For many Bloomies, crossing the finish line of the annual 7.46-mile race isn't just about beating last year's time — it's also about getting the prized finisher shirt.
As the Monroe Street Bridge comes into view, thoughts running through participants' minds may go something like this: What color will it be? What's the design? I hope people looping back along the course to cheer us on don't spoil the surprise...
For decades, Bloomsday's finisher T-shirt has been a strict secret until race day. Naturally, there's a lot behind the scenes that goes into it all, starting not long after the race is over when the call for shirt design submissions opens for the following year.
This year's artwork for the road race's 49th iteration was created by one of the Inlander's graphic designers, Leslie Douglas. Encouraged to try crafting a winning composition by fellow Inlander designer and production team manager Ali Blackwood, Douglas says she barely finished her design (made in her free time) by the submission deadline last September. When she found out her artwork had been picked for 2025's finisher shirt from among more than 100 submissions a few weeks later, she then had the arduous task of keeping it under wraps for months.
"I was really inspired by the footprint left behind by running shoes, and how they all look different depending on the brand or the shoe style," Douglas says. "And obviously I had to tie in the lilacs."
Created in Adobe Illustrator, her design features a sleek, stylized shoe print made up of a field of pale purple lilac blossoms and green leaves.
"I feel like in the past, a lot of people like to focus on the falls and the bridge, or shapes of runners and the map," she says. "I definitely wanted to do something that hadn't been done before."
When a Bloomsday board member called to tell Douglas her design had been chosen, she says they mentioned how well it would coordinate with this year's off-white T-shirt color.
Michael Kiter, Bloomsday's board president, says the board's dozen members meet early each fall to narrow the field and agree on a winner for the shirt design (designers also get a $1,000 cash prize). They consider a design's overall composition, as well as how it might clash with or complement the T-shirt color, which has usually been decided by then. Another consideration is how unique or similar a design is to past years' shirts.
Kiter says he thinks "the straightforwardness" of Douglas' design caught the board's attention. "A handful of other designs that we looked at, one of them was similar to another shirt, but this one had a bit of uniqueness to it," he says.
For Douglas, who's a Spokane transplant but has family ties to the area, it's an honor to have been chosen.
"This is probably one of the most exciting projects I've done," she says. "Obviously I've done some really cool stuff here at the Inlander, but knowing [thousands] of people are going to be wearing my T-shirt — even the fact that it's a big secret and everybody's finding out as they cross the finish line, and it's like a really big deal, and being able to, when I cross the finish line, hear other people around me react — it's so exciting. The secrecy of it all makes it even more exciting."
Douglas partook in the local spring tradition for the first time last year, and for this year's race she was joined by more than a dozen family members excited to celebrate alongside her. Her parents and brother, as well as her boyfriend's family, all traveled to Spokane to walk Bloomsday together alongside her extended family who live in the area.
"We spend a lot of time designing stuff," she says, reflecting on being a graphic designer by trade, "but it doesn't really get hyped up like that, so I think it's really cool that everyone's paying attention to the design part." ♦
