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Direwolves Jersey Last Call
Above is the final jersey design for team Direwolves, which I just sent off to Rinkgear. Two small changes: I made the ‘Direwolves’ word in the chest logo a bit bolder, and instead of the subtle watermark on the right sleeve that said “Winter is Coming”, I made an NHL-esque shield that will sit on the back tail. Pretty cool logo if I may say so.
This Friday August 26th is the final deadline to get your order in to buy a jersey. Though between you, me, and the fence post - if you sneak your order in over the weekend we’ll be none the wiser. Monday morning Sean at Rinkgear will slap his hands together Mr. Miyagi-style and start the production process for these jerseys. If you want to join in click here for details.
I’d like to thank all those people who have hopped on board to make this group buy-in possible. It’s humbling that people like this design (and idea in general), enough to sink their own money into it. Though much of the credit should be attributed to the Song of Fire and Ice property, which is embraced by one of the coolest fandoms in existence, something I have learned over the past five months.
I’m getting a lot of questions about what jersey is next, and how will I go about following this up. I’m not entirely sure, I’m just in a holding pattern right now.
I would like to call upon all the sports apparel companies out there to seek out the license for creating sportswear based on the Game of Thrones property. It would be very lucrative. Like I stated originally, the many Houses from Game of Thrones translate so well into sports teams. Maybe GRRM and HBO should pursue this line of merchandise themselves. Either way, there needs to be a legitimate option for fans of the show to buy this kind of merch.
Last Winnipeg Mechs Concept. Promise.
Sorry I guess I’ve fallen in love with the idea of a sports tteam naming itself the Mechs. I also keep thinking I can do a better design - I STILL think that - sorta scary. Usually I am happy to get the idea across, not too fixated on appearances.
Anyways I went full-on Manga for this design, and I think it looks great. No blacks or greys and I think that helps the design immensely. Here are a few variations as well:
Fortunately we can put this whole Winnipeg team name nonsense to bed this weekend, when it is expected True North will annmounce the name of their team. Sadly their draft pick will be given a generic NHL jersey and cap at the NHL Entry Draft, which is also being held this weekend in Minnesota.
Back to regular programming here at Dave’s Geeky Ideas. If there is such a thing as ‘regular’ here.
The Concussion-Fighting Sports Helmet Design
With the rise in concussions, an average joe like myself can assume these current sports helmets are just rattling the brains around their skulls. I believe the trick is two-fold: to redistribute impact force, and to allow helmets to give way and break apart during extreme impacts. I propose a new kind of helmet:
And it uses 90′s technology! You kids might not remember this, but there was a time when it was considered extremely popular to buy shoes fitted with air pumps. These pumps were mounted on the tongue, and when pressed filled plastic chambers with air, which would help contour the shoe against the foot, providing a snug fit. These pumps also also have a release valve to deflate the shoe to adjust for comfort or make it easier to remove the shoe.
So applying the pumps to a helmet isn’t new. I found this company that sells a motorcycle helmet with a pump that helps contour the front of the helmet to the cheeks/face, providing comfort and some help towards noise reduction. Here is a promotional video on youtube.
My idea is to take that a step further and provide a sports helmet with the following: An inner liner made of air chambers fueled by a single pump, however there are multiple release valves throughout to respond to impact. Get hit, and the valves release some air, cushioning the blow like a reverse airbag. Worried about multiple hits on a shift? The air in the lining would be redistributed in the impact, but a vacuum design would be able to reclaim it. They system is really designed to ignore minor bumps but respond to the seldom big hit.
And yes, the player would have to regularly pump the helmet.
And when hits get really severe, I recommend an outer shell designed to break into pieces. If a portion of the helmet endures a large amount of stress, it will exceed it’s threshold and pop out after pressing against neighboring pieces. Sort of like the tectonic plates of the earth’s crust pressing against each other…something will give at the fault line.
I believe having a disintegrating helmet would be much more preferable to existing helmets, which are like wearing a bell on your head waiting for a someone to take a sledge hammer to it. Sure, the bell will take the hit, but your head will reverberate from the after shock.
Cincinnati Bengals Jersey
The Bengals currently look like the Flintstones! So I designed this for a Uni-Watch blog contest.
They look sharp, don't they? Well it's an improvement.
I do enjoy designing jerseys from time to time, here are are a few more:
