Category Archives: Adidas

Grading The Charlotte Hornets New Uniforms

Yesterday the Charlotte Hornets came back to us. We all are grateful that one of the worst looking teams in the NBA is gone. The Hornets coming back and being in Charlotte is just a good thing.

The Hornets get a C just for coming back into the league no matter what the team wears. The fact that the team is also going back to teal & purple is another very good thing.

Quick Grade if you don’t want to read the whole thing

Grade C- : The Hornets uni isn’t horrible but it is less than what I was expecting. The logo choices make no sense to me. The lack of pin stripes is ignoring a long tradition. The color on color number outlining is not a good look & when combined with another color with an outline for the name it only increase this bad design decision. Hugo is very much lacking on these uniforms. Lastly the uniform feels unbalanced. Overall I expected more from Jordan but lets be honest the brand has not had the same design quality in some time now. Jordan as a brand decided that the name Hornets would sell enough products and chose to do nothing new, exciting, or really even creative at all. They mailed this one in and the buying public will reward them with record sales because we missed the Hornets as a brand so much. The only hope I have is that in two months Jordan will tell us all after buying these uniforms that they did not give us the quality of design that we deserve and that new uniforms will be coming out in 2015 but they will cost more money. 

If you haven’t seen the new logos here they all are. I pulled all of these pics from the Hornets

charlotte_hornets_2013_logo_pyramid

 

A quick take on these logos. I personally like the new updated full Hugo the best (second row from top on left). All in all I don’t hate any of the logos by themselves but we will get to how I hate how they are using them on the uniforms.

If you haven’t seen the uniforms go to the Hornets page they have a ton of pics up. Here is a pic of all 3 uniforms.

 

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I do not like the collar trim line not matching up. I think this makes the uniform look cheap lie it was a stitched incorrectly. Overall I like the colors of the uniforms. I was intrigued by a grey uniform with side panels and striping but didn’t figure it would happen.

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hornets teal

If the team really didn’t want to have pinstripes or were told by the NBA they couldn’t they should have added the pin striping detail to the side better. I am planning on tweaking this uniform to add the charlotte lettering on the leg and switching Hugo and the attack hornet. I prefer a uniform with full body pin stripes but if they can’t have it this is a better option. I will post the tweaked version once I finish it.

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The NBA logo has been moved to the back so that means ads are coming to front Oh Joy

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If you look at the top lettering you have to admit it looks good. So, why change the numbers this color on color mess? If you wanted to go with another color why not do the outline in white? The best choice is to have the name and number match with a constraining color outline on both.

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I am ok with this new attack hornet being on the shorts but I would like to see Hugo in his place or Hugo on one side and this guy flanking him on the other .

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I think the Hornets had a decent idea here but let it get away from them. I don’t hate this idea of having the team name or city on the shorts but I think a large Hugo logo above the script would help to balance out this uniform.

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This logo should have never have made it on to the uniform. This needs to be Hugo or the C logo. I favor having the C logo at the front on the belt and no where else on the uniform. What is up with the trapezoid area for the logo?

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Once again I hate the logo choice here. This area of he shorts should be Hugo or the attack hornet if they have to but not the C. The C is not a main uni logo in my mind.

The second issue I have is this so called pin striping on the side. This is not pin striping this is 4 large stripes. The sides should have a main color panel and much smaller pin striping running the length of the panel.

 

I did some Hornets uniform versions of my own that you can see here.   I also did some court concepts. I am thinking of tweaking my first versions of my uniforms and put together a final set of three to compare vs the real uniforms.

Lebron & Melo Charlotte Hornets Uniforms

 

More Charlotte Hornets Uniform Concepts

Hornets Court Conceptshornets anthony 2 hornets anthony 3 hornets ANTHONY hornets JAMES 2 hornets james 3 hornets james 5 hornets james 7 hornets james 8 hornets JAMES hornets james4

Charlotte Hornets Uniforms

I decided to do some more classic looking Hornets concepts. I will do some more modern concepts and some sleeved stuff a little later.

Lebron and Melo Hornets Uniform Concepts

Here is the link to the courts I did for the Hornetshornets  11hornetshornets 2hornets 5hornets 6hornets 9hornets 12hornets 13hornets gray 2hornets gray 3hornets grayhornets teal

Chelsea FC Samsung Galaxy S 5 Kit Branding Of The Future

I had the idea that what if companies stated doing more product related marketing on kits. Right now most companies just put the company name or logo on the front of the kit. My idea was what if electronics or a automotive brands took it one step further focusing on a single product the brand sells integrating the same print and media branding into the kits.

I did several kit concepts for Chelsea and their kit sponsor Samsung. I focused on the newest phone they are pushing the Samsung Galaxy S 5. Here are the two links to the bulk ideas Part I Part II 

Clubs currently are wearing 3 kits. Most fans will agree the home kit needs to be basically unchanged for most clubs. Small additions are ok but you need to be able to know what team it is at a glance. I decided that in keeping with this tradition that primary kit would follow the standard look as well as having the more common brand logo on the front.

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This kit would be the primary kit. The branding on the front is standard large brand logo on front with a slight color change behind the chest logo to help focus the eye on the branding. The striping on this kit is in triple to tie in with Adidas sponsorship.

The secondary and alt kit have much less if any real rules that must be followed to ensure no fan backlash. These kits are where the real money can be made by the club. I believe companies would pay a premium price to integrate their print marketing into a living billboard on the pitch. I also believe that a 2nd alt uniform could be pitched to drive the revenue even higher.

The first kit is the away kit. This kit will be the first to feature the product branding. In this kit the design is still very basic but brings in the print ad and phone design into the chest logo.

Here is the one of the print ads for the new Galaxy S 5

glam_galaxy-s5

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This kit takes the three stripe branding from the home kit, replacing the blue for gray to pair with the print ad and back of the phone design in the chest logo. The branding has been changed to Galaxy S 5. The chest branding now reflects the print ad. You will also notice the Samsung branding on the tail of the kit in an almost ghosted image.

The alt kit is where the most money and liberty can take place because it is the least important kit in the minds of most fans meaning it has the most room for corporate branding.

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This alt kit brings in a third color to the kit set. Keeps the product branding of Galaxy S 5 on the chest but ads the phone screensaver where the phone case print was in the away kit.

The final piece of the kit set is the training top or tops if a brand wanted.

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If a team or brand wanted to introduce this kind of branding a second season could push the line of what is acceptable to the fans as far was how much branding could be seen during a match.

A second season using this approach could look like this

 

Home Kit Year 2chelsea 58

Away Kit Year 2

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Alt Kit Year 2

chelsea 44

Training Top Year 2

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