Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Nike & Oregon Prove Blindness

If you were lucky enough to miss the Oregon-Utah game this weekend your eyes can thank you. Nike and Oregon continue their experiments in bad design with another set of questionable uniforms, which are a minor improvement over the 2007-2008 collection of horrors. Each year Oregon seems to refine their school colors, which have gone from green and yellow to chalky green, black, pastel yellow, and carbon.

The problem with the game against Utah wasn't so much the uniform design as much as how Oregon decided to use them. Apparently a group of people at Oregon put their heads together and decided it would be a great idea to mix and match parts of each uniform. I'm completely blown away that someone thought this was a good idea and let it on the field!
There are so many things going on here, I think I actually threw up in my mouth a little when I turned the game on. They did a piece on Oregon's "uniforms" during the game, and apparently the equipment manager fields a number of complaints from fans that the numbers are unreadable, which as you can see is the least of their problems. My biggest concern is Nike's continuing campaign to ruin college football uniforms (remember those long sleeved undershirts they had a few years back at Florida, Virgina Tech, and USC?!) and their use of Oregon as ground zero. I'm actually frightened to see what kind of abortion they come up with in 2010.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Chelsea Kit Malfeasance

While we're on the subject of kits, what the hell is going on over at the company formerly known as adidas? When I saw the new Chelsea kits, my first thought was that somebody at adidas thought it would be funny if they started using that classic design motif from the 80's - the exposed hem - all over their shirts. Here we see Peter modeling the new gear:




Wait, here:



Sweet. Actually, I'm pretty sure the regular jersey is exponentially worse. Note the liberal use of a mesh-like material on what I can only describe as breast patches. Then it starts up again underneath the sponsor. The cancer appears to have spread to the sleeves, as well. Wait, is that a fucking ZIPPER?

Ajax Kit



The Ajax jerseys are a great example of a bad design. The red trim around the name on the back looks OK from up close, but a team full of guys with names like Alderweireld, Stekelenburg, Zeegelaar, and Bakircioglü results in names in grand arcs having to fit on the jersey, and looking like "erweir" unless you walk right up behind them.


FAIL.