Under Armour | Charles Sollars Concepts

A few months back during the the summer I was contacted to help create a new over the top helmet for Northwestern to wear for homecoming. I spent a few weeks coming up with some ideas shooting emails back and forth with people in the program and a few alumni. Below are some of those ideas. A concept was picked and some samples were made but sadly someone with more power vetoed the idea in the end because it was too flashy. You can see what the helmet would have looked like with the uniform here. You can also see the design on the back of the helmet featuring the Northwestern N. If you want to see one of these helmets on the field let the people with veto power know because they have the power to make it happen.

Missouri State Bears New Helmet The Next Step #LookGoodPlayGoodMoState #FreeSwagState

It looks like the internet agrees with me that Adidas treated us (Missouri State) like a redheaded step-child who was at band camp when dishing out uniforms. They basically gave us Cincinnati Bearcats retreads and they spent zero time on the helmet.

Since I out design Adidas on a regular basis I decided to show them how Missouri State is going to look next year. You can see my ideas so far in my previous posts featuring black, black part II, silver, white and maroon helmet concepts. I haven’t done any uniforms yet but I plan on doing some soon. The current uni is ok but the fact that it is a retread of Cincy bothers me because it shows how little Adidas thinks of us. I am also not a fan of how our helmet and uniform really have no connection. Our uniforms have this leftover grab bag look for a while now. The Nike uniforms we had didn’t exactly match either. I would like to see some kind of flow from the the helmets to the jersey to the pants.

My idea is to take the task of designing our uniform off of whatever low level intern Adidas has assigned to our uniforms and force Adidas to produce a uniform/helmet that your players and fans can take pride in as our own. A uniform/helmet designed by a MSU Bear (I am Class of ’06 & ’08) for the MSU Bears. If Adidas refuses to go along with this idea I say we take our business to another brand that will show us more respect or follow our design directions.

I normally charge a school for my concepts but since I graduated from Missouri State in ’06 and then again in ’08 MSU can have my concepts for free. So, before anyone at the school says we can’t afford to do it let me stop you right there. If money is the issue we can design a helmet using what we already have in stock. If that means we have to go with a black helmet then we will go with a black helmet, if we still have the maroon ones left from when I was going there in storage in Plaster someplace we can add those into the mix. The same thing goes for the facemask. We could make something like the below image in less than two weeks.

I have no clue what equipment we have kept but lets say we still have the black, maroon, and white masks. Let’s also assume the maroon lids are still in storage somewhere on campus. So, that would give us a few different options to work with that would only require the team to buy new decals.

I have worked with other schools and their decal companies in the past on other projects. The price of decals varies by the amount ordered and how complex the decal is but they normally only run 10-20 bucks on average per helmet. The school might be able to get an even better deal than that with their current supplier.

So, lets do some quick math. Lets say $10-20 a helmet and lets say we dress 80 guys for the game. 80×10=$800 80×15=$1200 20x8o=$1600 Total: $800-$1600

I know there are kids on campus that rack up that much debt in parking tickets in a year. The money argument for the helmets stops right now.

If we switch helmet colors the price jumps a ton. Sad to say white is prob out for a few years. If you were wondering white with a metallic maroon logo is my personal fav. See below examples

The next step in the process is getting the helmet concepts narrowed down to a handful of fan favorites. I am not sure the best way to go about that but I would love to have a vote at a game.

If you agree that Missouri State needs a new helmet let the team, the school, the president, the athletic director, the head coach, the asst. coaches, the water boy, the news station, the paper, and everyone else you know until we a new helmet on the field.

I would love to sit down with the players, coaches, and anyone else that wants to be in on the meeting and come up with a few designs new or ones I have already posted to be voted on by the players, students, and alum. If possible I would love to do the same with the uniforms.

I feel like no one at any of the big brands cares about use. They just go grab a uniform template from a bigger program and throw in our colors. They call it good no matter how it looks because we don’t show up on ESPN. I could be wrong we could be asking for what we have and if that is the case that means we have an even bigger problem on our hands and the university can just start paying me to take over that task. Sorry whoever in the athletic department might be designing our stuff you are doing D- work and if you are getting paid you enjoy that last check because you have been relieved of your duties. I got it from here.

If you agree with me join my movement. #LookGoodPlayGoodMoState #FreeSwagState We can start with football but that doesn’t mean we have to stop there.