The right colors?

When designing, a lot of people get worked up over colors. Like I mentioned in my last post about the University of Maryland, a lot of people got worked up a few years ago when the University of Oregon started using non-school colors (black, silver, and now carbon). The school colors of Oregon are green and yellow (gold in athletic terms). When talking to those like myself who are into sports uniforms and logos, color combinations mean something to us. We may like a color combination because the high school we went to had those colors. For me, all my schools we blue and some other color, (blue & yellow, blue and orange, blue and white). I like blue, but at times get sick of using blue because I use it at work because the city I work for, uses blue and likes to brand itself. Some people hate a color or combinations because of maybe who their high school rival was. I get that. What I don't get is the fact that people seem to get in their mind that you can't use colors because either they clash or because it's associated with a certain holiday.

I'm going to explain the holiday issue that baffles me. It's Christmas and the use of red and green. I don't know how many times I've heard someone utter the fact, "You can't use those because it's Christmas." People get so hung up on that one little fact that they won't even try different shades or tints (and I'll get into shades and tints in an upcoming post) of red and green. For example, a maroon with green looks fine and doesn't look like Christmas at all. Lime green and pure red are going to blind you, but don't look like Christmas either. It's funny because go out in nature and you'll see many plants using red and green and no one complains. Have you ever heard of a woman refusing to receive a red rose on Valentine's Day or any other day by saying, "I'm sorry. I can't accept this rose because red and green are Christmas colors." It sounds ridiculous, but there are are a lot of people out there that refuse to use red and green or hate that combination and think it looks ugly. If you look at a color wheel you'll see that red and green are opposite of each other and are complimentary colors which in simple terms mean they go together and are pleasing to the eye. Take a look at this color wheel and see which colors go together in harmony. The ones right next to each other and the ones across are best used together.





I also want to dispel a myth out there. There's this myth out there called, "Color Clash." It doesn't exist. It never has and it never will. There's no such thing. Santa and the Easter Bunny you might be able to prove, but "Color Clash" you will never be able to prove because it just doesn't exist. So when people say, "Color Clash" what do they mean? Truthfully, I don't know. It might be they don't like those two colors whether it be separately or together. That's possible. Or it might be that the colors are competing against each other. Color competition is a real thing. Usually this happens when using two bright colors right next to each other, or two colors of the same tone. Tone would be if you took black and white and divided them up equally into ten separate sections, each section would be a tone. You can do that with all colors. So if you have a 100% green next to a 100% yellow, it doesn't look good together as the intensity of both colors compete against each other. Yet if you take a light yellow and a darker green they look good together. Of course, if you were to use a darker color in combination with the pure green and yellow, such as black, then they'd be toned down a bit. I've given an example of each for you to visually understand.

Good idea, bad idea...

For those who have been sheltered the last couple days and haven't seen the news or been on the internet, the hottest topic right now seems to be the University of Maryland's football uniforms that debuted against the University of Miami on Monday night. Maryland is outfitted by Under Armour who's founder Kevin Blank is a University of Maryland alum. They have been outfitted by Under Armour for the past couple of years as are a few other college teams such as the University of Utah and Auburn University. Maryland had debuted new uniforms in August that were suppose to represent the state. The new uniforms give the team options each week.

As you can see in the above image, there are numerous options and two helmets, a black one and a white one with a turtle shell pattern. Both helmets have a center stripe that represents the Maryland flag.




There had been rumors of a uniform that Maryland was going to wear against the University of Miami on ESPN in front of a national audience that few knew about and supposedly not even the team until right before the game. And then the world saw these uniforms!

I'll say this as a designer. Sometimes you come up with a "great" idea... and sometimes those ideas really don't work... or they just don't. This is one of those "great" idea. Someone either at Under Armour or the University of Maryland thought it'd be a great idea to push the limits of what a football uniform should look like. I have no problem with that. Nike and the University of Oregon have over the past few years been doing that and are often times ripped in the sports world for using colors such as silver, neon yellow, carbon, and black which aren't University of Oregon colors. They even put a diamond plating pattern on the shoulders and knees of the uniforms. Then in the most recent set, they introduced wings on the shoulders, a carbon fiber patterned silver helmet, and then this past Saturday they introduced us to the Carbon colored uniforms against LSU.








Oregon was considered "out there" and pushing the limits of what a uniforms should look like. Maryland saw this and decided to get some attention in the same way. It's interesting to look at Oregon's uniforms now, and compare them to what Maryland rolled out on Monday and call Oregon's conservative, but they are. Oregon's helmets are a plain color and have an "o" on the side. Maryland's on Monday was half of the state flag. That's right, only half of the flag. I understand pushing the limits, and the jerseys are actually pretty cool with half the flag on one shoulder and the other half on the other shoulder. It's just the execution of the helmet is so loud and obnoxious that it distracts from what could be a interesting look for the Terps. If they would've used the white turtle shell helmet, it wouldn't have drawn your eye to one part of the uniform as the current half flag helmet does. Now you might be asking, "Why do they have a turtle patterned helmet?" The nickname for the University of Maryland is Terrapins or Terps for short, a turtle that are found along the eastern United States. Even if they would've done the full Maryland flag as the helmet it would've looked better. The problem is, using only half the flag gives you a black and yellow checkerboard look on one side and a red and white cross look on the other side. Now if you look at the first pic in this post, then it honestly looks like two different teams are on the field when in fact it is one team. That is a failure when you are trying to create an identity and trying to brand yourself as Maryland is, you shouldn't have schizophrenic look. I don't mind them pushing the envelope as Oregon does, but when you push too far, you loose your identity which you are trying to create.

Images:
ESPN screen capture - tbd.com
Full uniform set - dcist.com
Helmet image - theatlanticwire.com
Maryland state flag - 50 States.com
4th Maryland image - Lacrosse Playground.com

Oregon diamond plate uniforms - goducks.com
Oregon winged uniforms - NikeBlog.com
Oregon Carbon uniforms - NikeBlog.com