Outlandish yet restrained designs

[Bob5151 55]

Some of my favorite uniforms are ones that push boundaries, but don't go overboard and know how to keep things restrained when they have to. Whether it's an unusual color or striping pattern, you can still identify it as a professional team uniform. For example:

 

Baseball: The original Devil Rays uniforms used a gradient, but were otherwise a fairly traditional set.

 

Football: the Bengals. Tiger stripes on a football uniform? Sounds ridiculous. But because they were kept within traditional football uniform striping areas, they really worked.

 

 

Hockey: San Jose Sharks. Teal and silver, teal hadn't been seen since the Golden Seals in the 1970's, and although it's a fairly outlandish color, the traditional hockey striping keeps it grounded.

 

 

Does anyone else enjoy uniforms that kind of stand out or push boundaries without looking like clown suits? Obviously this is a very subjective matter, but those are some of my favorites.

[johnnysama 767]

The 1973-1999 Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams uniform set had a pretty cool 'ram-horn' on the jersey sleeves; but the yellow/gold pants had a classic blue/white/blue striping pattern.

[M4One 999]

If only the star in the logo lined up perfectly with that middle point.  Probably the most perfect uniform that matched up with the nick name.

 

[Jungle Jim 826]

 

 

 

 

[Magic Dynasty 1,601]

90s Magic immediately came to mind.

[Cardsblues02 659]

Yellow and red Rockets. Lets be real, yellow and red look great together ***IF EXECUTED CORRECTLY***If it is too heavy on one color, it will make the players look like McDonalds employees. Not good.

 

That being said, it can look outstanding if executed right. Not only did the Rockets do that, but they made sure the design was the same clean look all the way through the 90s. It is a shame that they ditched them for the horrendous Navy and Silver unis. Those were...darker times in Houston. I like the Rockets current set with the red and black. But the “ketchup and mustard” set is classic! 

[Ferdinand Cesarano 4,105]

The WLAF's Orlando Thunder used a very unusual shade of neon green.

  

 

Yet, because they paired this colour with traditional numbers and striping, the result was attractive, as opposed to the unsightly mess that is the Seattle Seahawks.

 

 

[insert name 4,193]

The racing stripes fad in the 70s and 80s were pretty outlandish but still maintained to look like traditional baseball uniforms. 

[M4One 999]

[johnnysama 767]

The Canucks 1985-89 jerseys, the successors to the "Flying V" jerseys, put the "V"s on the shoulders, but had the look of a traditional hockey jersey.

[Brave-Bird 08 1,078]

[BringBackTheVet 12,919]

On 12/22/2017 at 12:38 PM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

The WLAF's Orlando Thunder used a very unusual shade of neon green.

  

 

Yet, because they paired this colour with traditional numbers and striping, the result was attractive, as opposed to the unsightly mess that is the Seattle Seahawks.

 

 

 

The only thing that ruined those uniforms is the helmet logo.  I get that thunder is a hard thing to draw, since it's not actually a physical thing, but there has to be something better than that.  At least make it look less like a child drew it with crayons.

[rxmc89 310]

[rxmc89 310]

[rxmc89 310]

[Discrim 1,102]

Taken to its logical conclusion, one could easily consider the Chargers' longstanding lightning bolt usage as outlandish yet restrained, I figure the only reason they haven't been mentioned is they've always been that way, so we're all used to it.

 

Among this vein...West Point's camo specials.  The only truly unusual thing about these unis was all the camouflage. 

 

 

IMO THE Arena football uniform

[MJWalker45 4,068]

6 hours ago, Discrimihater said:

Taken to its logical conclusion, one could easily consider the Chargers' longstanding lightning bolt usage as outlandish yet restrained, I figure the only reason they haven't been mentioned is they've always been that way, so we're all used to it.

 

Among this vein...West Point's camo specials.  The only truly unusual thing about these unis was all the camouflage. 

 

 

IMO THE Arena football uniform

Iowa needs to go back to those.

[Cosmic 5,810]

 

All those bright colors from a AA minor league team, and it could have gotten really wacky (and it has, if you look at some their alts).

 

[Shumway 1,871]

On 12/22/2017 at 1:12 PM, insert name said:

The racing stripes fad in the 70s and 80s were pretty outlandish but still maintained to look like traditional baseball uniforms. 

Solid use of Steve Jeltz and his glorious jheri curl.

[BringBackTheVet 12,919]

I actually like the racing stripe look on most teams that had it, it's just too bad it doesn't translate well onto the baggier uniforms that teams use today.  

 

Fun fact - for most of the time they wore them, the Phillies racing stripes actually didn't connect at the belt tunnel. That was added in '85 or '86, a year or two before they switched to the P with the full swirl in the middle on the jerseys and got rid of red on the home jersey.