A Bunch of Uni Concepts for Your Sunday Reading Pleasure

By Phil Hecken

It’s been a long time — far too long — since I’ve run any reader design concepts, and while there haven’t been all that many submissions over the past few months, I do have somewhat of a backlog, and I’d like to get to some of those today. It being the “slow” time between the end of football season and the beginning of baseball season, now’s a good day to check out some of the designs the readers of Uni Watch have sent in. If you have any designs you’d like to submit for our viewing, please shoot me an e-mail with your designs and a brief description. If you have a whole *mess* of concepts (as several readers have in the past), send them my way and perhaps we can design a lede around them.

Now then, onto the concepts (you can click to enlarge).

. . . . . . . . . .

First up today is Douglas Malicki, with a Tennessee Titans concept:

I’m an Art Director here in NYC and a long-time fan of the blog. I’m also a Wisconsin native and love reading about your excursions through that great state. If you ever find yourself in Door County, you need to check out Sister Bay Bowl if you haven’t already.

Anyway, please take a look at my attached Tennessee Titans uniform concept. This is the first in a series of uniform updates I want to do for some teams that could use a little uni-love.

The spirit of the current look remains, but I lost the flames on the logo since I never really liked how that sat on the helmet. To me it makes the “T” and 3 star motif too small. I also made the stars white to relate more to the TN state flag which is a beauty. (I lived there through HS and college).

I lost the pointy “stripes” on the current helmet and replaced them with the motif you see on the left of the image. This motif is also used on the pants. I wanted to bring in just a little more red to respect the origins of the team as the Oilers.

Have a great weekend. Hope you enjoy,

Doug Malicki
DJM Creative

. . . . . . . . . . .

Next up is Steve Meyerson with a logo for the Binghamton Devils:

I am a long time fan of UniWatch and I have never submitted any materials as of yet…

I am a long time hockey fan/Illustrator (the Rangers are my team) and logo / uniform design has been an obsession of mine since I was a kid growing up in the 60’s and 70’s- where I used to make my own jerseys with permanent markers and iron on colored fabric. (Back in those days you couldn’t just walk into a sporting goods store and buy a team jersey so you had to make do with what you had).

Anyway, I came up with a couple of ideas for the Binghamton Devils and thought I’d share them with you. (Even though I am a life-long Ranger fan, I still recognize the Devils logo as one of the best designed in all of sports)

The photoshop work is kind of rough but I think my ideas come across.

The second one I tried to get “clever” a la Hartford Whalers and made the lower bout of the B transform into a “D” so you kind of see it as “B-D”

Would love to hear your views.

Best regards,
Steve Meyerson

. . . . . . . . . .

Next we have Mack Shepard who is trying to solve the throwback/one helmet problem…

Hi team,

This is (not a conventional) solution to the NFL 1 shell policy for the Tampa bay Buccaneers.
Seems almost every team has found some type of work around to their throwbacks except the Bucs.

Additional Rant:
Not a fan of Nike’s recent re-design of the Bucs unis,. micro sized sleeve patches, weird brownish shouldered jerseys, shiny hard to read numbering.. just weird. Ok the new skull-flag is pretty rad, just too large on the helmet.

Really liked Nike’s version before re-design, colors popped, jerseys and pants less “glossy” a bit more “matte” seemed to translate well on tv.

Tampa has some really unique color and logo possibilities, just need a little tweeking here and there.

Uniwatch reader,
Mack Shepard

. . . . . . . . . .

Moving along, our own Rex Henry, the ACC Tracker on SMUW, has an idea on how to change da Raiduhs (and their move to Vegas…):

I designed a Vegas version for the Raiders, changing the silver to gold.
They kept silver in Oakland and LA, so moving away from the coast calls for a new color to match the desert.

Before everyone starts screaming New Orleans Saints, remember the Raiders lack extra color & trim and don’t wear black pants & black socks.

Thanks,
Rex

. . . . . . . . . .

Our next contestant is Nathan Haas who has tinkered with the Vikings Color Rash:

I know you hate purple but kinda like these. But I think the design would be much approved with all gold horns. The white stood out too much and make the design off balanced. See attached.

—
Nathan Haas

. . . . . . . . . .

Next up is Hovie Hawk, who has a simple tweak to #BringBackTheBrown for the Padres…

To me it’s amazing how a uniform can completely transform just by slight tweaking of a color scheme. Love what you do! Thanks.

—

Hovie Hawk
Creative Director
Design Hovie Studios inc.

. . . . . . . . . .

Today’s penultimate concept/tweak comes from Jason Martynowski, who’d like to rename the Cleveland Baseball Club:

I’m not sure if this was suggested before, but if it has been then I wholeheartedly agree with the idea. I don’t really suggest renaming the Indians, just dropping the name and Wahoo and going with The Cleveland Baseball Club.

I grew up not really thinking anything of Wahoo other than it was the logo, I didn’t really humanize it, which in a way is somehow worse. I now completely agree that it needs to go and don’t understand at all the complete and total opposition the (seemingly) majority of the fan base has to dropping the racist caricature. I feel like despite their passion to retain it, this is a losing battle and the league will eventually force it out. The problem I have with this route is that I’m sure the organization will drop the secondary Wahoo logo and keep the name, and we will just go through the same silly argument over the name at some point. I also am not a big fan of going back to the Cleveland Spiders name or any other possible throwback title that I think will land with a thud. So why not just get rid of the nickname all together? Lots of team names in sports are pretty dumb anyways, so instead of naming a team after a popular recent movie or just using an alliteration for no other good reason (Looking at you, Washington Wizards) why not just forego the whole thing?

I also don’t think this would entail much of a “rebranding” either, uniforms can remain similar and they could keep the block C logo. Marketing should be super easy and would probably be the best counter to anyone screaming about the tradition of Chief Wahoo. Hell, what has more Cleveland tradition than Cleveland?

I devised some unis using the templates on the Wikipedia page and my YouDoodle app. I kept the road unis the same, and made the homes similar getting rid of the script “Indians” and replacing with the block “CLEVELAND” from the roads with inverse colors. I REALLY liked the spring training “C” shirts they worse this year, so I basically did that but made them look less spring-trainingy. The 2nd alternate I had fun with making it more of a faux-throwback. I made a “cBc” logo using the letting from their 1921 jerseys commemorating their first championship. Perhaps it looks a little too CBGB, but I like it, damnit.

Jason Martynowski

. . . . . . . . . .

Our final tweak/concept for today comes from Kevin Wallace, who has done a bit of altering on the classic Laker uni:

Can I submit a historical uni-tweak?

This is maybe sacrilegious to uniwatchers. I really like the classic Lakers jersey – it’s certainly a lot better than the current one with the silly collar – but the numbers have always annoyed me. The 3D is weird – it shouldn’t only be on the right side of the numbers and the perspective always looked strange to me, especially when there are two digits as they don’t have a common vanishing point – and if there are two numbers they are too far apart, partly because of the too big shadow/3D. Anyway, attached is my attempt to retrospectively correct Magic’s jersey by making the 3D look more natural and adjusting the spacing.

Kevin Wallace

. . . . . . . . . .

And that’s all for today. I still have more, and I’ll try to run the “uni tweaks & concepts” more often as a sub-lede going forward. If you guys have any tweaks or concepts or even wholescale rebrandings…shoot them my way.

ESPN reminder: In case you missed it Thursday, the results of Paul’s Chargers-redesign contest have finally been published. Enjoy.

Speaking of redesign contests, Paul will have the results of our “Redesign the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Induction Jersey” challenge next week.

Party reminder: Uni Watch party next Sunday, Feb. 19, 3pm, in the back room of the Douglass (which is the same place we used to meet at, Sheep Station, but with a new name). Paul will be there, I’ll be there, and Paul may have theoretical T-shirts to sell, etc. Come join us!

Uni Watch News Ticker
By Phil

Baseball News: With Spring Training starting this week (hallelujah!), you know you need to see this tremendous Roberto Clemente photo (from Bruce Menard). Those may be my favorite Pirate rups ever. … “On mlbshop.com they are selling ‘authentic’ 2017 Flex Base jerseys” says John Gagosian. “The Nationals’ jerseys on that site feature front numbers that are significantly smaller than last year’s. IMO the smaller numbers look puny and lonely over there on the lower right side. Might as well be like the Tigers and Yankees and do without the front numbers entirely.” He seems to have a point. … “In last Sunday’s ticker there was a link to a Bleedcubbieblue article on the Cubs 60th anniversary of their pinstriped uniforms,” says Paul Kosman. The article mentioned that the Cubs added the Cubby bear patch to their shoulder in 1962 and for the first two years the patch was worn on the non-glove hand side of the player.” He contines, “These two cards show the patch on different shoulders. But this card of Jim Brewer shows him with the patch on his hand side, not his glove side. I wrote about this on my Cubs baseball card blog, Wrigley Wax. I included my theory as to how this may have happened.” … Disappointing, but not entirely unexpected: Ashly Elam got a new New Era cap and the New Era logo is sewn on, rather than affixed with glue or heat-pressed. … What’s old is new again. On Friday, Northwestern Softball debuted embroidered helmet logos “modeled after our friends at the @Cubs” (from Clint Richardson). … Jimmer Vilk will really love these retro Astros caps found in the team store at Minute Maid Park (from Denis Costello). … Here’s the Maryland flag script jerseys the Orioles will wear on May 20 (according to John Cannon). … The Miami Marlins are looking for a stadium advertiser and they’d like to have that in place by the All Star break (from Brinke).

NFL/CFL/Football News: The Roughriders showed off the logo celebrating the upcoming inaugural season at the new Mosaic Stadium on their website (from Wade Heidt). … “Back in 1974, visionary Nick G. Zapos had an idea for light-up goal posts,” says Ray Hund. “In fact, I found the patent number for his invention: US3825261. The drawing resembles a Rube Goldberg cartoon, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Different colors could indicate whether a FG/PAT was made or missed — same with a TD. LED lighting makes for many possibilities. And, after reading in Uni-watch the fantastic study of Super Bowl end zone colors over the years, energized goal posts could be added to the design mix in the future.” … CROSSOVER ALERT: The Super Bowl champion Patriots at the Bruins game wearing Bruins sweaters reflecting their own uniform numbers led to Nate Solder wearing Ray Bourque’s retired #77 (from Stephen Hayes, also posted in the Hockey section). … Can a decal detect or prevent concussions? Gene Sanny says, “Interesting: a decal that helps prevent concussions. The only NFL team that would still suffer is the Browns… oh, and the left side of the Steelers :)”

Hockey News: The Wheat Kings wore the 1960s throwback beauties on Friday night. Here is the Wheat Kings’ twitter link showing the uniforms in action (from Wade Heidt). … The Cincy Cyclones had an interesting purple jersey for Fight Cancer Night yesterday, with what appears to be a houndstooth pattern (from Jeff Tasca). They also, um, went with purple ice. … “I’m not sure if these were purely for use in pre-game warmups or if they’re the official in-game pucks, but I noticed some curious AT&T ads on the bottoms of the pucks before (yesterday) afternoon’s Boston vs. Vancouver game at TD Garden,” says a reader who wishes to remain anonymous. “I can’t say I recall ever seeing advertisements on NHL pucks before. Also note the rainbow “You Can Play” initiative stick tape.” … CROSSOVER ALERT: The Super Bowl champion Patriots at the Bruins game wearing Bruins sweaters reflecting their own uniform numbers led to Nate Solder wearing Ray Bourque’s retired #77 (from Stephen Hayes, also posted in the NFL section). … Here is a look at the Dallas Stars 25th Anniversary patch, which according to Dylan Nadwodny, will “presumably be worn” on their sweaters next season. He adds it’s a “screen cap from the 25th Anniversary announcement video.” … Reader Daniel Estabrooks has some in-depth Penguins observations: “I noticed recently that the Penguins appear to have had three slightly different primary logos on their jerseys in the 1980s – one from 1979-80 through 1984-85, a second version from 1985-86 through 1988-89, and a final version from 1989-90 through 1991-92, before they switched to Robo Penguin for the 1992-93 season. They differ in the amount/pattern of white on the penguin’s right arm. Here are some links to cards on COMC.com that show the changes: 1979-80 (small white area above the glove); 1985-86 (large white area above the glove); 1989-90 (no white above the glove). In the 1985-86 link, you’ll notice that the logo featured on the card has no black above the glove, which seems to have always been their “official” logo. So I wonder why they were adding varying amounts of white on the actual jersey.” … Last night Josh Gorges lost his front helmet number and it became partially stuck by the back number (good spot by jeffreybigmoney). … Minnesota and THE Ohio State played a color vs color gray game yesterday (from Patrick Thomas). … The Huntsville Havoc and Mississippi Riverkings went color vs. color yesterday (from BETZ). … The Roanoke Rail Yard Dogs (an SPHL team) wore “Hokie maroon & orange” jerseys last night for their College Night. VT’s Coach Beamer dropped the puck (from Alexander Jones). … Twenty-six years after being drafted by the Quebec Nordiques, Eric Lindros put on the jersey for the first time.

NBA News: According to Darren Rovell, The guys at @FreshBrewedTees are selling a Charles Oakley support shirt where a % actually goes to Oakley. … Perhaps trying to beat Zach to the punch, Mike Chamernik reports on the NBA yesterday: 76ers in blue throwbacks at home against the Heat (in white), as well as Black vs. red between the Hornets and Clippers. … Also from Mike, Russell Westbrook arrived to his game in a Willie Beamen jersey (from Any Given Sunday). Here’s a bit more on that. … The Cleveland Cavaliers Derrick Williams is on a 10 day contract, and he wore 32 on Thursday and wore 3 yesterday (from Kevin Chumra). And here’s why. … More color vs. color yesterday as Indiana and Milwaukee paired up (from Kyle Piercy). … Indeed it was good Mike got his submissions in, because here is the NBA report from Zach Loesl: Couple of interesting pictures from Kevin Durant’s return to OKC; also from Zach: Color on color between LA and Charlotte, and also: Philadelphia wore retro uniforms against Miami. … Also going color vs. color was Boston vs. Utah (from tweeter Zach). Tweeter Tyler Carlson thinks it’s the worst/most confusing color on color ever.

College Hoops News: Check out this classic pic of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Lew Alcindor playing for the UCLA Bruins back in the day (from Sports Paper). … Illinois and Penn State went color vs. color yesterday (from Tom Whitfield). … The CMU women’s hoops team wore pink uniforms yesterday (from Blake Geschke). … Tweeter Spencer Nolet says “volt vs purple actually works. Most colors really clash with volt.” You spelled “all colors” wrong. … Nothing special here, but there is something pleasing to the OCD to see a set up jerseys lined up in numerical order (from UVA Equipment). … THE Ohio State and Maryland went ketchup vs mustard yesterday. Or as Funhouse says, “I am craving a Big Mac. … The University of Oregon, as they are wont to do, went BFBS last night against USC. … Florida State and Notre Dame went color vs. color yesterday (from Andrew Cosentino). … Mississippi State was wearing “cool color-changing jerseys” for their game against South Carolina (from Patrick O’Neill). … Wake Forest wore pink trimmed jerseys yesterday (from James Gilbert). … Here’s a look at those beautiful HBU throwback from last evening (from HBU Basketball).

Soccer News: Apologies if we already saw this (so many reveals and leaks the past day or so), but here’s the leaked New England jersey (from Jeff Israel). Yes, it’s the full kit top now. … There was a halftime jersey swap for Atlanta United in their scrimmage yesterday. Red/black stripe jersey 1st half. New white jerseys were worn in the 2nd half. Yep, they used the second half of their scrimmage to unveil their new away kits (h/t Chris Thorpe).

Grab Bag: Toby Keith was wearing a Waffle House hat at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am yesterday (from Patrick Thomas). … Interesting New Balance high-top cleats for Hofstra Lacrosse (from LaxSportsNet). … Also from Lax Sports, new uniforms for Denver. … From Lee David Wilds comes The Evolution of Roller Derby Style. … The discussion that just won’t die: Charles Fisher writes, “Just a quick note from something in the ticker the other day – the new Air Canada livery isn’t necessarily BFBS. They did include black in their designs as far back as the 1970s at the beginning of the company — including the AIR CANADA being printed in black. Through the 1990’s and into the early 2000’s they had black tail fins with a red maple leaf. So the new livery is really only bringing back an original colour. I don’t think it really qualifies as BFBS even though it does seem like it might. They are also reintroducing the use of the Air Canada rondelle, which they got rid of in favour of just a maple leaf in about 1993.”

And that’s it for today. Thanks to all the concepters who submitted. Keep ’em coming! I’ll be skedaddling early today — taking in a New Jersey Devils game and then curling — so you guys have a great week and I will catch you next weekend — and hopefully will see some of you at the Douglass gathering on Sunday. And a Happy Valentine’s Day to all who celebrate. Till then…

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

.. … ..

“The Ravens were a new franchise who just so happened to have the same owner, coaches, and all the same players as the Browns had the year before.”

— Special K