Visual: If the Islanders Third Jersey Went Orange

… But now I’m not so sure. Something about it just doesn’t quite look right. Maybe a darker orange might look a little better.

All in all, I don’t mind third jerseys, I find them fun but I’ve yet to see a third jersey design that I’ve particularly liked so for the isles, I hope these 3rd jerseys get seen as little as possible.

…you can’t fault the Isles for trying to look at a slight variation in terms of design and color scheme. What I hated about the original orange one was not only its dayglo deerhunting brightness, but the weird corner pattern that seemed to point to a player’s crotch. This orange mockup is better than the black, and there’s no crotch arrows. Overall, this one is very solid.

I don’t have the photoshop capabilities, but what I’d really like to see is a mockup of not a black sweater, but a blackened orange sweater: take this orange third jersey, replace orange w/ burnt orange, and replace the bright royal with a darker slate blue (more gray than navy). Same sweater design, with a correspondingly blackened logo, and you can still use white instead of gray (as folks seem to dislike that). No teal. Yes, new colors, but shade variants of what we use. Think the Isles sweater, but as a lazy summer sunset over the water…

What would be the problem with this? Just about nothing… which is the problem if you’re a graphic designer.

If the Isles hired me to give them a third jersey, and I walked in with this – well, it’s a simple idea that works. It looks good, and it would probably sell. People wouldn’t hate the team for it. I would also never get another job because it looks too much like I just Photoshopped the colors around. I could never put this in my portfolio. So really, I’m not desiging the third jersey for the New York Islanders, I’m designing it to show my abilities to future potential employers.

And that’s the inherent flaw in the “hiring an outside firm” theory – the instant you hire them, they’re no longer working for you. They’ve already succeeded by getting your contractual obligation to pay them for their work. This just about forces anyone in that position to show up with outlandish concepts that “take the team in a different direction,” which is the opposite of what the team actually needs: the fanbase comes to identify with a particular look and you’ve just set it on fire and pissed on the ashes.

Given the two diametrically-opposed goals in play, it’s actually a pleasant surprise when any of them looks good. It’s just way easier to fail. Exhibits A – ß: The Buffalo head and Buffaslug; the Mooterus; the Blues’ thirds; the LA Burger Kings; the Fishsticks; the Beheaded Bruins; anything from Anaheim pre-lockout; the Thrashers; Tampa’s storm-thirds; Quebec’s still-born rebranding; Vancouver (repeat offender); and every bizarro RBK-piped pajama top across our great continent.

Against that, you get… well… Colorado and Minnesota have done well. And after that, the bar is so low that “ok, I guess” becomes a success: the Calgary Pókemon face, the blue-and-bronze Caps uniforms, and Philly’s silver-accented alternates.

Dont make any new crazy changes to a good jersey. I like it with the orange. I dont like the idea of a black jersey but if they kept the same design and just made the main color black it would look A LOT nicer than the one we saw a few days ago

Sadly, I own the traffic cone orange with pontiac symbol third jersey. Only bc it was jonnson (my all time favorite Islander) and it was $40 at one of them basement sales at the end of the season 2 yrs ago.

Jonnson is simply my favorite player bc from the time he came to the isles to the time is NHL carreer got cut short via PCS, he showed up and played with heart through the bad and the ressurection of the franchise in 2001.

But Id like to see, if an all black…than the Islanders script logo with a shoulder patch with just the NY without the island emblem and the 40th anniversary on the other side. With orange, blue, and gray/white stripes. ala my profile pic on sbnation. it would work well.

what if you swapped the blue and white schemes? It would give each sweater distinction

next…

I don’t care for it. It’s such an odd way to arrange the colors that it doesn’t appear pleasing to mine eye. I wouldn’t mind something with the script writing as then third though and definitely no rbk panels.

…..and as I’ve previously suggested, it’s the broad orange stripe with 2 much narrower white stripes on either side of it, which may have been part of what motivated the change to Dynasty-era striping in the fall of 1978 (narrow white stripe on top of a very broad orange band; the white jersey has ALWAYS reflected it, never been altered)….one of the reasons I came to not like that motif was the SOCKS, which essentially echoed the classic motif, with a broad orange and even broader white swath – sock stripes were, of course, of EQUAL width – but for which there was no longer any visual context. Now that the new sock design is the mirror of that familiar Dynasty striping (narrower white stripe on the BOTTOM of the broad orange band) it might look much better….

By just echoing the classic blue striping pattern with this orange, once again it looks out of context (i.e., the unifying white/orange/white motif is COMPLETELY removed from this jersey; even the classic blue merely separates it). Personally, I like the newest orange practice jerseys a lot, largely because the logos look so perfect in contrast to other seasons…..

One last note: I go back and forth about the Islanders’ classic look not having any sort of shoulder yoke, suggested or otherwise; I really wonder if it would appear SO terrible to add some sort of Reebok-era piping, simple oval, and jazz it up just a bit that wouldn’t detract from the classic feel – if there’s one single thing I love about the wave motif blues, it’s the faux shoulder yoke (do love the white jersey’s dark blue variation, too, but not as much…..)

…..do really like it; actually bought a vintage Zephyr hat (orange primary panel; navy blue logo with orange band caused by the encircling of said logo by white outer band, as with the blue jerseys) with the same design for that very reason 2 months ago on eBay…..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/260812528363?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Bring back they nicely done jersey off the 2000’s

…..you put the WHITE jersey logo on the blue, like the orange 3rd appeared, and as some seller on eBay did once the old color scheme was obsolete (only thing is, played well with the 4 Cup separated stripes patch and now that’s been eliminated as well…..) – wish I could attach the photo I saved of it somehow to this comment…..

I can already hear the “orange crud” chants.

If there’s gotta be a third, I would have wanted it to be navy, teal, powder blue, orange, and featuring the “wave” lighthouse as the center crest. Somewhere along the way somebody mocked one up real close to that.

And it would actually pay tribute to a prior part of the history. Almost like, did you say fishsticks? Watch where we’re gonna stick those fishsticks now that we’re back.

Why is no one talking about a retro NY American style jersey? Great tradional look, patriotic and we could wear ’em for Rangers games to help revive the rivalry. And if we end up in Brooklyn…….

…..but I think it ties in with the decision to use 3rd jerseys in the mid-Nineties (correct me if I’m wrong, but do we have the Rangers and their Liberty alts to thank for that, Dom?) and a desire to be consistent with the other 3 primary spectator sports’ decision to do the same. Still, the away jerseys ARE much more colorful all around (although in their best incarnations, I’ve always preferred the whites myself – specifically, the 1972-73, ’77-78 playoffs – would LOVE to find one each of those cheap; think those may have been the very first attempts at mesh and thus associated with that rash problem, though! – and especially ’97-00, all for their logo quality – if the crest is inferior, the whole jersey/uniform fails, or pales in comparison to others for me…..)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BILLY-SMITH-New-York-Islanders-SIGNED-16×20-Photo-/120759413405?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c

…..as Dom knows, I’ve always hated the smaller representations of the Islanders logo (2000-2008 was too crowded and out of proportion) so a larger one tends to be what I like most…..for some reason, photos of anyone wearing the blue variation are very, very rare, I’ve found – even in the 1977-78 Islanders Yearbook, there’s NONE…..

there was a study I saw once that showed jersey colors had some sort of psychological effect positive or negative

I’ve always hated our Blue jerseys

Our White jerseys are the best – why did the league move towards dark colors at home – never understood that

I’d replace our Blue jerseys with Black and Silver trim (not the 3rd jersey they are considering – rather the exact same design

And the 3rd jersey then could be Orange

but lose the Blue ones

and bring back white jerseys for home games NHL – dumb idea that was

will never happen, I know

Classy, blue jersey with orange and white stripes like the one they have now…..but simply have either “LONG ISLAND” on from right shoulder to left pocket, or “ISLANDERS”, or something to that effect. Kind of like the Rangers jersey (ducks as things are thrown at my head). But classy, represents Long Island, and could be worn with jeans without looking like “that guy” in the room (“Hey, whered my husband go?”…..“He’s standing by that orange column over there”)

http://www.icethetics.info/storage/concepts/RyanHaslett-IslandersThird.png

If their third jersey was some variation on the white then those of us who like the white as home could get our fix the 10 or so games te jersey is worn.

I know that I posted yesterday that I kind of liked the new third jersey. Was my comment so egregious that it was deleted!?!
lol
On another note… I despise Windows Vista. It keeps resetting my web page at the worst times, like when I try to post a comment.
Darn you Mr. Gates! Darn you to Heck!