Cross-Dressing
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 1:30PM 
I've been gone for a week, miss me?
The other day, I was inventorying some of my graphic design and sports concept works when I stumbled upon this.
That Chicago Blackhawks football uni predates all my IU concepts, my NFL concepts and my NBA Concepts. That was one of the first designs I ever did using the Nike Pro Combat template (Though I'm not quite sure why I gave Pat Kane the Captain's C, why not just put #19?).
When I was reminiscing about my early uni-tweak days, I came across the page of Majestic NHL baseball jerseys. Well, and idea immediately came to mind: What If I redesigned teams' uniforms to fit other sports' jerseys?
I decided to switch around all of Chicago's major sports teams (sorry Fire). My Rules were basic, first, I arbitrarily started but whatever uniform template I dealt with (i.e. basketball), that Chicago team (i.e. the Bulls) would be the next design I would do. This will become clearer soon.
Next, if only because cuts of jerseys are so different, some changes to every uniform had to be made. Most changes fall into one of two categories:
- The design doesn't fit on the template. Or,
- The design change fits the template's sport better than a copy/paste version of the uniform.
Some look better than others - much better - but I think this is a fun idea to play around with uniform design.
On to the Cross-Dressing.
Bears in the NHL - Home and Road - This quickly turned into my favorite design. Old football uniforms and modern NHL uniforms actually have similar cuts. Hell, they look closer than old NFL unis and current NFL unis do. I decided to put the Bear's head logo on the front of the uni to go with the hockey theme but also because it's a great but underutilized logo. The Bears' 'C' makes a perfect captaincy patch.
Blackhawks in the NBA - Home and Road - I decided to put the Hawks in the NBA this time since I had already created NFL unis a while back. In contrast to the Bears in the NFL, I think these concepts are probably the worst in the bunch.
Different colored shorts don't really work in the NBA and the jersey striping is just upsetting but, hey, they can't all be winners. (also, I didn't include their third jerseys since they are featured in the NFL design above)
Bulls in the MLB - Home, Road and Alternate - These I think you'll either love or loath. Now the only real change to the Bulls uniform design is the that front number is moved off-center to fit better with the MLB template. The Bulls' unis actually used to feature off-center front numbers, so it's not even unheard of.
No road grays for obvious reasons and solid color road and alternates may make some baseball purists ill but you could always mix and match pants and jerseys. And with the Bulls playing in the MLB, maybe they bring back the pinstripes.
Cubs in the NFL - Home and Road and Alternates. With both Chicago baseball teams, they really only have three jerseys (home and road pants under the same colored top do not make two alternates) so with the Cubs a brought back the old Blue on Blue pinstripes as a road alternate option.
I also brought back an old 'CHICAGO' font and the old Cub's head logo is on all the left sleeves.
White Sox in the NFL - Home and Road and Alternates. Now I cannot claim this idea as my own, but having two black alternates, one base on the home jersey and the other on the road jersey, is a great way for the Sox to diversify their uniforms (they wear their current black alt for most home and road games - it's getting a bit old).
The thing I liked most about doing these baseball uniforms for a football template was how it shows that a football uniform doesn't just need to be a uni number and that's it. I don't think I'd recomend pinstripes anytime soon but this shows that there's room for design change in football.
Well, that's all for today. As always, I hope you enjoy something and feel free to leave comments or questions.
Chicago, Graphic Design, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Uniform Cencepts in Uniform Concepts
Reader Comments (3)
The Blackhawks road basketball jersey looks fine. The home jersey is reminiscent of the Washington Wizards gold-top/black-shorts combo, i.e., not so eye-pleasing :p
The Cubbies' stripes look out of place on a football jersey, but that's just me.
Bears in the NHL appears to be the best cross-sport transition.
Kudos on another mind-bending tweak-o-rama!