Obsessive? Certainly. Compulsive? Not Yet.

I have an unhealthy obsession with sports uniforms.

Well, not so much unhealthy as unusual...

Ever since I was a little kid, I've been critiquing, sketching and creating new logos and jerseys for my favorite teams. Whenever an NFL team would roll out a new uniform design, it would immediately catch my imagination. This is probably why the Denver Broncos, Tennessee Titans and Atlanta Falcons all became my favorite non-Bears football team shortly after they redesigned their uniforms and logos.

I went so far as to own a road Eddie George Jersey, a red Mike Vick jersey and a black customized Falcons jersey (O Brien #16, of course).

My favorite part about each new Madden or NCAA Football video game was the create your own team feature. You could do anything, make the Bears in college, the NU Wildcats in the NFL. Hell, you could even make your high school.

Now, the mere fact that this feature existed seems to say that uniform creation was and is popular, but I took this to the next level. To create teams, I would study photographs and histories to come up with the most accurate depiction in games. It became obsessive.

But then - seemingly out of nowhere - the feature to create uniforms either vanished from all games or was reduced to such a pitiful state that it wasn't fun anymore. And so my obsession went away.

While in college, I happened to come across an ESPN.com article titled Uni Watch. To my delectation, the entire article - authored by self-acknowledged uni-phile Paul Lukas - was devoted to the minutia of uniform stripes, logos, color scheme inconsistencies and other wonderfully banal uniform tedium that I adore and others abhor - or just don't give a shit about.

Ever since then, Lukas' periodic ESPN articles and his uniform blog, uniwatchblog.com has been a refuge for people like me who think this is inane, this is hideous and this is beautiful.

If that were not enough EA Sports made up for the few years where their games did not have good - or any - uniform or logo creation modes with TeamBuilder.

Based on the simple idea that people want to be able to edit and create uniforms with maximum customization and their own uniforms, the game developer created a website that has allowed them to make the most in depth uniform editor ever while allowing their games to focus on gameplay and graphics. Now all you have to do is create to you heart's content and then download the team to your game system.

I have gone a bit nuts with it since I found it, mostly because it has resparked my interest in uniform design. Here are just some of what I have done:

My version of the Hoosiers: Home Away

What the Hoosiers might look like with some blue in their uniforms: Idea 1 Idea 2

If the Blackhawks played football: Home Away Home Alternate Away Alternate

My theoretical fantasy football team: Home Away Alternate

Unis for the sports blog I write for: Home Away Home Alternate Away Alternate

And that last set brings me to something else, the rekindled obsession with uniform creation has meant football was not enough. The only problem with this is that I have to do other sports uniforms by hand in Photoshop, which is much harder to do since that's not what the program is ideally made for.

Take these basketball unis I did for the sports blog. This and This were the starting points which evolved into This This and This and that last one led to This and This and after I found a better mold I came up with these: Home Away

I'm even doing this for teams I don't care about, like the Ottawa Senators.

It's a drug and it's killing my free time.

The funniest part about all this is how many odd looks I get from people when I notice things uniform based - Like how I know what a Northwestern stripe is and I'm glad Northwestern is wearing them again this year. My defense to these unwarranted stares has always been that I watch these teams for hours every week, days every year and I know what it aesthetically pleasing and I certainly know what isn't. This obsession is an extension of my love of these teams and sports.

Just a few weeks back I was watching a Bears game and Fox cut to a highlight of the Vikings who were wearing all purple which I think - as I noted aloud - makes your team look like their wearing unitards. Emphasis on the Tards.

I got strange looks and one of my hosts just said, "Uh, Tim, is there something you need to tell us?"

Yes. Yes there is: That looks stupid.

These Are What Indiana's Uniforms Should Look Like.

Last December, when there were rumors that Indiana would be changing it's classic/plain/boring/Oklahoma ripoff uniforms I was excited. As a recent graduate of IU ('10) and an avid college football fan, I was hopeful that a tasteful upgrade of our already decent uniform would mean we would start to have our own strong yet classic visual identity.

That is, until I saw this...

Now that image doesn't look too bad (it could have been a lot worse). The jersey echoes the double stripe from the old helmet and pants on the shoulders and the "HOOSIERS" is intact on the front but the rest of the image is a bit disturbing (even ignoring the mannequin's missing hand [FTW]). There appeared to be white side paneling (and a lot of it) on the jersey, the numeral font was atrocious, the collar was less than stellar and the pants seemed to have changed but that was unclear. But it was rumored that this was one of many prototypes shown to IU.

Well, spring practice rolled around and we got a glimpse of the actual new unis. Shit. The only real difference between the prototype and the actual unis is that they fixed the numeral font. Worst of all the pant change was confirmed. Overall, the pants, jersey side piping and collar all look terrible. So I set out to fix these issues thanks to EA Sports in depth online uniform editor, TeamBuilder.

HOME

For the Home Jersey I decided to start off by flipping the colors of the IU helmet. I love white helmets with white facemasks. I don't know why, I just do.

From there I took the new jersey and removed the side paneling. I'm not supper attached to the white stripe at the bottom of the sleeves but I like how it makes the red pop even more. I reduced the size of the white collar but I liked the shape of new unis' so I kept that aspect of it.

As for the pants, don't fix what ain't broke. They are the exact same pants the Hoosiers wore in '09.

AWAY

Here is where I bring back IU's current helmet - sort of. I tweaked it by adding a white facemask, which it used to have before the addition of the stripes so I don't feel like this is too far of a stretch.

The jersey, yet again, is just the new uni sans side panel. Nothing world beating.

As for the pants, don't fix what ain't broke. They are the exact same pants the Hoosiers wore in '09 (sound familiar?).

ALTERNATE

Finally, TeamBuilder allows you to create alternate jerseys so based on this photo showing a 1950s Hoosier team sporting some beautius baby blues, I decided to render a modern day version of this Hoosier "classic".

The helmet in the picture proves this is from the 1950s. The Hoosiers sported a white helmet with a single red stripe from 1949 until 1955 when numerals were added to both sides for the next three seasons. It is hard to tell which helmet they are wearing but it appears to be the '56-'58 type. I, however, couldnt add numbers that looked right so I went with the earlier version.

The jerseys: What can you say? Beautiful.

The pants: Plain as the day is long, so I added the IU logo.