An Intensive Critique on the 2024 Austin FC “The Dillo” Kit

As many of you are aware by now, Electronic Arts accidentally leaked a multitude of MLS away kits on EA FC 2024 (formerly FIFA) including the new Austin FC away kit for 2024. This replaces the Sentimiento kit, which was met with skepmintcism initially, but has become the favormint kit of many in the Austin FC fanbase. I’ve previously ranked it as the second best kit in Austin FC history, behind only the OG Verde Black kit.

MLS fans have become accustomed to boring and plain kits from Adidas, and now that this leak has been confirmed. I have to say, this is an absolute triumph of artistic design.

For those unaware, the blocky and pixelated pattern of this kit harkens back to neo-impressionists like Georges Seurat or Paul Signac, the founders of Pointilism, a painting style that uses small dots of color to form a larger image and was originally ridiculed by French art critics. It eventually evolved into Divionism which took the same concept and changed it to using blocks and was popularized by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Jean Metzinger.

A Sunday on La Grand Jatte
George Seurat
1884-1886
Oil on Canvas

This is a vast departure for Adidas, but we’ve seen hints of this in past kits, most notably the 2022 Pride kit, which uses larger blocks of color to form the stairstep design. This is one of the better pre match training top kits we’ve seen since Austin FC started playing in MLS.

My personal expectations were low for the new kit, not just because of my love of the previous away kit, but also at the extreme disappointment of the “Los Voces” (Barcode) kit that makes me regret having eyes. A trend by Adidas designers to take inspiration from great artists of the past makes me hopeful that future kits could build on the success of the Dillo kit. The commitment to the concept of Pointilism, even in the YETI logo font, the Adidas logo, and the jocktag gives it a coherence and unique look that we haven’t seen before from Adidas, and hopefully is a sign of them turning a corner on artistic vision to include nods to the great art movements of the past.