DAILYAXE.com EXCLUSIVE
Yesterday we rolled out a speculative mock-up of Stanford’s upcoming Nike Pro Combat football jerseys. Now comes a better look at the helmet for the design. With the black uniforms and Nike’s insistence to rethink helmets when they give schools the Pro Combat line, we’ve taken the traditional Stanford lid and put a spin on the color and the Stanford logo.
The result is an alternate helmet made to match the all-black look of the rest of the uniform while keeping the red facemask, the general block S mark and a stripe running down the length of the helmet. This isn’t the Stanford helmet of Jim Plunkett or John Elway, but it takes elements from the customary Stanford ensemble and incorporates it into the Nike action hero concept known as Pro Combat.
Take a look at the image:
DailyAxe.com's rendering of a possible helmet concept for Stanford's Nike Pro Combat uniform.
The black shell color matches the shirt and pants of the rest of the uniform, and avoids the out-of-place look of a white helmet on top of black clothes that Stanford’s 2010 alternate look suffered from. There’s also a slightly simpler red stripe with white border going down the shell, and a metallic finish to the paint throughout–producing a somewhat grainy effect when viewed from afar. The finish is most visible when hit by light:
Detail of the helmet's metallic finish
The Stanford logo is altered to reflect the personality of the Farm and give the traditional block S a more modern feel:
The outermost cardinal stripe from the current helmet is gone, and the body of the mark is filled with a subtle sandstone texture and rows of binary code, representing Stanford’s Mission style architecture and its place at the center of Silicon Valley. The mark is applied to the helmet with a slight 3-D effect to make it pop out more on what will be a nationally televised game against Notre Dame. The facemask remains red for tradition’s sake and to avoid a nearly all black helmet.
Some of the design elements–like the binary code and the metallic finish–clearly belong to the 21st century and a Nike line that likes trying some pretty strange stuff. But from a distance, the helmet almost looks like a throw-back, bearing similarities to Maryland’s mid-1990s helmet; Texas Tech’s cap from the ’70s and ’80s; and those worn by Louisville and Cincinnati in the ’80s (all of which are available for viewing at the excellent The Helmet Project). The closest current comparison is Georgia’s alternate black helmet, but the Stanford concept is not remarkably similar to any of those listed above.
Enjoy the graphic and feel free to comment/tweet/email with ideas and suggestions!
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