In 2015 Wilson bought Louisville Slugger and in 2016 we started designing the bats in-house, under my creative direction in coordination with the product line manger. This gave the company a chance to develop new design ideas that unified production at the factory in Louisville and overseas together like never before. New themes, technology, and seamless decals all elevated the bat lines to entirely new level.
Below are just a few of the primary and most recent of the best examples of these design features. Including these four major categories, Performance Baseball, Fastpitch, Slowpitch and Wood (plus youth, limited editions, souvenir and special events) the product design team at Wilson was responsible for over 100 new Slugger bats a year and then re-sizing and scaling those design for upwards of 200 different size bats to complete the full production lines.
Wood Bats
Wood bats were always the founding product of Louisville Slugger and with baseball’s steep sense of tradition the bats were slow to change in appearance. A large number of new competitors also appeared in the market and were gaining player’s attention from breaking the rules. The time was right to tighten-up the overall look of the bat naming system and typography, as well as detailed decals that were imperceivable under the top clear-coat and were coordinated more carefully with the colors and stains on the bat.
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/18-0527_ls_htcab_seamless_decals_1920x630.jpg)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/bff90e06090d1bbabd65359265080a8cf7a0b2eb_mlbp123.jpg)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/wtlxxxx_mlb_prime_maple_c271_bl_front_0188.jpg)
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![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/wtlxxxx_mlb_prime_birch_c243_rd_bl_front_0425.jpg)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/players_wkend1.jpg)
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Once the momentum of the improved look of the inline wood bats had shown stronger sales, we stretched out into bolder looks for visibility of the brand at high profile events like the televised MLB Players Weekend in 2019. For each of the 30 MLB we created a LS center brand mark that was styled after the team’s color and identity and paired it with an oversized Team Logo on the other side of the barrel. The bats were real showstoppers and were a very big hit with the players and the fans.
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/six_star.jpg)
Special edition Prime Wood bats like the Six Star not only put more eyes on Slugger in the market but opened a whole new market of consumers that wanted to collect these limiteds, and followers on social that started to appreciate the historic brand making waves in product design.
Performance Baseball
Performance Baseball bats saw sales exceed $12m dollars in 2019. The success of the Meta BBCOR bat, earned it a retail price tag of $500 – Pushing the ceiling higher than any bat before it and it was still flying off the shelves at stores.
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/f7c0fcab815570fa8c63e1be5150f7ac25e57c8f_wbl2465010_8_ls_bbcor_meta_pwr__3_bl_gd.jpg)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/wtlbbmtp9b3_bbcor_meta_prime_19_rd_bl_gl_double-copy.jpg)
Fastpitch Softball
Fastpitch bats is the most competitive of the bat product lines and maintains a very competitive $8m dollars plus in sales in the US alone.
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/5ce5b17ad71661c471a41a02_bats_fp20_v3.jpg)
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![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/rxt.png)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/5ce5b89f952a2264d200e8d3_bats_fp20_v5.jpg)
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![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ls_fp_custom_webbanner_fullregion.jpg)
Slowpitch Softball
Slowpitch is about breaking rules and standing out in the market. The bats here raised the profile of Slugger even further.
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/5d05fc836a936010fe951312_bats_z1k6.jpg)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/5d001782ed749a02b7bb26a1_bats_z1k3.jpg)
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![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/5d03ba16e13f279f07a40087_bats_z1k5.jpg)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/c8781bd7e854cee6123a562b3cb2574a14065933_wtlz5u19p_z5_gr_bu_ye_double.jpg)
![](https://martincimek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/wtllhzo18e_ltd_hyper_z_sr_el_orange_purple_2.jpg)