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Major League Football - Reimagining the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger (San Francisco 49ers update - series complete)


BayBaseballFan

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They are called the Jets, and yet there isn't a single jet to be found in their logo, nor uniforms. I think the skyscraper would be great for the Giants, but for the Jets, the logo should involve a jet. 

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Denver Broncos - helmet overhaul in the Mile High City

While watching the various episodes of Full Color Football on YouTube, one of the teams that consistently stood out to me visually was the Denver Broncos. I'll admit it wasn't always for the right reasons. But I really took a liking to their set from the 1965-66 seasons. Orange has always felt like a better primary color for the Broncos home uniforms. The sleeve swaths for the TV numbers add a nice burst of color. Overall, the uniform stays pretty faithful to what the team actually wore. But I definitely wanted to change the helmet. The orange shell with a single-color horse didn't seem to fit. I came across the football player standing on top of the bucking horse logo from that era and really liked the cartoon quality. So I worked to isolate the horse and voila. On a blue shell, it looked a lot sharper than the original from that era. Let me know what you think.

 

Next up - the Minnesota Vikings see an original prototype come to life.

 

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References / Inspiration

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  • BayBaseballFan changed the title to Major League Football - Reimagining the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger (Denver Broncos update)

@ATolly66Yeah, I had originally created the logo below behind the spoiler tag. I felt pretty good about. However, once I was done, I sudden realized the connection to the 9/11 attacks and couldn't unsee it. In the era of the 60's, I think that would have been a solid logo. Similar to their Shea Stadium landlords, I wanted the Jets logo to feature the New York skyline. Planes plus New York buildings are hard to justify in a modern, post-2001 world. I tried a few other versions with a thrown ball that had jet wings and a tail, but it didn't look right.

 

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Minnesota Vikings - Karl Hubenthal's prototypes come to life

I had a hard time coming up with something unique and different for the Vikings. Their helmet is one of the more iconic, graphical logos in the NFL. That along with the Viking head and even the wordmark are unchanged from their actual set. When it came to the uniforms, I had remembered an older Uni-Watch story talking about the origins of the Vikings logo. In the original artwork by Karl Hubenthal, the variation with contrasting TV number panels seemed sort of interesting. I liked the golden "V" shape on the sleeves and tried to do some experimenting with notches to try and simulate an "M" above it with the negative space. I couldn't quite get it to work out without it looking too clunky. Golden accents around the torso numbers and Northwestern stripes on the socks echo the Vikes actual set. To me, this set, which could have potentially debuted in the team's first season, looks surprisingly modern. 

 

Next up - the Cincinnati Bengals get a new set of stripes on their jerseys.

 

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  • BayBaseballFan changed the title to Major League Football - Reimagining the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger (Minnesota Vikings update)
21 hours ago, _DietDrPepper_ said:

Would love to see the sock design from the prototype too. But overall it’s a wonderful look for Minne

@_DietDrPepper_So I gave the prototype socks a shot. I don't hate it. I considered adding some gold as either an outline the white designs or as the horizontal stripe, but I think I prefer the simple purple and white look. These definitely would have ranked up there with the Broncos infamous vertically striped socks as the most unique hosiery in the league. 

 

Does anyone know if that "X" design has any significance in Norse mythology or Viking culture? I couldn't seem to find anything on if it had any connection to the team's identity or was just a design choice.

 

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I love these!  Following for sure!  If these are based on an updated version of the 60s era, though, wouldn’t the Oilers be in Houston, and Nashville get an expansion team?  Just curious on that … keep up the great work!!

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40 minutes ago, Yee Yee Go 'Stros! said:

I love these!  Following for sure!  If these are based on an updated version of the 60s era, though, wouldn’t the Oilers be in Houston, and Nashville get an expansion team?  Just curious on that … keep up the great work!!

@Yee Yee Go 'Stros!So I'll admit the "logic" behind this project is pretty flimsy. It's essentially just representing all 32 teams with the current (2021) geographic  location and team names in a 1960's aesthetic. I'll preview there's definitely some some Oilers touches in both the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans uniforms.

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Cincinnati Bengals - Embracing a new set of stripes

When thinking about the Bengals in the late 60's, there had to be something better than their initial bland sets. The visual for any sort of tiger is immediately stripes. I didn't want to attempt anything close to what the team would eventually settle on in the early 80's. So heavily striped sleeves made more sense. It actually reminded me of some of the old Princeton jerseys. The helmet also needed an update from the arched "Bengals" text that persisted before they eventually adopted the signature stripes in the 80's. Instead of opting for the city initial, the helmet is solely adorned with the initial for the team name. All in all, I feel like the simplified stripes and helmet design fits the era. Is it an improvement over the initial set? I think so.

 

Next up - the Chicago Bears with some minor updates for the Monsters of the Midway.

 

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References / Inspiration

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  • BayBaseballFan changed the title to Major League Football - Reimagining the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger (Cincinnati Bengals update)

Broncos: Always loved that set. But something about the helmet is throwing off the color balance. Maybe add a thin white outline to the stripe and/or try a white bronco outlined in orange.

 

Vikings: Stick with your original, it's perfect. Era appropriate, yet wouldn't look out of place today. The Nordic cross socks distract from the things that should really stand out about this set IMO.

 

Bengals: I thought for sure you were gonna cite the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as your inspiration... this is pretty much what they were wearing back then. Looks pretty good if you ask me. Not sure how I feel about the B, but that does seem like a very Paul Brown thing to do.

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On 6/22/2021 at 9:17 PM, BayBaseballFan said:

Does anyone know if that "X" design has any significance in Norse mythology or Viking culture? I couldn't seem to find anything on if it had any connection to the team's identity or was just a design choice.

It's supposed to be a bootstrap wrapped around the calves. 

 

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@NicDB Broncos: Good note on the color balance being askew with the helmet. White is missing. I really want to leave the logo as is, so I might try a variant with some white striping worked in. And then maybe looking at switching the horse's base color to white.

 

Vikings: Yeah, I feel like the cross socks were more just to see how it looks. I prefer the Northwestern striped versions better.

 

Bengals: Ha. I'm not super familiar with CFL uniforms, but you're right - the Tiger-Cats wore essentially that exact look, save for it being in black and gold. Some coincidental crossover there. And yeah, "B" for Bengals or Brown seemed appropriate. 

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@NicDBAlright, so I toyed around with the helmet a little bit. I started out by adding the white stripe and that actually looked a lot better. It really did add the right amount of balance since white is featured prominently in both versions of the jersey. I attempted to tweak the colors on the horse logo, making the base white with some orange accents. It just didn't come out right, so this might be the best improvement.

 

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@LA Fakers+ LA Snippers @WLD42So it took me a little bit to get back to the Dolphins, but I finally revisited them. I attempted two different versions of eliminating some of the white from the home jersey: making the sleeves orange and making the pants orange. I personally prefer the sleeves being swapped to orange and the pants staying white. The orange pants, especially paired with a vibrant teal jersey, makes me think of some of the wild combos of AAFC in the 40's, like the Los Angeles Dons. While I'm not a fan of the Browns in orange pants, it at least works a little better for them with a muted white or brown jersey on top.

 

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@neo_pranksterI tried out the aqua pants on the Dolphins road set. It actually doesn't look that bad. And with the changes made to the home jersey, there's more of a balance. For the Broncos, I wanted to maintain the symmetry of keeping the torso and TV numbers the same color. The TV numbers would probably be more legible in white, but I like the blue-orange contrast.

 

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I'll echo white numbers on the orange panel for the Broncos, but I like the orange horse sooo much better with the white outline on the stripe.  Now the colors are balanced more in proportion with the rest of the uniform.

I think you got it right the first time when it comes to the Dolphins, but I'm not gonna complain about seeing more concepts.  But to me, the Dolphins look best when orange is kept to a minimum.

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