Tuesday: Black and Blue

Hello internet, welcome back to HJC for the Tuesday post. Since all of our concepts today feature a black or blue sweaters, I'm running with the theme of "things that are weak" and sharing my three worst Reebok Edge sweaters, since I wasn't able to on our latest weekly podcast.

3) 2007-2016 Pittsburgh Penguins Home/Away

Source

The lack of hem stripe, paint-bucket-fill design, and lack of awareness of the "No Show Zone" wasn't quite enough to land this terrible jersey on the list, but the colors were just enough to push it one over the edge. Changing from Pittsburgh gold to Vegas gold senselessly broke fans' shared pride of the Steelers, Pirates, and city as a whole.

2) 2015 Los Angeles Kings Stadium Series

Source

Has any team ever pulled off white pants? I doubt it. A mess in failing to balance white with a light grey cemented this look's place in the ash heap of hockey jersey history.

1) 2007-2011 Edmonton Oilers Home/Away

Source

If it's not broken, throw it away and start from scratch? Take the lead from Nancy Reagan and just say no.

Moving on, I wanted to give a quick message to our newer readers. For those who don't know, the vast minority of concepts come from the writing team. The overwhelming majority are done by you, the readers. It's easy to get started; check out our tutorial section for tips and tricks to getting started. I'd also like to share my own:

- Don't be discouraged if your concepts don't receive high ratings. In fact, you'll probably get low ratings for a while. Take the advice of the writing team, apply it to new ideas, and don't get hung up on Concept of the Week nominations or contest votes. They'll only come in time with experience.

- Send in one at a time. Make several at once if you feel inclined to, but hold on to later ones until you get feedback on your latest submission. Take the feedback and apply it to later concepts. If you send in several with similar errors, you won't have a chance to make an easy upgrade that could impact your rating.

- Just do something. Don't get hung up trying to make the perfect striping pattern or picking the perfect precedent. Take an idea and run with it. If you come up with a better idea later, you can always make a new concept.

When you're ready to submit your work, send it to concepts@hockeyjerseyconcepts.com. Even if you're not interested in submitting concepts, help contribute to the blog by voting in our weekly contests. We always have a Concept of the Week vote, and this week, we have our Concept of the Month vote for November.

Our ongoing Devils competition ends Friday at noon! If you haven't started by now, you're running short on time. Here are the latest entries:

Jordan R.

Alexa N.

Ryan H.

COTW NOV 24-30 Vote (Ends Friday @ noon EST)

COTW November Vote (Ends Friday @ noon EST)

NJD ReDesign Competition Entries (due Friday @ noon EST) 

That's enough of an intro, let's get to those concepts!

Jack S.- Merrimack College Warriors

Jack S starts us off in North Andover, Massachusetts, for his first of two cawlidge hawkey schools. It's an interesting idea to have separate designs for a home and road set, but I don't see the point of it here, especially since both use the same logo and name/number set. It also leads to a number of consistency issues. On the road (dark is road in NCAA), there's an even numbered, thin stripe pattern that's not consistent with anything else in the set. The home has an issue with white and yellow, as the yellow stripe between the white and blue is too awkward of a transition. The outline on the numbers on the back looks out of place next to the TV numbers, especially on the road where there aren't any white stripes. Jack's execution is improving, though the Hockey East logo in the collar is a jersey foul, especially on the road where its camouflaged. The TV numbers should be brought down a smidge, as they're currently looking compressed by the yoke.

Grade: D-

Jack S.- Providence College Friars

Jack moves us south to Rhode Island for our next stop in his Hockey East series. Here I can see reason to change up the designs from home to away, but wouldn't it make more sense to put the school name on the road, and just the letter on the home? From a school pride or a brand view, that's the approach I would have taken. What is helping the pride or brand aspect is the font, as it all fits together holistically. The striping used is not working, as the black stripes are far too thin to make the white stand out against the black. Again, see above for issues regarding the conference logo and TV numbers. An additional issue regarding the TV numbers on the home is their near illegibility against a white background.

Grade: D+

Lucas D.- Chicago Blackhawks

Lucas D moves us out of amateur hockey to professional hockey with a design for *sigh* yet another Blackhawks outdoor game. It's getting hard to come up with something different for the Hawks to use, but Lucas gives his best shot by throwing back to the late 30's to mid 50's. The basic idea of red-white-red-white chest stripe remains, but drastically simplifies the remainder of the jersey to fit the more modern aesthetic and de-clutter the look. It's one of the few undeveloped looks Chicago hasn't thrown back too, and I like how Lucas ran with it, while simultaneously making it his own. What I'm not completely sold on is how far simplified the rest of the jersey is; it seems to me like a white stripe is missing from either the yoke or hem area. The blank pants aren't helping this look either, as the lack of red throws the color balance of the whole set off.

Grade: B+

Ryan H.- Edmonton Oilers

The Boss shares his idea for next season's Oilers third jersey. The team seemingly committed to orange as their primary color for the time being, so a head-to-toe blue look (I'm assuming the gear would be the same as the home uniform) was the best choice for an alternate. It may have been tempting to add an orange yoke to match the Gretzky era look, but omitting it works best to differentiate it from the current home and road sets. Adding that shoulder patch was a great way keep visual interest at the shoulders with a vacant orange yoke, too. This may be nitpicking, but an orange collar with a white accent would have better fit the set to match the striping. Similarly, on the gear shoulder patch, that silver isn't anywhere else on the jersey, so recoloring that part would have helped the design to be more coherent as a whole, right down to the nitty gritty details.

Grade: A-

My COTW nomination goes to Ryan H's Edmonton Oilers concept. That wraps us up today, be sure to get your Devils entry in soon, and keep your stick on the ice.