Marching on Together: A Custom Leeds United Commission

Living where I do, football is a pretty big deal. You can’t go far without seeing the famous colours of our local team, Leeds United.

Recently, I was delighted to receive a custom commission to make a book featuring the Leeds Utd crest. This is actually a design I’ve tackled once before; I sold the original at a craft fair I did last year. It turns out that the person who bought that first book gifted it to a friend, and that recipient loved it so much that they got in touch themselves to order a fresh one to give as a birthday gift to yet another fan of “The Whites.”

It is always such a huge compliment when you get follow-up orders like that, so I was more than happy to get to work remaking this shield. It definitely had me humming “Marching on Together” while I was folding the pages!

For the technical side of things, I used my trusty go-to method. It’s a cut and fold design combined with a 180 fold, which is the technique I use on almost all my books now to get that lovely smooth finish on the edges. To really make the crest pop out from the pages, I inserted black cardstock into the folds to emphasize the sharp lines of the design.

I did spend quite a bit of time debating whether to add colour to this one. Leeds are famous for their vibrant yellow and blue accents, and part of me really wanted to add them in. However, I eventually decided against it. As any sports fan knows, getting the exact shade of team colours is crucial—get it wrong by even a fraction, and it just looks odd. I was too worried about not doing the kit justice, so I stuck to the classic monochrome look, which I think looks very striking.

I am really happy with how this finished piece turned out. I was particularly worried before starting about the famous white rose at the very top of the crest; it has quite a bit of intricate detail and I wasn’t sure if it would show through clearly in folded paper. But actually, it came out looking really crisp and defined.

I really hope the birthday recipient loves their new piece of unique memorabilia!