Virginia Football Going Pro Combat

[Billy B]

Well, yeah, they're effective in terms of the bare minimums such as functioning as clothing. However...

1) Do they establish a strong brand? No, they look exactly like the cheap uniforms people buy for Pop Warner teams from wholesale manufacturers.

2) Are they uniquely recognizable as Virginia Cavaliers football? No, they've already been compared to Clemson and Illinois in this thread.

3) Are they the slightest bit interesting? No, they're about as basic as it gets, and would never stand out in a store full of uniforms.

And Pro Combat doesn't mean that they have to do something crazy, that's just what the teams did last year to showcase how the uniform was different.

Well, if you can have crazy designs like gradients or two-tone numbers, and it works with your identity, why not do that full-time?

Because it would look awful?

Miami's two-tone numbers didn't look awful. They actually made sense with the identity, and I have no idea why they hadn't thought of it before.

It makes no sense for Nike and the teams to show off how ProCombats are "different" and then immediately hide all the differences as soon as the new line enters general use.

Well because ProCombat is essentially like the RBK Edge hockey sweaters. They're just a new cut/materials to enhance performance. They don't need to feature stuff like gradients and two-tone numbers.

But if it's possible to use gradients and two-tone numbers, and those gimmicks actually work with and enhance your brand, you'd probably sell more merchandise by doing it. Hell, even some "classic" shoulder striping like the Colts use would be a major improvement on Virginia's extremely basic uniforms.

I'm pretty sure that the two-tone numbers and gradients aren't the things the ProCombat uniforms were used to showcase last year. I don't have anything to back this up, but I think those two things can be used on any uniform if a team really wanted to. The differences the ProCombat showcased last year were the material differences like the "toilet seat" pants that Florida wore or fly-wire pattern on the shoulders. Teams aren't going to use that toilet seat design on their full-time uniforms, but they colored Florida's white because nobody would notice a difference if they were the same color as the rest of the pants. Same thing with the flywire, these Virginia uniforms should have that, but it's the same color as the jersey because they don't want anyone to be able to see it.

And just so you know, the Illinois uniforms you used as an example were one-time throwbacks they wore. The uniforms they've worn for the last few years have piping and the helmets are different.

[-(dp)-]

What they had before was simple, but not generic. These are generic, and those pants stripes are even worse than I originally thought. They took away the sleeve logos, which looked amazing to me for some reason. The other thing they changed, and a small detail I loved about the old uniforms, were the solid white numbers, with solid orange names. So they took away two of my favorite parts of the uniform, and added whatever you want to call those things on the pants.

[infrared41]

What they had before was simple, but not generic. These are generic, and those pants stripes are even worse than I originally thought. They took away the sleeve logos, which looked amazing to me for some reason. The other thing they changed, and a small detail I loved about the old uniforms, were the solid white numbers, with solid orange names. So they took away two of my favorite parts of the uniform, and added whatever you want to call those things on the pants.

Mistakes seems appropriate.

[BBTV]

(Good God that's twice in two days now that I've been underwhelmed by "classic" looking uniforms. First the Astros' throwbacks and now this. There's something wrong with me. )

Not only that, but I've posted in this very thread how much I like this UVA update. WTF??

[Buster]

That's about as boring as it gets. Which means people around here are going to love it...

Absolutely. Why even have a ceremony for that?

I loved the Tiki-era uniforms the best, but the Shawn Moore-era helmet stripe was great because it was so uncommon.

I applaud them for only the fact that they didn't go overboard with ugliness, bad striping and piping and general ugliness like Oregon or some of the other Pro Combat sets.

[BrandMooreArt]

to further emphasize my point before, i think Virginia has really hit a home run here. design is not about doing things because you can, there must be reason.

"A technique with no purpose makes a design irrelevant"

they probably left off any piping or unique stripes (which im always a fan of) to set themselves apart from other schools with similar color schemes, especially Clemson who is fairly close. the stripe on the pants is a perfect compliment to the helmet logo.

i too am a fan of Miami's two-tone numbers but only for them. people like to do things because they can (gradients) and show off the new technology, but once those fads die out you are left with the basic reasons why something works or dosent. is it effective, long lasting design with reason? gradients i would say are a "no" about 99% of the time on a uni and they only reason i dont say 100% is because (like Miami) there may be that one school/team that breaking the rules works for. maybe Oregon or Georgia State.

well done Virginia