Wednesday: Farewell HJC

Hey there and Happy New Years Eve Eve HJCers!

I have a lot to say today, so before any of the important info gets buried under paragraphs of whatever, I'll get it out there in the open first.

First off, for those that were wondering about the lack of a Monday post this week, I was going to take the concepts from Monday's post and include them in today's post as a special double length post, but Mr. Jets was able to get a post up really late last night. So click HERE to go read the Monday(Kind of) post.

Second... Congrats to the Rockford IceHogs for winning Dylan N's AHL logo competition. It's great to see my little ol' hometown team held in the highest regard when it comes to logo design. Fantastic!

There's also a COTW vote this week (As there is every week so don't be surprised)

The Olympiques Competition is also off to a good start, don't forget to get your entries in before Friday afternoon!

COTW Dec 20-26 vote (ends Friday @ 4:30pm Eastern)

Olympiques Competition entries (due Friday @ 4:30pm Eastern) 

Ok, so it's been mentioned a few times the last few days, and yes. After almost 3 and a half years as a writer for HJC I'm stepping down. I finally got a big boy real job, with my fancy college degree, and it's going to take up a lot of my time.

As shitty as it feels to leave HJC for the time being, I'm pretty excited for my new job. I'll be a designer at a sports apparel and equipment company where some of my duties will include researching and designing jerseys. Which is exactly what I've been wanting to do for a few years now.

HJC has been a big part of shaping my design career. I was one of those kids growing up who doodled on every piece of homework I ever turned in. A teacher in middle school told me that if I didn't go into graphic design I was wasting my time. And after a graphic design class in high school I had decided it was what I wanted to go into for sure. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do though.

This whole time I followed sites like Icethetics, the Creamer boards, and PuckDrawn (Which sadly isn't around anymore.) As interested as I was in those sites it had never occurred to me to try and design my hockey concepts and send it. I wasn't completely comfortable with Illustrator and Photoshop yet, so I just sat on the sidelines and looked at everyone else's work. It wasn't until I found HJC in early 2012 that I decided it was time to try it out for myself.

This is the first concept I ever sent into HJC. My favorite part..... no ID on the image... God I'm such a hypocrite. Even with that error Ryan gave it a 9/10. So... yay me! After my first concept being received so well I decided this would be a thing I tried to do more often. Ryan then shared the news of the Sarnia Sting alternate jersey contest. 

So with a few concepts under my belt I decided to take a shot. I sent in a concept with 6 of my rough drafts as seen below...

Ryan said his favorite was number five, which I chose and it ended up the winner. So because of HJC, I decided to go into sports design for sure, as well as a top notch portfolio piece in the Sarnia jersey. That jersey will always be something I put first in my portfolio and hang on my wall with pride.

I won despite Ryan saying on a later post regarding my final entry, that he would be voting for frigging Justin Cox... PHHHHHHH. Speaking of Coxy, that's another thing HJC has given me. New friends. Guys like McElroy, Cox, Wonka, and Mat Ware, I talk to those guys all the time whether it be about design, or making fun of their respective NHL teams.... So basically everyone but my team and McElroy's team because we are winners. (tehe) And I've probably interacted with everyone here who has a Twitter account. It's nice to have all these new friends who share this hobby/interest.

There's a lot of other things that HJC has given me. Like an eye for good jersey design and an idea of the current trends (which is a fantastic thing to have, as I found out in a job interview a few weeks ago). I can also pinpoint a dumb stupid knockoff counterfeit China jersey from a mile away. I've helped some people change their counterfeit buying ways. There's some I probably can't remember or won't realize for awhile.

I'll end this here for now... Let's get to the competition entries and concepts for the day.

J3

Phil B.

Ryan C.

Matt G.

And now... Here are the daily concepts.

Prince George Cougars Concept - Anish K.

I like the new Cougars logo. That being said, there are some issues with it that could make it much better. That's not Anish's fault, so I won't really count those shortcomings against him. I can't really decide if I like this overall design or not, but the color balance between the two jerseys is good. There's a lot of pixelation on the logo of the white jersey, but not the black jersey. The name on the back looks off center. The shadowed effect on the numbers isn't that great, especially in these colors. The sock design is trying to mimic the sleeve design but I think it could be done better. My biggest issue is the wavy stripes on the socks. Just stick with straight. The gloves are probably best left to one color. Two different pairs of pants isn't a great move either. Stick with black.

Seems like you have a lot of ideas that could end up being really good, but maybe spread them out between different teams or concepts.

Rating: 6/10


Hartford Whalers Concept - Artem S.

This is essentially the Whalers final jerseys, but Reebok-ified. The socks are slightly different, but I like them better. The front numbers are unnecessary. Ideally the front of a Whalers' jersey is nothing but that beautiful beautiful logo. The new C logo is another unneeded addition. If anything should be on the shoulders it's Pucky the Whale. I don't know why the new logo is a C. It'd make sense if they were the Connecticut Whalers, but then the H-W logo wouldn't make sense. Ditch the C and stick with Pucky. Good Ol' Pucky. #Pucky4President

Rating: 7/10


Atlanta Thrashers Concept - Artem S.

Oh man, I miss the Thrashers. They were always one of my favorite teams before their untimely death. Artem suggests a set of jerseys based on their last white jerseys. Reebok wasn't kind to the Thrashers. None of the Reebok jerseys were my favorites, but if I was to choose one to base a set off of it was their whites. Overall, not the best looking jerseys, but that's on Reebok, not Artem. But I wouldn't have been opposed to the team dropping their maroon football jersey or their powder blue asymmetric jerseys.

Rating: 7.5/10


Miami University RedHawks Concept - Ben S.

Good looking set for a college team. It's a good timeless look. They could wear these for 100 years and who would really complain? It's a shame the bird logo isn't anywhere. I wouldn't mind seeing some black trim in there since it's in the team colors. I think it'd give the look a little bit of an edge. Make em look meeeean! I really like the MIAMI in the chest stripe, it's a shame the chest stripe doesn't go onto the back of the jersey. The only thing I'd change is the hem stripes. On the white jersey I'd keep the bottom thin red stripes so it doesn't look incomplete. Same goes for the red jersey, but if you could keep the white hem that'd be awesome. The hem on the red jersey reminds me of these cheap-o Target fan jerseys.

Rating: 8/10


Hartford Whalers Concept - Dylan T.

Dylan T. gives the Whalers the Adidas treatment. The look is similar to their navy/silver jerseys. I like the move to ditch the silver. The new striping is nice. The alternate would be a great call back to their original jerseys, keep the whole hem white though. The jerseys are nice and should be the focus of the image. The logo at the top doesn't need to be that big. You should try to make the jerseys as big as you can so we can see all the details. The border in the corners is cool and all, but you shouldn't be sacrificing the quality of your concepts for it.

Rating: 8/10


Purdue vs Indiana Concept - Matt G.

This seems to be a Stadium Series jersey vs. a Winter Classic jersey. The Purdue jersey has a very interesting hem. I with the silver/gray stripes were on the sleeves and socks too, just so there weren't so blank feeling. Rather then having the hem stripe meet on the side and form a chevron, I think it'd be cooler if the hem stripe was at less of an angle and went up diagonally across the jersey from the front to somewhere under the number where it'd get cut off. The pants look cool though. As for Indiana, pretty straightforward fauxback/throwback look. No complaints.

Also this
GO BOILERMAKERS
Rating: 8.5/10


Atlanta Thrashers Concept - Taylor R.

Oh boy! TWO Thrashers concepts in one day. I love everything about this. Base a whole set on these, hot damn. The new font is hella good. The striping is interesting and looks really good on the lighter blue jersey. The only thing that doesn't fit in the one white pants stripe. With the amount of striping in the rest of the uniform, you could get away with blank pants. It'd be cool to see their "T" logo on the shoulders but it's fine without them.

Rating: 9/10 and for the final time as a writer... COTW NOM

And that's it, for the last time from me, that's a wrap on Wednesday.

Well maybe not last time. I discussed it with Ryan and maybe I'll be back someday. But for the time being I won't be writing regularly. Maybe someday Ryan will need a guest writer or something. I'll gladly volunteer. Maybe I'll pop up on the design blog since there's no set schedule for that. I'll still pop up in the comments sections.

See you guys!