Olympic Hockey Uni Concepts

PuckDrawn reader Eric Westhaver e-mailed me the other day to ask if I had any interest in posting some of his Olympic hockey uniform concepts. Well, of course!

Eric's concepts are designed in that 2-D/pixel-art style. I think I'd go blind trying to design like that, so much credit to Eric on that feat.

Here are a couple of my favorites. You can view the entire Olympic Rebrand album here on Eric's Photobucket page.

.....

On a side and semi-related note, I'm just now starting to push my new blog, SportDrawn.com. It's much like much PuckDrawn, but dedicated to all sports, not just hockey.

So check it out and let me know what you think so far.

And you concept designers are welcome to submit your baseball, basketball, football, and soccer designs!

-SportDrawn.com

Comments

[Gary Punzak]

I like USA, minus the red and white stripes. Fewer stripes would make it look cleaner. Canada is designed nice but maybe too much black? And the Russia jersey is nice, no complaints there.

[Koho]

Very cool, my favorites are Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, and China. I think he may have made the first ever set of professional looking paint templates, that would be nice to share on the template page for some of the people that want to design good looking concepts on paint because they don't have the expensive programs. I'm impressed by this quality in paint.

[johnny griswold]

@Koho -

I agree! It's definitely some quality Paint work here. Perhaps Eric would be willing to share his Paint template for the Template page.

Also, theat program called GIMP is like a free version of Photoshop. I believe I have a link to the download site on my Tutorials page.

[Hockey Week]

I'm impressed with Eric's paint skills (I still love MS Paint), and he has a solid sense of hockey style (which is important, especially in the Reebok era), but I'm going to go through country by country and offer my thoughts.

Overall things - sleeve numbers. definitely should be added to the template for the next set of jerseys. Also, on the flat template, don't round the shoulders past the bottom of the collar. The cut is straight across. Yours definitely adds a bit of an illusion there. Helmets are another thing, light colored jerseys are required to have a light colored helmet (Colorado wanted a black helmet with its white jersey in 1996. The NHL refused to allow it, stating that home helmets needed to be white). Also, please stop putting your logo below the collar. That whole trend is part of the corporate hockey problem!

Belarus - nice and unique, I like it, including the wordmark, and despite my hatred of front numbers. on the white, the colors of the wordmark and numbers need changed, they aren't very readable. Very solid concept. They should use those.

Canada - not a fan, the leaf looks a bit odd, and there's just too much black. Solid attempt, It's just not for me.

China - I like these. The colors are really bright, but that's how their flag is (sorta, anyways). A darker red, and those could be perfect.

Czech Republic - I loved these, my roommate didn't. It reminds me a lot of the Kitchener Rangers' Remembrance Day jerseys I love so much, and if memory serves, is reminiscent of early Czechoslovak sweaters. Nice touch with the 98 throwback thirds. I'd be all in favor of them using this too.

Finland - take it or leave it, nothing special. Kind of a lateral move based on what they usually wear (not including the Nike Swift template)

Germany - major downgrade. Germany has one of the best swift jerseys (which to have any individuality in those is impressive). These just fall flat. Nothing particularly wrong with them, they're just not an upgrade. That said, the third jersey would be a great third jersey for that team. Very reminiscent of imperial Prussia, and is an excellent fauxback.

Latvia - It's better than their Swift jerseys, but not any better than anything they've had before that. I like the attempt to be different, but with that flag, they lend themselves to a more traditional, Montreal Maroons style look (though I like the shoulders)

Norway - don't they wear this now? Perhaps with an exception of NORGE being replaced by the polar bear logo from time to time. It's nice, don't get me wrong, but I swear I've seen those (or something remarkably similar) before.

Russia - That red jersey is glorious! I want one. It's perfect. Powerful, reminiscent of the Soviet era while being remarkably different and Russian. The other two begin to fall flat. The shoulders are unnecessary (I didn't think I'd ever say that), and the sleeve stripes are so different on the white that it's just too much. The blues try to replicate that, but even the red sleeve-endings are too much. I recommend taking the red jersey pattern and replicating it perfectly with swapping white and red everywhere.

Slovakia - I'm torn. I like it, yet something is wrong. Perhaps the hemline stripes are too big. I'm not sure.

Sweden - Don't they already wear something remarkably similar to this now? Tweaks are tweaks, I suppose. The third is ok. Seeing that pattern as home and away might make it a more credible concept.

Switzerland - they also wear something similar. I really like the concept, including keeping the off-center logo. There is one catch though, the socks. Socks should never have a distinguished front and back, they should be parallel stripes the whole way around. That's the only change I'd make.

USA - BEAUTIFUL! Especially the blues. I go back and forth with ending on a white stripe, and considering that the US flag has red on the top and bottom, I recommend eliminating that last white stripe and moving the rest down to fill in that gap. Also, the eagle on the white jersey needs to be blue. These are a lot like the 1976 olympic jerseys, and I love that. If you're going to have a throwback third jersey, it has to be from 1980 though. 1960 was great and all, but didn't mean anywhere near as much, and shouldn't take precedent in our memories.

Again, great customs, all of them. Just some (hopefully) constructive criticisms. I hope you continue posting these on here, because it's really good stuff.

[Eric Westhaver]

Thanks for the criticisms Hockey Week, I'll keep these suggestions in mind if I decide to update these.

For Koho, I'm perfectly fine with Johnny uploading my templates. I'll post 'em up on that Photobucket gallery soon so he can access them.

[Koho]

Thats great! Your professional looking templates in paint will only encourage more concepts for the less experienced designers and those still like to use paint.

[Will]

Favourites are the china, usa, and slovakia ones.

looking forward to the paint templates. would be great for us non-designers who haven't got into the whole photoshop thing. results might not be as polished, but would be great to get an idea across.