
Good morning, Uni Watchers. It’s Friday — we made it!
I’m joined this morning by Chris Diamond who is back again with another new project — and this one is bound to raise some hackles. But unlike some of his other concepts, these are most definitely not created with the thought that the teams should adopt them as uniforms; rather it’s a think piece that, in an Orwellian sort of way, may be a look at where the future of uniform design is going (let’s hope not!). But if you’ve been watching the NFL or college football for the past couple years, you’ll notice there continues to be a trend towards wearing all black or all white uniforms.
We even got a real life taste of this back in 2019, during MLB Players Weekend, when every team was given either an all white or all black uniform. Those were particularly loathesome because all wordmarks, striping, logos, etc. were rendered in one color — only the outlines offered any color contrast.
Now, that is an extreme example (and was rightly panned by fans and players alike), but it still offered a taste of possible future uniform design. With the popularity of all black and all white uniforms in football these days, could we be headed there?
Chris wondered what would happen if the NFL went down this road — but, as he will explain, what would happen if teams were to go this route, but to try to create all black and all white uniforms that still maintain a sense of team identity. How is that possible if every team goes all black or all white? Read on…
by Chris Diamond
“Blackouts” and “Icy Whites” – two words that usually arouse the ire of UWers. But two styles that are currently very popular in uniform design that show no sign of becoming unfashionable any time soon. For any who are unfamiliar with the terms, Blackouts are uniforms where every uniform part is black, with team colours only present as trim or highlights. Icy Whites are the polar (pardon the pun) opposite – every uniform part is white with team colour elements. They are often branded as “lazy” or “pandering to merchandising” — both of which are probably true about some designs. People have commented about football being turned into some kind of visual chess match or ballet, and, in fact, way back in 1986 UK TV Channel 4’s NFL coverage was eerily prescient about the trend!
But… is it possible to create a blackout and icy white for each team and for them *not* to look like a design afterthought? To give them some kind of design integrity so they look purposeful? Well that is what I am going to try and do here! These will not necessarily be direct blacking or whiting of teams’ existing designs, but re-workings that introduce additional design elements. This is important if every team has a black or white uniform as you need additional elements to set teams apart. Note this will include liberal use of stripes!
Inevitably lots of you are going to hate these with a passion, but that is OK because this isn’t a contest to find new uniforms or replace existing ones. Instead it’s to consider an alternate world where each team having a black and white uniform is just how it is, in the same way that in baseball each team has home whites and road greys (at least that used to be true). That seems natural, so why couldn’t this? So try and look at this in that light and not as designs for Nike to try and push more merch!
AFC East
Buffalo Bills

The Bills are one team where the current uniforms don’t translate to this scheme. So I’ve added new stripe design elements based on the logo. I’ve also lightened the blue to give more contrasts with the black.

Teams without dark colours or black are easiest to adapt to this scheme, and for the ‘Phins I’ve just created a sort of hybrid of the classic and new uni designs. I’ve also modded the logo to make the sun solid orange as I feel it works better than the white sun they have.

With a bit of careful silver trim, the Pats’ UCLA stripes work with the scheme and are the reverse of the Bills so no confusion!

The real-life Jets already had a black jersey with their old template. But this uses the current sack-exchange set as the base and feels more cohesive to me.
[While we haven’t seen it on the field, the new Jets uniform also has a BFBS alternate — PH]
Readers? What say you?
GTGFTS The last Football game Stanford played with the nickname “Indians”. Stanford 13 Michigan 12 1972 Rose Bowl
GTGFTU: 11/03/2019 – Cleveland Browns (19) at Denver Broncos (24); Empower Field at Mile High.
Wow. Looks like that MLS weekend with the recycled plastic jerseys and/or the Players Weekend a few years ago.
Bad idea then, bad idea now.
While I can appreciate the concepts of the black out and icy whites, this is a trend that I really wish would go away, although I know it isn’t going to any time soon.
They always look better as art concepts than they do on the field.
I would suggest all the blacks have white number outlining involved if the numbers aren’t white, for readability.
Yeah or flip the colors. Blue numbers on a black jersey are just never going to be legible.
But I could 100% believe it’s what they’d do.
At least the Jets helmets and uniforms match here. And no giant collars. Their current glossy moss green helmets and Kelly green uniforms with huge white collars look terrible. Love the sack exchange logo though.
The white collars are comically large. Looks ridiculous.
The collars are a good look.
I love this!
However, I would suggest not doing eight posts on this topic… Maybe one more for the rest of the AFC, and then another for the whole NFC?
Thanks Charlie! Is there a particular reason you don’t want this chunked by division like other pieces of this type have been? In the old days of one or two posts a day I can see it might feel meager. But with Phil’s prolific 5+ posts a day it’s only ever going to be a small part of the day – like watching a TV series one episode a week rather than binge-watching it in one go?
I would have no problem seeing individual posts for each division. I was more so thinking of the response from the rest of the readership, who might not be as enthused.
Catalog:
I’m of the age that this WAS the best page ever… but I’m glad times have changed.
The first thing I noticed was zero brown kids or girls. Ugh.
Gotta milk that content lol
Yes, I’m a little surprised that this Penneys catalog is from 1970 and all the boys are white. If it were today, we might also be surprised that they were all boys.
Also, what’s with the uni numbers: mostly 44, with a few 33 and 55 and nothing else? Surprised there aren’t any quarterback numbers.
Should mention there were also no black kids…and no Asian kids…or Polynesian kids…or Scandinavian…or Latino…or Peruvian or Native American…think that covers it
We all know damn well there wouldnt be sock stripes. Teams dont like us enough. We are getting full yoga pants.
You’re thinking of *this* reality Mike where there are coloured uniforms. And compare it with baseball where you have a similar setup (white/grey instead of black/white). Most MLB teams have stripes on their uniforms. And the few that don’t (e.g. Dodgers, Athletics) people often like them because they are clean simple designs. The same sort of thing you hear about the icy whites in Football. Why is one good and the other bad?
I have most of the Rawlings HNFL helmets.
Never thought of the dolphins logo as a sun. While the dolphin has never actually been depicted as “through” the orange ring, I always thought of it as a ring of fire that a trained dolphin would jump through in the old seaworld/circus days. I suppose they probably want people to imagine it as a sun now because animal rights and such. But yeah, I always assumed it was a ring of fire.
It has always always always always been a sun.
Ok ok ok ok. It reads like a hoop. And the team used to make dolphins jump through hoops to promote the team so that’s how I interpreted it. It’s a sun.
In the 1990s, Rawlings tried to make solid white baseball uniforms a “thing”, but I never saw one in the wild. Only the stitching was in color; red for the Braves and Phillies, blue for the Dodgers.
I cannot STAND the term ‘icy whites’ when the next-most used color is a warm color, like red or yellow.
Arizona State! You are the SUN DEVILS. The numbers, stripes, decals, and every single other element on your all-white uniform is both implicitly and explicitly meant to LOOK LIKE FIRE. The uniforms are NOT ICY.
Leave the term to the Penn States and Kentuckys and UNCs of the world.
Since designers have to work with a white base, team colors tend to be dark to maximize contrast. Only a few teams have a bright palette: the Chiefs, the Rams, the Lions, the Oilers, the Chargers, and the ’76 Buccaneers. Against black, those colors are dynamite. But in the real world, team colors would need to be made more neon to function against the dark background.
Good point walter and one I’ve been trying to figure in to the designs. One problem is neon works on black, but would look invisible on white. So you need to find something in-between that works on both.
Good substitutions would include Royal blue for dark blue, fuschia for purple, Kelly green for Forest green, and hot red for maroon.
I’ve never been a fan of all-black unis and especially when black isn’t a part of your color scheme. For the Dolphins, an all-black uni set just doesn’t make sense in the South Florida heat.
they’d wear it at night like the U does
I’ve always been a big fan of the all white look in football, especially with teams that already have white helmets. I also like when helmets and pants match when wearing a white jersey, and that includes when the color is white. The Bills and Dolphins look great here, and even the Pats and Jets look pretty good with white lids. The black on the other hand looks horrible.
The Dolphins black is my favorite of the bunch as a concept, but like many others I’m not a fan of mono black or white.
Yeah, I’d say it’s not a bad look but it’s not really the Dolphins.
Great work, as always, Chris! I’m on record as not being a fan of BFBS, but these mock-ups are well-conceived of as a thought piece and well-executed.
I’m surprised at how well the Dolphin’s colors work on a black palette. Everyone else’s? Meh. It’s what I would expect from BFBS. The “icy whites” all work reasonably well because the darker colors generally work better on a white palette.
Blackouts/whiteouts: no. God, please, no.
If we can’t all agree that most teams (In this case, the entire AFC E) look terrific in white over white away…surely we can come to together and say that Chris’ concepts are terrific!
Well done!
More use of the terms blackout and icy…
Swirling the bottom of the uniform barrel.
But appreciate Chris’ work visualizing how bad this trend is. This will probably be the best looking division given the AFC East has a history of legit white helmets to begin with.
Thanks Greg! I really don’t know yet which teams are going to work. That is part of the fun of doing a series like this.
I actually saw a co-worker today wearing a black Buffalo Bills jersey that looked just like this, but with no sleeve striping. The interesting thing is that the jersey had Nike logos (I suppose it could be a counterfeit), and looked to be of the same fabric and quality of other replica jerseys.
As for this concept itself, I surprisingly don’t hate it like I thought I would. But I’m not sure I would want to see this on the field. I am interested to see what you come up with for teams that have black as their dominant color, and particularly teams like the Ravens, Saints, and Steelers who already have all-black combos.
Thanks Joe! Yes the teams that already use black are the most interesting challenge. AFC North up next so Bengals, Ravens and Steelers!
For all four of these I really like the “Icy Whites” and I really hate the “Blackouts”
I especially love the Jets’ “Icy Whites.” I am a Jets fan who came up in the Chad Pennington and Mark Sanchez eras, so to me, the Jets are “supposed” to wear white helmets with a green logo.
I hate BFBS but having block numbers, classic pants stripes, sleeve stripes, striped socks and no extraneous doodads make these better than a lot of the current unis.
I think the Jets should do something different by making a gray/silver 2nd alternate uniform. I’ve seen some pretty cool concepts.
Please stop with the AFC North. I don’t want to see any other teams like this, especially my NFC North. I may love and support one team and loathe the other three, but I do like (for the most part) all the current uniforms in the NFC North.
What a sad, dreary world this would be. I’ll rank these: Miami > NYJ > Bills = Pats.
If it’s done well, I might actually like black Dolphins uniform better than some of their past alternates. Jets have basically done theirs already. If I were a Pats or Bills fan, these would be my nightmare. I think New England’s stripes should always be red and white.
While I don’t subscribe to the idea that every team must declare itself as either a red team or a blue team, I do think that BFBS is at its worst for those nonbinary red/blue teams (like the Bills, Pats, LA Clippers, Texas Rangers, Barca, etc). The black sort of takes over and everything else is just visual clutter, which makes the last vestiges of visual identity evaporate.