Jon-Paul Wheatley

I’m a product designer focused on balls and new projects. This website is mostly a dump of assets in my /projects/ folder.

I have trouble staying focused on 1 thing which has lead to a long list of side projects.

Ft. Projects
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A 4 themed ball for legendary defender: Virgil Van Dijk. This ball has 222 panels, made from interlocking 4's. It took over 2 weeks to stitch it all together. I'm glad it's over.

3 months ago,
Saint Louis, MO

2(!) of my balls made it on the cover of the ultimate edition of EAFC 25. I had no idea this was happening. I was asked by an agency (cold email) if I could send a couple of balls to include in a shoot "involving some pro players". That's all I knew. I didn't find out the significance of the shoot until a few months later when I saw the image in instagram!

4 months ago,
Madrid, Spain
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A 360 view of the England ball. This ball was made from all English sourced materials and stitched while traveling around the country. It was pumped up in central London, then carefully put in its final resting place (I hoofed it into the Thames).

4 months ago,
London, UK
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Me, pictured with (roughly) 1,000 balls behind me. We inspected and hand polished them all before they were boxed up ready for shipping. It took a week. Shout out to Allison & Jack for doing 90% of them!

5 months ago,
Earth City, MO
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It came together!!!! The Burberry ball in all its glory. A very fiddly ball in the end, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

6 months ago,
Saint Louis, MO
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A WIP shot of my collaboration with Burberry. They asked me to make a ball from their iconic pattern. These 24 panels are about to become a ball.

6 months ago,
Saint Louis, MO

This timelapse captures a very silly mistake that wasted almost a full week. I'm working on a ball inspired by a classic Man United shirt, and in my quest to match the pattern on the kit I spent a few days figuring out how to screen print. After a few false starts, I individually screen printed a blue gradient on each of the 160+ panels. Only after that was complete did I realize the pattern wasn't going to work and the ball construction needed a completely different approach. 😅

6 months ago,
Saint Louis, MO

A week condensed into ~20 seconds. This is the 'cube ball' which has 30 identical rhombus shaped panels that happen to look like little cubes.

7 months ago,
Saint Louis, MO
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A still pulled from a timelapse stitching up my “idea ball”. It's a ball made from dry erase board material so I can draw all over it to explore new ball ideas. It's a tool. Not meant to be played with.

Watch the full video

8 months ago,
Saint Louis, MO
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Apple TV asked me to make a ball for MLS goalkeeper of the year: Roman Burki. It was an intense week to get it done before the deadline, but I really enjoyed it. The construction is based on the lines on the new away kit with Burki’s number 1 running through the water.

8 months ago,
Saint Louis, MO