Good Thursday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a good Wednesday. To all those in Hurricane Helene’s path: please be safe!
I’m rejoined by Chris Diamond who is back again with Part II 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.
If you missed Part I, click here.
Chris will be tackling the AFC North today; an interesting proposition, since three of the teams in the Division — the Baltimore Ravens, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and to a certain extent, the Cincinnati Bengals — all have mono-black uniforms. Not only that, but the Browns have an all-white fauxback, and of course the Bengals have their White Bengal alternate. So it’ll be interesting to see how Chris handles these.
Here we go…
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 North
Baltimore Ravens
This is the first time we have a team who use black as a team colour. The Ravens already have a black jersey and so the two look very similar. All I have done is brighten the shade of purple and add in some additional gold trim. This works with both the black and white and I think it makes for a pretty nice looking set of unis that the team could adopt in our reality!
The current Bengals unis use much lighter-touch tiger striping which doesn’t work as well for this concept I feel, so I’ve gone back to the sort of pattern they used in the 80s/90s. Also because the helmet has to be black, the tiger stripes would need to be orange which just doesn’t work either. So I’ve gone with their alt B logo instead. Altogether I feel it makes for quite a nice look for the team.
The Browns are particularly tricky as their brown is near black anyway. I’ve used their alternate white jersey as inspiration for both as the block shadow numbers work really well.
I could have simply used the team’s existing jerseys and added black and white pants, but instead I went for a more old-skool ’50s look. It has a certain purity and simplicity to it that I rather like.
Readers? What say you?
GTGFTS: Nov 20, 1960 at Yankee Stadium. You see the final score. G-Men turn it over 4 times and still win. The rematch was 1 week later in Philly.
Check that. G-Men lost.
Yes. That was the game where Concrete Chuck Bednarik of the Eagles gave a hard hit to Frank Gifford of the Giants, putting him out for the next season (1961). Gifford returned to play three more years.
The Ravens black uniform looks SO much better with pant stripes! It has always annoyed me that the white pants and purple pants have stripes
As I’m sure you know, Andrew, the original 1996 Ravens wore black pants with a solid white stripe: link
Then, in 1997, they added a purple stripe to the white stripe on the black pants: link
In 1998, the dropped the black pants, and had only white pants for six full seasons.
When the black pants returned in 2004, they were stripeless, and have been so since then.
I had actually forgot that those pants had stripes! They’re way too wide. I like the 1998 (current) look significantly more.
As far as the current black uniforms, I vividly remember the reveal. It certainly looks different than modern uniform reveals!
I like them all, more or less, except the awful block shadows for the Browns. I know that they’ve had those on and off over the years, so it’s “accurate,” but they’ve also had stretches without when their uniforms looked so much better.
The Ravens and Bengals number fonts are just generally crappy, but you used what they use, so I understand.
Good work again, Chris!
“…because the helmet has to be black, the tiger stripes would need to be orange which just doesn’t work”
While you shouldn’t mess with one of the best helmet design ever, for this exercise I think a black bucket and orange stripes ‘could’ pass muster…especially since you used that combo for Cleveland ( who BTW are clearly the lone team in this division where a blackout option is ill-suited)
Tje The best part of the Eagles – Giants photo is the NO NETTING PERMITTED sign on the scoreboard.
GTGFTU: September 25, 2023, Lost Angeles Rams (16) at Cincinnati Bengals (19), Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, OH
I immediately recognized the Bengals Quarterback as Joe Burrow, which was my starting point.
During his career, Burrow’s Bengals have played the Los Angeles Rams 3 times. Super Bowl LVI, A 2022 preseason game, and a 2023 regular season game. Super Bowl LVI saw the Bengals wearing black while the Rams wore white. The 2022 preseason game saw a similar uniform matchup, but without the white alternate helmet from the Bengals. That leaves us with the 2023 regular season game.
11-20-1960 Bednarik levels the Giffer. I was at that game in the bleachers. 62,000 or so and you could hear a pin drop. At first we thought Gifford was never getting up.
Every team in this division has a good look here. Bengals x2. Ravens and Steelers in black, browns in white. I personally love the browns block shadow and think they should keep that uni as their main jersey, with white brown or orange pants is fine and have a brown roadie with the block shadow as well, again any color pants (or helmet -orange or white) works. The bengals should keep the orange helmet with the black uni, but the ravens should have a more refined all-black look in their standard wardrobe and I think yours works, although the ravens desperately need to do something about their logos, IMO.
As a Bengals fan, you missed the mark with the black and white. Especially the helmets – the B doesn’t belong. Why not a black helmet with white stripes and a white helmet with black stripes? Honestly even orange stripes on a black helmet is fine – there are helmets out there like that. And why not northwestern stripes on the sleeves like the socks?
“Why not a black helmet with white stripes and a white helmet with black stripes?”
Here’s my why not:
link
link
C’mon, Steelers helmet!?! This is UNI Watch goddammit!
I know, I know. When I first saw Chris’ mockup, I was kinda shocked the decal was on the left side of the helmet. I’m pretty sure Chris knows it’s supposed to go on the right side, but his template doesn’t show reverse angles, so I’m guessing he put it there just to show how it would look…on the other side.
But yeah, that one kinda freaked me out when I first saw it.
I’m a Steelers fan, so yes I know the *real* Steelers don’t have it on the left side. But this isn’t the real Steelers it’s an alternate reality where every teeam wears black or white unis. I guerss I should have put a little note to that effect in the text though to avoid the comment!