officeglenn

Wolverhampton is a weird one to me. Like, technically, their name is Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, but they usually go by Wolves, their website URL is wolves.co.uk, and their crest is a wolf. So their crest just being a wolf by itself, without any words/lettering, sort of made sense to me -- or, at the very least, it didn't add to the confusion. By adding the "Wolverhampton" and "Wolves" text here, though, I think that does add to the confusion. The shape of the shield is nice, and the cross and even the "1877" would be nice additions, but other than that, I don't think any words are necessary. Commenting on what's here, though -- I can see you've distorted "WOLVES" a bit vertically. That makes the edge of the S not line up with the shape of the shield, which throws things off for me. I realize it's kind of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation because of the angle of the W on the other side, but I think we're used to seeing the angles of Ws and filling in that space in our brains, so keeping it straight up and down would be less jarring than it is now. Another alternative would be to alter the shape of the shield to match the wolf's head more. Bring in the top corners so it tapers toward the top. It wouldn't have to be by much -- it wouldn't have to come to a point or anything drastic -- but it could help line things up visually. Then you could distort "WOLVES" to match that taper.

(Click for larger version) From my writeup on the mothership: Quetzalcóatl as depicted in the Codex Borgia. (Graphic courtesy Wikipedia) A performer wears a copilli headdress during the Mexican national team kit unveiling on Friday, July 7. (Courtesy @miseleccionmx / Twitter)

Manchester United home: Aston Villa home: Wolverhampton away: Union Berlin home: VfB Stuttgart away: Bayer Leverkusen away and third: 1. FC Koln away: ACF Fiorentina home and away: Hellas Verona away: Valencia CF home -- with throwback crest celebrating 100th anniversary of their stadium:

Fair enough, but if the Oilers haven't changed it by now, they're probably not going to. It's not necessarily a timeless design – or even a good design by today's standards – but it has become difficult for fans (and by extension the team) to fathom a change just because it has been around so long. I've seen a concepts around here that clean up the logo, make the letters follow the outer circle better, etc., and that might fly, but anything else will go over with the fanbase like a fart in church. To me, the worst part of the current set isn't the navy blue; it's the pale highlighter orange. I feel like they could keep the navy blue and go back to the old orange, and that could be a nice compromise that grounds their identity without getting too far into Islanders territory.

Bayer Leverkusen home: Girona FC home, away and third: Real Valladolid home: And AFC Bournemouth cranking up the volume on their usual red and black vertical stripes: Plus a story I wrote for the mothership on Premier League clubs holding a vote on voluntarily banning betting firms from buying front-of-shirt advertising space. Doing so may keep such a ban from being written into law by the UK government, and also preserve pitchside ad revenue and kit sponsorship deals for lower leagues.

SS Lazio home and away -- first kits with Mizuno: Bologna FC home and away: Real Sociedad home and away: Real Betis home and GK -- first kits with Hummel:

AC Milan home: Atalanta third: Southampton away (!!): Lille home - a modernization of their 2011-12 home kits, in which they won the domestic double: Lille away: Hertha Berlin home and away: Union Berlin away: Schalke 04 third:

Another massive writeup on the mothership today covering 18 kits from 12 clubs in six countries. Top row (L-R): Olympique Marseille home OGC Nice third, home and away RC Lens away ESTAC Troyes home Middle row (L-R): ESTAC Troyes away Angers SCO home Angers SCO away Besiktas JK away, third and home Bottom row (L-R): Hellas Verona home SL Benfica home Sporting CP away PSC Eindhoven home Feyenoord home Celtic FC home

Here's a whole bunch that I wrote up for the mothership: Top row (L-R): Real Madrid away RCD Espanyol third, home, away RCD Mallorca home Middle row (L-R): Sevilla FC away, home Everton home Nottingham Forest home 1. FC Koln home Bottom row (L-R): SC Freiburg third, home, away Borussia Monchengladbach third Werder Bremen home (which my wife described as an "MS Paint spray paint tool extravaganza") There's at least that many more from France, Italy and other countries that I haven't gotten to yet and probably won't have a chance to get to until tomorrow -- by which time even more could be on the pile.

Buckle up, there have been quite a few unveilings over the past few days. Paris Saint-Germain home: Southampton home — inspired by “the flamboyant and free-flowing Saints side of the early ’80s": Newcastle third: Schalke 04 home: FC Augsburg home, away and third: Union Berlin third: Atalanta home and away:

Barcelona away -- keeps the Olympic theme going with the gold color and the sleeve trim modeled after the 1992 medal ribbons: Wolfsburg home and away: VfL Bochum third -- with Mizuno replacing Nike as kit supplier:

I have never played Elder Scrolls, so I can't comment on how these relate to the game, but design-wise they're very well done. The clear references to NHL franchises are enough to keep a non-player like me engaged and scrolling to the next one. In general, I'd love to see the backs of the jerseys with names and numbers; I always find those really add to the overall design of a hockey jersey. Some specific design comments: Windhelm: What first struck me is that the bear looks a little goofy, but if they're that way in the game, then so be it. Love the detailing in the sleeve and hem stripes, but I'd either like to see the pattern all go in the same direction, or refine where it meets in the middle of the hem stripe so it's not a double-thick stroke. Jehanna: Yeah, other than wanting to see the back, not much to pick at here. The only thing might be that the perspective of the hunter is a bit wonky; it seems to be totally in profile on the half, but then sort of turned toward the viewer in the bottom half. Sentinel: I quite like the logo, actually. Could maybe do without the palm tree at the bottom. On the alt jersey, I'd change the hilts of the swords to the red tones; they just stick out like sore thumbs as they are now. Bruma: Love the Detroit-style B; I'd even emphasize that over the face logo. The face logo is quite good itself, though; I know that style is something I struggle with personally. Whiterun: Also a very solid set. Love the tusk details. I would like to see the details of the cliff in the mammoth's forehead match up with the cliff in the secondary logo, just to make it all more cohesive as a package. Pale Ancients: Very cool shape on the primary. I'd like to see you use a slightly lighter grey on the pattern inside the A, just to make it a tad more visible. Also, be careful with your beveling, and think about where the light is coming from and how that would affect the highlights and shadows. I'd love to see some beveling on the grey stroke on the secondary logo, just to tie it all together. The base color of the third jersey comes out of leftfield -- it has too much of a yellow tint and isn't found anywhere else in the package. I'd swap it out for a grey tint already being used somewhere else.

Leicester home: Rangers home: Eintracht Frankfurt home: VfB Stuttgart home: Also, Aston Villa is going to review their crest and overall visual identity going forward.

From that same link (translated to English by Google, emphasis mine): Also there's this chart, from which I've sampled colours from each version of the crest since 1947. It's imperfect because the crests are so small, but I think every shade used can reasonably be called gold.

Some more recent unveilings: Sporting CP home, which is basically last year's home kit (inset) with white and green swapped: Porto away: Porto third, inspired by squad that played in the 1984 Cup Winners' Cup final against Juventus: Ajax home: PSV Eindhoven away: Galatasaray home:

They never even threw their names in the hat. Their outdoor stadiums aren't up to FIFA standards. It was initially Vancouver (BC Place), Edmonton (Commonwealth Stadium), Toronto (BMO Field) and Montreal (Olympic Stadium), and it was only ever likely two would be chosen. Vancouver dropped out for a while, citing costs. That left Toronto, Edmonton and Montreal, and it was thought they were in that order as Olympic Stadium was in rough shape and needed too many renovations. Montreal eventually dropped out altogether. But then Vancouver came back in, likely due to the influence of CONCACAF president and FIFA vice-president Victor Montagliani, who is from Vancouver himself. That pretty much killed Edmonton's chances, along with some pretty outlandish demands that the Alberta government tied their funding to (minimum five games, including two in the knockout rounds -- I don't think any of the host cities, save maybe Los Angeles or New York, are getting that many games).

I agree with preferring abbrevations that seem to capture more of a city's name, and make them more specific to that city. It always seems awkward to me, too, when an abbreviation forms a word or part of a word. I think that's why I prefer MTL to MON, CGY to CAL, WPG to WIN, WSH to WAS, PHX to PHO, etc.

I feel like airport codes really became a thing to represent a city with the advent of Twitter. I think users defaulted to the airport codes as local hashtags because they are more distinguishable. I know here in Edmonton, our airport code (YEG) has really taken off as a local hashtag instead of EDM, which is also used by electronic dance music enthusiasts on Twitter. Perhaps Milwaukeeans didn't want all the posts about their city getting lumped in with tweets about mothers-in-law.

Probably. It's not without precedent. Look at the European leagues that are all taking a month-long break in November-December this year so players can play in the Qatar World Cup.

We've got special Juneteenth jersey numbers again this year: More details on the mothership. Also special "Unity" prematch jerseys with the same floral pattern as is on this year's match ball. Roses for the U.S., bunchberries for Canada, and colours representing the home nations of various MLS players.

Speaking as a resident of one of the cities that was not selected, that's a pretty good problem to have.

Unfortunately those are the candidate cities, not the final cities. No Edmonton among the final cities. Our bid went on life support when Vancouver jumped back in, and was officially killed when the provincial government tied their funding to some pretty unreasonable demands (minimum 5 games, including at least 2 in the knockout rounds). Final cities: Canada: Edmonton Toronto Vancouver Mexico: Guadalajara Mexico City Monterrey USA: Atlanta Boston Cincinnati Dallas Denver Houston Kansas City Los Angeles (SoFi Stadium) Miami Nashville New York/New Jersey Orlando Philadelphia San Francisco (Levi's Stadium) Seattle Washington D.C./Baltimore

They've sponsored Atleti's women's team for a few years now. The men are getting a new main sponsor, which should be announced soon.