Disclaimer: This concept theme is not based on any kind of exhaustive/extensive research into the hockey history of each country during the war. There were no fabric samples or forensics involved in getting these designs to be historically accurate. If you're a history buff, you'll probably be annoyed. Quite simply, this is an American perspective on how hockey jerseys should have looked if WWII was fought strictly on the ice.
UPDATE: Alternate version alert. After sleeping on it, and reading Link's comments, I've decided to accurately depict Great Britain's crest. And by "accurate" I mean I got rid of the "ENGLAND" text that was originally above the lion's head. PuckDrawn readers always keep me honest.
It was a little difficult to design this jersey because of how much I was reminded of the stinkin' Rangers.
At first I was going to have a brighter color scheme based off of the Union Jack flag, but it was way too bright and campy looking. It would have been fine for the Totally 80's project though.
The crest that I had initially sketched out was going to be three lions on a shield, but the lion started to resemble the one on Team Canada's third jersey logo. I opted for a bolder lion head instead.
After some quick research it became clear that, since the lion is a traditional insignia of Great Britain, I would be using it in some way for their crest.
I came up with MANY color schemes, but nothing worked as well on the sweater as this one. I tried some gold in there as well, but decided to distance myself from a color palette that was too similar to Team Canada's alternate crest.
.....
And that's it! The Totally WWII War-Time Hockey Jersey Concept project is finished. It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed the research, conversations, interactions, and of course the illustration practice I got out of it.
The next thing we move on to is the Canada Vs USA jersey/logo project. It will be good to take a little break and see what other designers come up with. Check out the beginning stages of Canada Vs USA here.
The crest feel small to me, sort of lost on the jersey. Also, England is only a quarter of the countries that make up the UK. So putting England on there and calling it team GB is grossly inaccurate.
Posted by: Link | July 30, 2009 at 07:18 AM
Yeah, as I said in the first paragraph in my post, I took some liberties.
I'm creating an alternate that has no name in the crest. That may be the best solution here because I don't think "Great Britain" or "United Kingdom" will look right in this crest.
Posted by: johnny griswold | July 30, 2009 at 07:49 AM
Think it's your strongest of the whole series. I LIKE that the crest is a bit small-- seems proper for the era.
My only criticism is that your typography is about 10-15 years off-- feels a bit too Modernist for WWII era. Otherwise looks great.
Posted by: Six Zero | July 30, 2009 at 07:58 AM
Six, I got rid of the text issue altogether. It was a problem from the beginning, so I lanced it like an unsightly boil.
Posted by: johnny griswold | July 30, 2009 at 08:01 AM
Oh, and Six, speaking of typography - that was the most difficult aspect of the entire series. Finding attractive fonts that stuck with the times, but still looked like what I wanted in my head was almost impossible. (Impossible on a budget of zero dollars to invest in fonts that is)
Posted by: johnny griswold | July 30, 2009 at 08:11 AM
Your best yet! Stripping is amazing and really captures that WWII UK theme. Love that dark blue on the shoulder, looks great with the white and even better with the two-tone blue.
You're a Flyers fan if I remember correctly. What about a special "UK"/London style jersey for the Leaf v. Flyer game? Logos should remain but something to give each team a British look.
Posted by: Combest | July 30, 2009 at 08:59 AM
Interesting idea, Combest.
Posted by: johnny griswold | July 30, 2009 at 09:14 AM
johnny-- I hear you. Dafont isn't a bad site, but there are hordes of fonts there that're all thinly veiled duplicates of each other.
Actually building a font is not that hard, and there's some pretty cheap software out there. FontCreator is a relatively small program that produces great results.
Posted by: Six Zero | July 30, 2009 at 12:51 PM
I'll have to check out that font creator program. Thanks for the tip.
Posted by: johnny griswold | July 30, 2009 at 01:11 PM
Johnny, has Chris over a Icethetics ever linked to your WWII concepts? I can't remember if that has happened. I think of this only because you've just wrapped up this particular project.
Posted by: Link | July 30, 2009 at 04:39 PM
The lion looks a bit too friendly!! Growl!
Posted by: NHL Hockey Jerseys | September 11, 2009 at 07:08 PM