Just the Beer Light to Guide Us…

By Phil Hecken

We’ve now concluded our first “rebranding” contest, this one for the Cleveland baseball club, and I’m pleased to announce that our winner is (drumroll)…

Nate Schimelpfenig, who submitted the design you see above — his full submission is here, and after two elimination rounds, Nate outlasted all the competition to become our winner. In fact, in the final showdown, Nate collected 1,764 out of 3,107 votes cast, or 56.78% of the votes cast. Some bar/pie graphs show the results below:

Great job Nate, and by all who entered the contest

Following the voting, I corresponded with Nate, who gave an even more detailed explanation of the thought process that goes into contests such as this.

Phil,

I’ve attached a screen capture of my working file in illustrator for my concept. I could certainly shrink these all down into a .pdfs that you could put out if you wanted. There are 21 different jerseys, 15 different caps, 15 different sock/’rrups combos, my process of creating all the logos and the images I looked at for inspiration. … I strictly used current and past Indians uniforms for inspiration. Being from Minnesota and I know what it is like to lose a team and have new one come in with a completely different look and just not have it be the same. See Stars>Wild. I wanted to honor the franchise’s history, my mantra was if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I kept the franchises colors, current C logo, basically team roads because if I was a Cleveland fan this would make the transition to a new (old) name much easier…

I was selected to be the graphic design intern with my Minnesota Vikings (Paul’s Nightmare: all purple, all the time.) this past season but since the internship ended in February I haven’t been able to find work. This contest has been great for me, it’s been a great confidence booster, it brought me back to the Sports Illustrated for Kids uniform contests I entered as a kid, allowed me to see that people do appreciate my work, (the comment from the guy who sat down with his 75 year old father and they picked my concept together, that was a beautiful thing.) I’m certainly putting it on my resume, I know you guys are certainly aware but industry insider’s do certainly follow and discuss what is going on at UniWatch. on a daily basis. at the lunch table. with Adrian Peterson chiming in occasionally.

Thank you so much for the great work that you do and the exposure you have given my work,

Nate Schimelpfenig

Thank you, Nate. And thanks for the look into your thought processes with this contest. I again also want to thank all the entrants for their time and effort.

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I still haven’t even looked at any of the Washington contest entries as of yet, but I do know there were more of them than the Cleveland contest. I also know that a number of you who entered the Clevo contest are also in the Washington contest, so if you did not make the top 10 or the final 3, your chance for redemption is nigh at hand. I HOPE to have those contest entries up next weekend.

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Colorize This!

Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.

I’m now reaching the end of the colorizations I received from John Turney, and I’ll be running several more today. Couple of non-G&G contributors today as well, so it’s another good one…

Based on the positive comments to the new format, I will again be running the photos in this way — click to enlarge all of the photos below (unless otherwise noted).

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We’ll start with John again, and this time, he actually tweaked one of the photos that I had begun colorizing myself (back when I had some time). Correctly, John surmised I didn’t quite have the colors correct…here’s his interpretation:

This one was on the Uni Watch website a long time ago with Graham in a brown shirt . . . it may have been your work. It was a great beginning but I thought the jersey color was wrong. I think it is Orange and I brightend the Lions helemts and also turned them blue, which I think they are, since Lions wore blue helmets pretty often.

I then added a Kodachrome filter to make colors pop.

(Note: in my defense, I made the shirt orange — just not as bright and colorful as it likely was ;))

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John is on a bit of an Otto Graham kick this time around:

I went ahead and made it Colts, wearing blue shirts with no stripes. It can always be changed.

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Finally, John also finished another photo I had begun colorizing a long time ago. Again, he does a great job (this photo is Sept 15, 1955-Browns [Otto Graham #14] vs Bears [Ed Sprinkle #7])

Here is the finished product.

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Thanks, John. I have one more from John (and it’s outstanding) so I’ll save that for the next edition of Colorize This!

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Next up is another frequent colorizer, Larry Bodnovich:

This is the Columbus Panhandles, 1910’s — The Nesser brothers.

Here is some information about the Columbus Panhandles

“The Columbus outfit is headed by the Nesser Brothers. Big Huskies who are easily the equal of the best football players turned out by the biggest universities in the country.”

Knute Rockne once said of them, “Getting hit by a Nesser is like falling off a moving train.”

I learned about these brothers in the book “The Sunday Game.”

Larry Bodnovich

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Shortly after Larry sent that, he followed up with this:

While looking for more about the Nesser brothers I found this image

And since they are not wearing numbers I am not positive which is the correct view. But the writing on this image in corner makes me think the correct view is in this email.

Not that anybody would tell

Larry Bodnovich

Thanks Larry.

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Finally, we close today with a request, from Ben Traxel:

Phil,

I know the quality isn’t great, but could you see if some of the colorizers would be interested in giving this picture a shot? It is my grandfather, Charles Benjamin Walker, in his Georgia Tech baseball uniform. He played for them back in the 20’s. I have no idea what the color scheme would have been back then. I was named after him but since he died in 1974 when I was only 4 years old I barely new him. I’m told the picture was taken on campus but would have no idea what building he’s standing in front of, or if it even still exists.

Ben

Thanks Ben. OK colorizers — think you guys can do Ben a solid and take a crack at colorizing this for him? It would be a nice challenge and a great public service. OK? OK!

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That’s going to do it for this edition of Colorize This! Back with more next time.

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Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new one set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

And so, lets begin:

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Just one today, since it’s a good one — and somewhat long (which is good, because the descriptions are excellent).

It’s from Brent Becker, who doesn’t so much have a uniform concept as he does an entire University re-branding (click on each image to enlarge):

Hi, Phil,

The recent re-name/re-design contest had me thinking about my college days – I graduated form Bradley University – a small, private institution mostly known for Basketball and Engineering. Even while attending, our “Braves” moniker came under criticism and there were several halfhearted attempts to develop a new mascot and team identity. Bradly currently has the school name, a B-U logo with script “Braves”, and… No mascot… In the spirit of your Cleveland and Washington contest I developed four unique alternate and inoffensive names to represent my Alma Mater, Bradley University:

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“Brave” – Drop the “s”, removing immediate Native American connotation in favor of an abstract notion of “bravery”… and then theme things with a “Medieval Scottish” feel, ala “Braveheart”. The main building on campus, Bradley Hall, would feel very much at home in the moors and highlands of Scotland…

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“Bulldozers” – Bradley is located in Peoria, IL, a city synonymous with machinery manufacturer, Caterpillar! A lot of BU students work for Cat during their studies and after graduation. The “B” Bulldozer alliterates with “Bradley” and has a tough, mechanical feel that would be unique in the NCAA…

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“Gargoyles” – A popular feature of campus architecture, Bradley’s Gargoyles have a deep-rooted tradition and significance among students and alumni. The Gargoyle moniker would be very unique to BU.

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“Fightin’ Squirrels” – Hands-down, a student favorite – this was the popular choice for a mascot replacement while I was a student on The Hilltop. This is due to the abundance of abnormally large and aggressive (hence, fightin’) squirrel population dwelling on campus.

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Anyhow, Phil, I realize the attached imagery has more to do with re-branding a school with no accepted mascot than uniforms per Se… But if you can use it as supplement to the Cleveland/Washington project, please feel free to share with the readers. Thanks!

-Brent

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Thanks Brent. Some excellent ideas there — hopefully you’ve pitched these to your alma mater. Readers? What say you?

Back next weekend with a full set of tweaks, concepts and redesigns.

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Benchies

by Rick Pearson

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“Come back, Toto, come back!”…

Click to enlarge

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Partying like it’s 1972…

Yesterday the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Anaheim California Angels threw back to 1974 (according to their own promotional materials), turning back the clock thirty-eight years…as part of the Rangers’ season-long 40th anniversary celebration (why they didn’t throw back to 1972? I don’t know).

In fact, I’m not so sure that Ranger guide is correct — because the Angels uniforms were not from 1974…they had to be from 1972.

Let’s start with the Angels — Here’s what they wore. That’s a button-down jersey — which is what the Angels wore in 1972. However, by 1974, they had moved to a pullover. They had also moved to the upper case A along with the pullover. Indeed, this 1973 Topps card shows the 1972 button-down. So, the Angels were throwing back to 1972. But as far as getting the details correct for 1972? Looks like they nailed it pretty well:

The Rangers also seemed to nail the 1974 throwback as well. If indeed they were throwing back to 1974 — since they essentially wore the same uniform from 1972 through 1974, they could have been throwing back to 1972.

Back in the day, both teams wore sansabelt pants, which Majestic replicated nicely, and both teams wore button-down jerseys — a rather odd mix (but not unheard of), since many teams who entered the polyester double-knit era did so sporting pullovers with sansabelts. In fact, the Angels did just that beginning in 1973 and continuing through 1978, a look some loved and some hated. The Rangers would also go to a pullover, but it was of the two-button variety from 1975-80, returning to a button-down jersey (while keeping essential the same style) in 1981.

As far as the little details — looks like they got the piping right on the Rangers, as well as NOB treatment in the throwback. They also nailed the little star in the circle on the “R” of “RangerS”. And as previously mentioned, Majestic got the lower case “a” for the Angels, plus the State of California patch, and the McAuliffe font, although it looks as though the sansabelt on the 1972 squad was a bit thinner. Still, good job all around.

You can see more photos here and here and some video here.

I’m looking forward to when the Rangers break out the powder blues (circa 1976), but that’s not until August 11th. In between, they’ll throw back to 1986 on June 16 and 1994 on July 7.

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OK boys and girls, that’s going to do it for today. Hope everyone has a great Mother’s Day (and don’t forget — the big leaguers will be swinging really bright pink bats today). As MLB states, “to raise awareness of breast cancer in the interest of prevention, treatment and a cure. Hundreds of MLB players are expected to use pink Louisville Sluggers, stamped with the MLB breast cancer awareness logo. To further demonstrate their support for the fight against breast cancer, players and on-field personnel will wear a pink ribbon on their uniforms along with pink wrist bands. Commemorative dugout lineup cards also will be pink.”

So what better way to kick off mother’s day than with this…

Have a good one everyone!

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I liked the striped sansabelts, too, but I’m not married to them. — Jim Vilk