Red Pill…Blue Pill

By now, Uni Watchers should be familiar with the fun and quirky Walter Helfer, who most recently graced these “pages” with his “Property Of…” t-shirt concepts (Part 1 and Part 2), but his concepts have been featured on Uni Watch for years.

Walter is back again today with yet another new project, he’s calling “Red Pill, Blue Pill.”

I’ll let him take it from here.

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Red Pill, Blue Pill
by Walter Helfer

America’s colors are well chosen: Similar in value but chromatically dissonant. Ever since pundits started coloring their political maps with red or blue states, we have been conditioned to think of the relation of the two hues as binary, nearly as much as black and white.

Blue is cool; red is hot. On paper, blue is relaxing and stable, but red vibrates. Yet in the dark, the relationship is reversed: Red light is clear and easy to see, but blue is mysterious and fuzzy-edged.

In this spirit, I want to take a new look at teams that have chosen this color scheme, and flip the results. I hope this exercise gives insight into the designs teams use, and satisfy an urge to investigate how things would look had they made the opposite choice.

Today I am going to look at hockey teams, with baseball, football, and basketball to follow.

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COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS

This choice scotches the name Columbus chose for itself, but the Jackets have already indulged in this exercise via the Reverse Retro project. As for me, I wish the team were called the Columbus Discovery, with a big honkin’ Santa Maria in the middle of the sweater. My first impression is how well the shoulder stripes take the coloring, and how good the team’s original logo looks against red. Another issue is how rarely RWB teams use red helmets. It’s as if there were a custom in hockey to make the helmets from the darkest hue in the team’s palette. Columbus uses dark blue rather than royal blue, but royal is closer in value to red.

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FLORIDA PANTHERS

I hesitated to include the Panthers, as their shade of blue is closer to navy, and very neutral. Practically the shade the Chicago Bears use. Also, Florida is not exactly a red and blue team, leaning in on the neutral gold which used to be yellow. Flipping the colors seems to make the uniform look less military, not what the owner had in mind. Rarest of all are blue-sweatered teams with red buckets. Only the WHA Winnipeg Jets made that sartorial choice.

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MONTREAL CANADIENS

I was not prepared for how utterly the change alters the character of the Habs’ uniform; you would not recognize them at all. Royal blue is warmer than dark blue, and the colors really appear to be in a state of conflict. Going blue would cost them the binary relationship they share with their rivals, the Maple Leafs. I am not gonna do red Toronto uniforms. I have enough work to do.

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NEW YORK RANGERS

I knew all along I was going to like red Rangers’ sweaters, especially if I adopted the design from Fred Shero’s first season. Particularly the breezers, with their skinny, detailed soutache trim. It’s a good design, and Paul knew this when he used it for the Uni Watch hockey jerseys.

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WASHINGTON CAPITALS

I had the Capitals, in particular, in mind when I cooked up this project. The white yoke on their red vintage sweaters seems lost, mostly because the white breezers were hastily retired. Originally Washington was going for a candy-cane color scheme for both its uniforms, and the dark blue breezers were, at best, a compromise. A nice feature is on the backs of the jerseys, where player names and numbers are both rendered with red outlines. A particularly rich appearance.

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WINNIPEG JETS

I threw back to WHA uniforms, my favorite. I can’t get over how nice the dark blue yoke goes on the red sweater, especially combined with the blue buckets. And is anything as good as that 1970’s Jets’ roundel?

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Thanks Walter! Fun project — looking forward to your take on the additional sports.

Readers? What say you?