Blech.
I’ve made a big stinker on here frequently about what the Minnesota Vikings uniforms should look like. As a classic NFL team from the 60’s, with one of the all time great original uniforms that held plenty of stripes, simple logos, smart lines, and royal colors, I’ve been clamoring for the Vikings to more permanently move back to their throwback digs. You know, the ones with the shoulder stripes, and leg side panels? Those shits are as solid as an after fried rice poop. The clown suits now? Atrocious. Horrific. Outlandish. Everything that is wrong with marketing, jersey sales, and the modern day NFL. If I wanted to watch a bunch of gay jesters play football every Sunday, I’d move to Wisconsin (even though their uniforms are regrettably awesome looking).
Whatever, my point is, if we’re going to change them, there really is only one change to be made – back to the originals. In other words, not like these fan designed ones.
These are uniforms that Vikings (backup?) QB Joe Webb tweeted recently were designed and sent to him from a fan, Daniel Kaufman. While I think the uniform design is probably one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, it’s not actually Daniel’s fault. Well, maybe it is. Probably is. What I’m really trying to say is that I’m not ragging on Daniel for trying, I’m just giving him a hard time because he tried and it didn’t work out. On the other hand, Joe Webb is a much better human being than I am, and he was gracious enough to retweet the designs and share them with others. Maybe he shouldn’t have, I don’t know. If anything, it just goes to support the ridiculous notion that any flashy and silly looking costume can become an NFL uniform. IT CAN’T, OK, SO STOP TRYING. Just design normal looking shit, for once.
So, yeah, I don’t like them. But let’s take a look at them anyway.
The first image we saw at the top of the banner was what I am guessing is the primary home uniform. It’s the all purple one. There are plenty of things wrong with this uniform. First, jersey and pant combos are only good in monochrome if they are white, and worn as the away team. All purple uniforms, like the ones the Vikings have worn before, SUCK. Bad. These are bad because they’re all purple, but also because of the asymmetry. The odd strip down the FRONT of the right leg, coupled with the half circle on the other is beyond vomit inducing. It just makes no artistic sense. The left hip logo has some potential, but it’s large, ungainly, and mostly gets lost in the shuffle. I also am not a fan at all of the MV logo used as a large primary logo on the uniform. In fact, don’t put ANY letters on the front. This isn’t baseball, son. Baseball is for chumps. On top of that, why promote Nike to the Nth degree? Do they need the added marketing awareness? I doubt it. Tone down on the swoosh already.
The one saving grace for this uniform design is the all white helmet color. I don’t know why, but I feel like I could get behind that. The other uniform options Daniel shows are the away one (white top, purple bottoms = FINE, at best) and the alternate third uniform combination that is for some reason all grey. Grey? That’s got to be like the fourth or fifth color in the team’s color scheme, and we’re going to use it as an alternate uniform option? I don’t think so. The saving grace here is that at least he didn’t try doing a gold jersey. Remember when they use to sell those things? Nightmare fuel.
In conclusion of this academic paper, I would just like to reiterate that there is really only one other option for uniform transformations. While I applaud the “creativity” (I put creativity in quotes as a joke, you see) of people who design these new options, and the effort designers put in to get artistic and try something different, I would much rather that they flex their mental muscle to come up with a solid retro looking option, even if it’s already been done before.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? At least when referencing the uniforms. The team? Oh, they’re broke. Fix the SHIT out of the team, already.
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