12 Pentagons Releases the Badly Drawn Ball: A Love Letter to Imperfection

The latest release from experimental football brand 12 Pentagons turns a universal childhood failure into a fully functional, thermo-bonded ball. The Badly Drawn Ball celebrates the charm of human error, born from over 5,000 community drawings and four years of design work.

The Story Behind the Badly Drawn Ball

If you have ever tried to sketch a football from memory, you know the struggle. A circle, some hexagons, the occasional pentagon—yet the result never looks quite right. For Jon-Paul Wheatley, founder of 12 Pentagons, that familiar chaos became the inspiration for his most unusual creation yet.

The idea took shape over four years, fueled by more than 5,000 drawings submitted by the brand’s community. The ball is a 50-panel, irregularly constructed football that is perfectly round yet proudly imperfect. It sits somewhere between a performance piece and an art object, never seeking FIFA approval.

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Turning Community Mistakes Into a 50-Panel Reality

When asked why he would spend years making a football that looks badly drawn, Wheatley’s answer is simple: “Honestly, because I thought it’d be funny.” He describes it as harder to make, worse looking, and a ridiculous thing to spend four years on. But the project grew into something more.

From the thousands of submissions, patterns emerged. Certain errors appeared repeatedly—pentagons touching, panels warping, angles skewing. Wheatley distilled the most common “mistakes” into a single 3D object. The result is a ball that, from every angle, reveals a different badly drawn version. “There are almost infinite bad drawings hiding inside this one ball,” he says.

Badly Drawn Ball 9 Min

Badly Drawn Ball 2 Min

“What I loved was that each drawing felt like a little self-contained story. Sometimes you’d forgive a terrible one once you saw it was drawn by a five-year-old. Other times it felt very special.”

Badly Drawn Ball 3 Min

Badly Drawn Ball 4 Min

The Unexpected Stories Behind the Drawings

Wheatley was surprised by the depth of the submissions. “In all honesty, probably that we didn’t get more willies,” he jokes. But the real surprises were deeply personal. One submission came from an 89-year-old man whose shaky lines were accompanied by a single word: “Parkinsons.” That collection of drawings has become one of Wheatley’s most prized possessions, used on packaging, his laptop, and even displayed in a small pop-up gallery. “It really turned into a community art project,” he notes.

Technical Challenges of Building an Imperfect Ball

Creating a ball that deliberately looks wrong required extraordinary technical effort. A standard 32-panel ball is straightforward—match the edges and it works. With the Badly Drawn Ball, every change creates a ripple effect across the entire design. Wheatley compares it to a spherical jigsaw puzzle where each piece only fits in one place.

“Logistically, it’s a nightmare. It’s way harder than making a standard ball, but that’s part of what makes it interesting.”

Badly Drawn Ball 5 Min

Badly Drawn Ball 6 Min

Why “Worse” Can Be Perfect

This is 12 Pentagons’ first thermo-bonded ball. Wheatley explains that he did not set out to use that technology—he simply wanted the best version of a badly drawn ball possible. An early handmade prototype took weeks and was completely impractical to produce. Thermo-bonding allowed direct printing onto panels, making the ball rounder, waterproof, and more affordable.

“It is worse in some ways. It’s less aerodynamic, irregular, harder to construct. But if the goal is to make a football that looks like a bad drawing, then it’s perfect.”

Badly Drawn Ball 8 Min

Badly Drawn Ball 7 Min

A Celebration of Human Error

Football design usually chases improvement—lighter, rounder, faster. Wheatley sees the Badly Drawn Ball as a meaningful counterpoint. “Things that make no commercial sense elsewhere become possible when you’ve got a community willing to join in,” he says. The ball is an experiment that only 12 Pentagons could produce.

The Curious Object That Baffles and Delights

When asked what reaction would make him happiest, Wheatley describes a simple one: curiosity. “If they pick it up at all with any sense of curiosity, that’s already a win.” He loves that the ball is a puzzling object. “Somewhere down the line, some archaeologist will find one and be baffled.”

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