Soccer Concept - Oxford United

[lost_limey]

In honor of my soccer team finally winning promotion back into the football league, I thought I'd try my hand at a concept for Oxford United. So without further ado, here it is:

For the standard home and away kits, I tried to keep it relatively modern, but uncluttered. To that end there's a little bit of piping on the shirts, and a slightly thicker striping on the shorts. I've always been fond of the plain Ox head that the club used in t's most succesfull era (the mid-80s) so I brought that back as a back collar logo, as well as incorporating it into the sock design. The overall look was heavily inspired by the current Brazil home jersey (I figure if you're gonna steal design cues, it's worth stealing from the best team in the world...). I've used both yellow and blue detailing on the away kit for two reasons. 1)Blue contrasts better with the white and 2)The team is sometimes nicknamed the yellows, so it had to have some yellow on the away.

As for the alt shirt, it's a retro styled fauxback to Oxford United's debut back in the early 1890's as Headington United, which is why the colors don't really match up, and also why I elected to make it a fully collared shirt. The crest on the alt is just the Ox head as it seems simpler (the shirt these are based on had no crest at all...) and as seems to be the fashion on retro-styled soccer jerseys, the sponsors logo is placed discreetly below the chest. Of course, as Buildbase's deal expired at the end of the 2010 season, I have no idea who will actually be sponsoring OUFC for the upcoming season.

This is my first time ever using Inkscape, and using this template (from switchimageproject, IIRC) so it's a little rough around the ages, especially with the sock striping, which is supposed to be curved to show how it hoops around the entire sock, but looks poor in the cold light of night.

I've rambled on for far too long, so please give me your c & c so that I can get better at this.

[Digby]

Pretty good. A bit simple, but, that's what you were going for and it's true to the Nike aesthetic.

One personal peeve of mine: I don't like it when teams who wear yellow have white change kits, or vice versa. I think you'd be better off with a dark change kit. But that's just my own preference.

[lost_limey]

I went with an all white chang kit, both because that's what Oxford currently use, and it's also the change kit they used in the 1986 season when they won their only major trophy to date.

Although looking at the white kits, I notice I messed up the layering on the back and have the rear piping still in the dark blue, when it's supposed to be in the yellow. I'll have to try and fix that.

They are a little simple, but I really like an uncluttered aesthetic without all sorts of swoopy detailing or a trio of stripes on the sleeves, as one manufacturer is guilty of. I did debate patterning the away after the 1986 away with it's shoulder striping but decided instead to keep it in much the same template as the home. I'm also not sure how I could complicate these up without it looking pretty bad. I guess I could have done some sublimated/ghosting style stripes or maybe the three yellow pseudo striping like the WANG sponsored kits of the 80s.

Still debating whether I should have made the roads inverse of the homes with blue shirts and yellow shorts/socks, but that way lies madness and the possibility of monochrome yellow....