Kelly Hume, a Bainbridge Island graphic designer, created the logo for this year’s World Series and nearly had the opportunity to have it displayed at T-Mobile Park if the Seattle Mariners had advanced to the championship round.

With the Mariners’ heartbreaking 4-3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, Hume is disappointed his logo won’t be on the field at T-Mobile Park.

“When it came down to the Mariners getting into the playoffs and then the conference championship and really doing well, it was the idea of seeing my logo all pasted over my hometown that would’ve been great,” Hume said. “It’s not that happy ending to the story I thought it would be.”

Hume has designed different versions of logos for a number of sports teams, including the New England Patriots, Jacksonville Jaguars, Detroit Pistons, the Milwaukee Bucks, the San Diego Padres, the Los Angeles Angels, and the Blue Jays, as well as movies such as Kindergarten Cop and Total Recall. Hume also did work for food companies like General Mills and Budweiser, along with theme parks such as Disneyland and Six Flags Hersheypark in Pennsylvania. He has also worked on designs for the NBA All-Star Game, the Super Bowl, and the city of Bainbridge Island.

Growing up in Iowa, Hume had a passion for art and was known as the best artist in class. When deciding where to go to school to pursue his passion, he decided that he either needed to go to New York or Los Angeles to study graphic design.

He visited the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y, later deciding to go the ArtCenter, where he attended for four years. After graduating, Hume decided to freelance and specialize in lettering and logos.

Freelancing made sense for Hume at the time because he had “good hand skills” and was a “good draftsman.” Now, with computers, Hume notes that everyone is a good artist.

“Now with computers, everybody’s a good artist, pretty much,” Hume said. “So I’m not sure freelancing is the best thing for a young artist, but for me in 1983 when I got out of college, it was a good move.”

Nonetheless, freelancing allowed Hume to get recognized by people at Major League Baseball. The MLB, according to Hume, will “sometimes hire a bunch of people” and then determine what the final World Series logo will be based on whoever came up with the most lucrative or successful ideas or sketches.

Hume typically hand sketches the logos out first because it allows for more freedom and allows him to get the “nuance” with hand sketching before he puts the logo into a computer. When Hume is working with a client, his job is to “polish it up and make it look professional.” For some of the logos, he and the client will go through a variety of sketches and different approaches to eventually reach a finished logo.

“It kind of varies depending on the process and how far along they’ve gotten already,” Hume said.