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College Hockey Concepts - AIC added


lat3ralus65

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I’m a big college hockey fan, and UMass (defending national champions, baby) is my team.  Their current look is fine, if a bit boring.  However, the football and basketball teams have, in recent years, moved to a more classic, simple, block-lettering look in maroon and white (no grey).  So I wanted to see how the hockey team’s jerseys might look with a similar design.  What results is a clean, classic and timeless faux-retro look:

 

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The front of the jersey is not significantly different - I kept the “Massachusetts” for better brand consistency (but in a classic block letter) across sports and because I just prefer the school marketing itself as Massachusetts instead of UMass.  It’s hard to fit on the front of a jersey, so I arched it (unfortunately there does not appear to be a way to do vertical arching in Affinity Photo).  I tried to keep the double-stripe pattern currently featured on the football team’s jerseys.  The home jersey adds a little bit of visual interest in the form of a contrasting shoulder yoke and nameplate (the team used a contrasting nameplate in the early/mid-2010s).  Finally, I added a Massachusetts state flag as a patch on one shoulder, as an additional element (I also just think state flags are an awesome element to incorporate into a uniform, particularly for a flagship state university).

 

As a fun twist, I also created a “Reverse Retro” concept (even though Adidas appears to be abandoning it in the NHL this year) inspired by an iconic jersey from UMass’s past that remains beloved by fans to this day: the triangle.

 

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I’m generally not a fan of grey as a primary color for a jersey, but it fits with the Reverse Retro program and what some NHL teams did.  It’s a fun nod to the past, and a jersey I would buy in a millisecond if it was real and sold to the public.

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  • lat3ralus65 changed the title to College Hockey Concepts - UMass Minutemen

These look great. Love the home and road and your RR gave me flashbacks as I remember those jerseys. 
 

question, is there an significance to having the Hockey East logo and captain patch reversed?
 

hope you continue and get to UNH!

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On 10/20/2021 at 6:44 AM, B-mer said:

These look great. Love the home and road and your RR gave me flashbacks as I remember those jerseys. 
 

question, is there an significance to having the Hockey East logo and captain patch reversed?
 

hope you continue and get to UNH!

 

No, there is not.  Just carelessness on my part!

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Next up, the AIC Yellow Jackets.  Why AIC of all schools, you ask?  Pretty simple - they were fresh in my mind after playing UMass a week and a half ago.  While at the game, I was reminded of how bad their current set is - their away jerseys combine the dated Capitals template with a hideous and illegible wordmark on the upper chest, while their home jerseys employ just yellow and white and do not match the away design.  So I decided to clean up this mess for a program that has recently ascended to national relevance.

 

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First up, the home set.  I actually did not realize that AIC wore basically this exact look a couple of years ago prior to designing this, so I guess great minds think alike.  Nevertheless, the skating bee is a great logo (any skating mascot is a great logo) and should continue to be a focal point of the home jersey, but with a more classic look. The addition of black striping and a black yoke significantly improves over the current set, in my opinion. 

 

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For the road look, we basically invert the colors (keeping the black yoke with yellow outline) and use a simple, large, legible “AIC” diagonally down the front.  No more tiny, ugly script font here - just a big ol’ proclamation of who you are.

 

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But fear not, a “Yellow Jackets” jersey is not completely gone - here is a fun, faux-retro yellow alternate with sleeve striping that plays up the bee theme.  I actually started with a similar idea to this in black as the primary look, before realizing I preferred the more conventional home/road look above.   The yellow was to be the home version, and I decided to keep it around as an alternate.  

 

There’s nothing ground-breaking here - I do not consider myself “creative” and I have little to no graphic design skill - but I think it is a huge step up over what they’re currently wearing.  Let me know what you think.

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  • lat3ralus65 changed the title to College Hockey Concepts - AIC added

Sometimes, it doesn't need to be striking to be good. The AIC jerseys are pretty solid. Personally, I would only change the fauxback numbers to a block number with serifs. I think serif blocks make jerseys look older. If you know enough of the software to make Atlantic logo monochromatic too, it would increase the "vintage" look

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