Scottish Premiership/Scottish Women’s Premier League 1 club Aberdeen have a home right next to the city’s beachfront. The North Sea is even visible through one of the corners of Pittodrie Stadium. So I’m legitimately surprised, in the era of every design having a story, that they’d never gone to the sea for inspiration.
Until now, that is. Next season’s away/second shirt, which was released yesterday, is dark blue with gold accents meant to represent an ocean sunrise or sunset, but probably sunrise since the sea is to the east of the city. I think that idea turned out really well purely by not going overboard (sorry for the sea-based idiom). One way to approach the sun low over water is done by the NWSL’s San Diego Wave when they have a color scheme to match, but another way is to subtly suggest sun reflecting on the water, and it’s a great choice.
The city’s economy is heavily tied to the sea, including through shipping, oil, and wind power, with the club even calling it the “energy capital of Europe.” Both teams’ ads, which are a construction company for the men’s team and a dredger for the women’s team, are also involved in offshore projects. It’s outlined in the release video below.
In short, this was an extremely obvious choice that had simply never been done yet. It helps that some of Aberdeen’s more famous second shirts from the ’90s share the same color scheme.
Unlike those earlier versions, this one probably won’t appear against opponents wearing dark colors. Aberdeen went back to releasing a real third shirt this season after a 15-year gap, as opposed to reusing an old second shirt when needed, and seem to be settling into a pattern where the second shirt is dark and the third shirt is light.
The design of the shorts looks like an Adidas template for next season: the stripes only occupy the part below thin swooshes on the sides, which doesn’t come off that well to me. It feels like something’s missing from the top half. I’ve said several times before when a team has a dark shirt with a prominent lighter accent that I’d like to see shorts in the lighter color, but that’s probably not going to happen here because Aberdeen stick to mono pretty much all the time, whether first-choice red or another color.
The socks are, as usual, pretty basic. This is par for the Aberdeen course.
The Premiership is good for at least one or two great to outstanding designs per season and rarely looks bad. Between this one and Celtic’s new first shirt from last week, I’d say we’re off to a pretty good start.
The 1993/94 away shirt is amazing. Only problem is the double collar but I can definitely overlook that.
The 1995/1997 away shirt is also amazing, in that the designers thought that the Dons would look good in a shirt that looked as though someone had barfed over both shoulders and had vomited up blood as well.
That deep blue is a great color, and really captures the wine-dark hue of the North Sea’s water.