he could, but he rarely received much feedback, or a call back at all. So he lowered his bar and worked as a fencer for the first three months.
“I’m ginger and I’m white and I have pasty skin,” McKernan said with a laugh. “I went from the very mild climate in Ireland to walking around in 40-degree heat outside in the middle of the Manitoban summer and sweating every day. I just remember driving home after fencing for about 12 hours drenched to the bone, like ‘oh god, I can’t do this forever.’
“But I was happy to do it because it really got me kind of set up for working in Winnipeg.”
Laura and Ross
From there, McKernan got his foot in the door and worked for two design companies, including Wraptors Decals, over the next three years. He gained experience in both the pre-press and printing phases of the design process, something that has helped him develop skills like colour management and colour theory, which he now applies working for the Bombers.
“There were days where we spent hours and hours and printed hundreds and hundreds of swatches of the same gold with slightly different varying degrees of yellow and black and magenta just to get the exact Bombers gold.”
In February 2018, McKernan found a job listing for graphic design for the Bombers and quickly applied.
“I was working in signs and decals, and I wanted to get into something to broaden my resume more, something to sink my teeth into a broader spectrum of design work rather than just decals and signs,” he said. “I played sports all my life, I love sports and when that came up, I thought it’d be a great opportunity to possibly come under the wing of a sports team and a globally recognizable brand.”
McKernan has been working for the Bombers ever since and has worked on numerous design campaigns. But, creating the Bombers 19 font is his proudest accomplishment. The font is still used on Bombers design, merchandise and social media.
“When it comes to fonts, that’s something me and my colleagues collaborated on together and we can say we built that font. It’s in front of 30,000 people at games and that’s really special,” he said.
McKernan’s job hasn’t always been done on a computer screen, and one of his favourite moments was working the Grey Cup parade.
“We ended up being the default security team for the truck that all the quarterbacks were on this year in the parade,” said McKernan with a chuckle. “We were all standing alongside the truck that was carrying (Sean) McGuire, (Chris) Streveler and (Matt) Nichols. We basically got to see the hottest truck in town, and we were walking right beside it. That was incredible to turn onto Portage and walk down Portage through the huge parade.”
When McKernan isn’t working, he’s playing music. He’s in an Irish folk band MacTague & MacAnallen, punk band Lake Dissapointment and the Riel Gentlemans Choir. He’s a multi-instrument musician who could probably be a one-man band; he plays the banjo, guitar, accordion and drums. Music keeps him busy during the current global pandemic, but he admits being far away from his family is hard, especially with Europe struggling more than Winnipeg.
McKernan misses his family, but when he thinks about living in Ireland, he also misses what he calls “craic.” McKernan likes to goof around and have fun in the office — maybe it’s his way of bringing the craic to Winnipeg.
“It means fun,” he said. “If someone asks how your night was, you’d say, ‘last night was good craic.’
“Craic is this intangible thing that people always talk about when you go to Ireland. The people always comment on how friendly we are, how funny we are, the storytellers, the love to sing. It’s that kind of thing in the air, it’s the craic. That’s all I can explain it as because that’s what it is to me. It’s that outlook on life, it’s not better or worse it’s just different.”
