Pittsburgh Steelers Uniform Re-design From Alkire
The Pittsburgh Steelers have one of the most recognized branding in the NFL.
Seems like almost every season, there is some sort of ‘what if’ uniform re-design from Nike or some other large sport apparel. Some times they are very dramatic changes, and ones that would never happen. Other times they are pleasing changes to the eye, others still are pretty darn fierce. One of the latest sets of NFL uniform redesigns from Jesse Alkire keep with the tradition of designing Steelers uniforms – don’t mess with an already good thing.
Courtesy: http://www.jessealkire.com/
Courtesy: http://www.jessealkire.com/
You can see that the top of the uniform and helmet remain virtually untouched. The emblem doesn’t change one bit (although that strap placement is awful annoying). The shoulder striping also stays the same. Alkire makes one minor and very effective adjustment to the look of the pants. Here you can see that he’s added striping down the side that is similar to what the shoulder pad striping does. I dig that.
Where Alkire makes the most dramatic move is with the Steelers ‘alternate’ uniform. Alkire correctly steers away from any desire of harkening back to any sort of throwback uniform. Steeler Nation can breathe a heavy sigh of relief with no signs of bumblebees anywhere. And no solid gold helmets to get a headache over.
You can see in the alternates below that they are a huge drastic change from just about anything that screams Steelers. I’m not really quite sure how I would feel about seeing those on the field. Firstly, they are too much like the new college uniform designs – only a glimmer of the team symbols, whacked out colors, and ‘loud’ enough that feel more like a distraction to look at than anything. Which brings me to my second point – those grey uniforms look way too much like the Oregon Ducks uniforms when they went through some major re-designs. I want to like them, but I can’t help but keep my lunch from coming back up.
What do you think Steeler Nation. Weigh in on these conceptual uniforms. Love’m? Hate’m?