Concepts From Friends Friday!

Hello everyone, we've made it to another friday!
Today I am excited to introduce a new feature on the blog which will hopefully become a regular thing. I have mentioned on previous posts that I have set up an email account for the blog (shirtofacanuck@gmail.com) and am accepting concept submissions (obviously Canucks themed) to be posted on the blog. 

I have had some awesome contribution on the blog from some other fellow bloggers (Stéphane from Le Troisiéme Chandail, and Justin from The Art of Hockey), this has not only been through comments and suggestions on my concepts, they have also sent in some of their own work to me.

Stéphane's work strays a little from the blue and green brand identity that I, as a 21 year old Vancouverite, see fitting best for the Canucks. Nonetheless, Stéphane's work is flawlessly executed, and creatively based in the era of Canucks history which he identifies with most strongly.

As Stéphane wrote:

I don't know why most Canucks fans don't want to talk about the "big Vs" years… For me, those jerseys represent the real Canucks. It reminds me of Tony Tanti, Stan Smyl, Richard Brodeur… The years when the Canucks were in town (Montreal that is) with jerseys that no other teams could match: different, original, new. I sure wish that they could bring back that black jersey with the dominant V as a third (cause I really don't believe they will step away from blue and green now).

Obviously to complete this "wish" Stéphane would like the name on the back of the sweater to be GOMEZ instead of LAPIERRE, but seeing as Mike Gillis has again proved himself a capable GM (with the recent Schneider signing), I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I really like this design. It is way more logical than the original flying V sweaters, but does not lose any of the boldness of the original sweaters.

I have really grown to enjoy the flying V sweaters (I definitely want to add one to my jersey collection!). Stéphane mentioned that he doesn't think that the Canucks will abandon the blue and green colour scheme, but to bring back the Vs, you don't necessarily need to bring back the hallowe'en colours. One of the first ever concepts I did was a Flying V jersey in blue and green. This post acts as a bit of a teaser for the updated version I am working on. Look forward to that in the next week or so.

Justin has also sent in a great concept. A few weeks ago when I was working on green alternate sweaters, Justin sent his take along.

There are a number of things I like about this concept, love the green, love the fact that Justin does not shy away from the striping (I tend to be way more minimalist when it comes to stripes, Justin is brave enough to make all these stripes work!). I also love the logos. That VC logo is a hidden gem, and I have no idea why the Canucks have not used it on a jersey yet.

His presentation of the full body skating Johnny Canuck logo is one of the two ways that I have seen work on the front of a jersey. The second is the way I presented in this post, which I admittedly did not come up with. I think I first saw it some sort of Canucks official merchandise (maybe a T-shirt or flag). By itself, the skating Johnny Canuck logo seems awkward and unbalanced to me (almost as awkward looking back on this photo retrospectively after the 2011 Stanley Cup final...). Even Tanner Glass can't make these jerseys look great, although if having awkward looking sweaters for the rest of time meant having Glass back on the Canucks, I would seriously consider taking that offer, what a gamer!

I like the old-timey vibe I get from Justin's green third jersey, and have encouraged him to push it a little further. Justin came to me with the idea of collaborating on a Canucks jersey set. His third with my home and away sweaters. This is really great because together we can make all of our jerseys better. When we finish our collaboration, I will definitely post it. Consider this another teaser!

Anyways, that is all I have for today. Check back for Canada day stuff this weekend. Next week I am going to continue working on the classic uniforms, hopefully we can make some headway on those and get them wrapped up by the end of next week.

Thanks for dropping by!