
Good Thursday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a pleasant Wednesday.
I’m rejoined by Chris Diamond who is back again with Part IV of his latest 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, Part II, click here, or Part III click here.
Chris will be tackling the AFC West today.
Here we go…
Blackouts and Icy Whites: An Alternate Look (Part IV — AFC West)
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 West
Denver Broncos

I am a fan of the Broncos new unis in the most part and I think they translate quite well to this idea with a bit of pant and sock stripe tweaking!
Kansas City Chiefs

The white version is pretty much identical to the team’s current uni, save the helmet. I think it shows that a white helmet could look good with it and is something the team might consider. For the black uni I flipped the red and gold striping as I felt it popped better that way.
Las Vegas Raiders

The Raiders regular unis are already black/white heavy so bringing in full-on versions were easy enough to do. One thing that did pose a question was the logo as that features their helmet. Now in this reality they don’t have a silver helmet so I had to do some tweaking and decided to make different black and white versions.
Los Angeles Chargers

The Chargers regular colours of powder blue and sunshine gold need no tweaking to fit into this idea. In fact all I did was flip the blue and gold in the bolts to better harmonise with the numbers.
Thanks Chris! This is a fun thought experiment. As I said previously, will people see only the large blocks of color (all black and all white) or will they appreciate the subtle team colors found on the numbers and the stripes and the helmet logos? Aside from the Raiders, this is a Division where teams have had pretty distinct colors for a long time. And the Raiders have been Silver and Black for all but three seasons of their sixty-four existence. That being said — and this is pretty near sacrilege — I really like da Raidahs in the all white. And seeing Kansas City in both all white and all black reminded me of my article about the likeliness of the Chiefs getting an alternate.
Readers? What say you?
GTGFTU for today:
Saturday, November 1, 1975
San Diego Chargers (24) at New York Giants (35)
Yeah, that was pretty easy thanks to the Disco NY logo.
Really digging the spatted blue shoes on that ball carrier!
The last NFL game that wasn’t televised.
At least NFL Films was there.
link
I’m sure that’s the right answer … but SD also played at NYG in the preseason that year. August 16, 1975. Have we ruled out the preseason game?
According to GUD the Giants may or may not have had helmet decals in preseason games, and for some of the preseason games that year the decal is blinking. This is a rabbit hole too deep for me right now.
According to the GUD, the Giants weren’t wearing sleeve stripes in the preseason game.
Likely an unpopular opinion, but I think the Chiefs’ BFBS look is the winner here.
Denver B: Not good.
Denver W: Not bad, but not an improvement on their current away uni.
KC B: Awesome! Pretty much what a lot of people have been asking for.
KC W: Very similar to what they have. I prefer R/W/R for the Chiefs, but if they insist on wearing white pants, I think a white helmet improves it. And red and yellow as accent colours diminish the “icy” effect :)
Raiders B: Nice alternative look that wouldn’t be bad once or twice a season.
Raiders W: Ditto.
Chargers B: NO! But swap the black for navy and I think this would be great.
Chargers W: Pretty much what they already wear on the road.
I think if you look at these without thinking of their actual unis (a tricky task) then you do get some good looking uniforms. I agree with you about navy for the Chargers – it would be a sort of mash-up of their 90s and current unis.
1975 Giants/Chargers was a pretty good-looking game. I for one like the disco logo.
For the Raiders, considering its an ICY White look, I would have used the silver numbers on the white jerseys.
I’m actually surprised at how much i really like the Chargers in black. That’s not the worst look I’ve seen for them. But as a Raiders fan, just no.
Of course I love KC in white over white – but that helmet…don’t care for it.
The Chargers do look good in the BFBS – but maybe yellow bolts/numbers trimmed in blue would be a tweak to consider.
Nice artistry, Chris!
Thanks Chris!
Technical note: the thumbnail for this entry is not showing up on the main page.
Hmmm.
It should be there now. Not sure why it wasn’t showing up but I subbed in a new graphic.
GTGFTS
2 July 1960
Dodgers put up 3 more in the 8th (not pictured) to handle the Bucs 6-1 in front of 21,496 at Forbes Field.
As for the rest of the scoreboard:
Yankees score 3 with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th to beat Detroit 7-6.
Indians and Mudcat Grant have no trouble with the Senators, winning 12-2.
Red Sox try to get back into the game, but eventually fall to the A’s 10-6.
White Sox score 7 in the 4th, then hang on to beat the Orioles 8-7.
Reds score 6 in the 8th to overcome the Cubs 13-8.
Bill White misses the HR needed for a cycle, but Cardinals beat Braves 7-1.
Phillies need 11 innings and a Willie McCovey error to beat the Giants 3-2.
What a beautiful old scoreboard! It’s resemblance to the Cubs scoreboard is striking. They both have a similar short rise at the top. Pittsburgh’s was heavy on the white lines boxing in each game. It looks like the Cubs scoreboard is wider as they have enough room to spell out each city. Pittsburgh used abbreviations, giving us DETR’T for Detroit.
The ‘next game here’ line threw me because they include Pittsburgh, which goes without saying.
MASSIVE improvement for the Chargers over what they wear in real life now (that’s right; I said it!!!)
This perfectly illustrates why I’m glad the Chiefs don’t have alternate uniforms and or second helmets. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
If I were starting a team from scratch, I would use those KC colors in a heartbeat.
Gotta update that Padres-Dodgers tracker. Series is all tied now, correct?
If you read my “intro” I mentioned that Alex had sent it to me when the game was 5-0, and wasn’t reflective of the final score or the series. These late games are hell (on him and me).
My bad Phil. I skipped right over the intro and dug right into the graphic. I only learned of the game results this afternoon myself. BTW, the graphic sort of reminds me of those old scorebook covers from the 1950s. Maybe the Cubs? I love that look!
link
No worries!
Thanks Patrick!
Chris: did you try a yellow facemask for the Chargers to see if it would work with BFBS or icy white?