By Country

Friday 30 October 2009

Casualwear (Russia)

For the next few posts I'll be displaying something a little different from kits, but still football related so don't despair. Basically what I have made are a few t-shirts and stuff such as that which you would wear in everyday life 'casually'. For my choice in teams I just used a random number generator and went with whatever it picked and then counted it on the UEFA list then, associated numbers with teams in the league it picked and drew numbers again so it was a totally random process.

Well the first number drawn gave me the Russian leagues to choose from. From that, I made sure it was just the top two leagues to choose so I would at least know something about the team. First team out of the hat, so to speak, was Luch-Energiya Vladivostok of the Russian First Division (below the premier league). Luckily I know a little about them and their geographic remoteness makes them quite an anomaly in European football. If they were in a European competition and drew an Icelandic team it may be the first time a team have had to fly across America to get to their European tie as it would be closer than going trans-Europe.

When I set out to make casualwear I wanted the shirts to have original qualities unrelated to the club combined with history, so a mix of the old and new. With the Vladivostok t-shirt I was inspired a bit by American basketball shirts and I stuck with this idea for it, using a kind of Americana writing, I have also used a kind of 80's/early 90's style star shapes with solid colour bands to give a funky retro look. The blue colour scheme in one that features in Vladivostok's home shirt although as a secondary colour behind yellow. The tiger is from the teams logo and inside the collar is an old map of the Vladivostok region with the word Восток (Vostok - Russian for East) highlighted. I realise now looking at these I have made the collar far too small, just poor drawing from me.


Second out of this mystery hat was current and maybe soon to be consecutive champions, Rubin Kazan. Kazan has a rich history being the capital of the tartar region, which is actually where the club colours come from, the flag of Taratarstan. So I thought it was quite important I included these making the majority of the shirt an unusual shade of dark green with a reasonably light red to highlight it. I have given this t-shirt more of a grungy look as I thought it suited the colours quite well. Also featuring on this shirt is a huge star highlighting their success in last season's premier league, a bit Hollywood styl-e, their is the Kazan dragon and the coat of arms of Tartarstan within the collar.


Finally is FK Moskva, the government owned capital side. They are quite a newish team just like Midtjylland were being founded in only 1997 but only being known as FK Moskva since 2004, I have gone with a burgundy colour which is similar of that of their shirts. The spirally shape is a bit random but I also think it has a bit of an element of the space race look to it, so in that way fits with a government owned team, in the collar is the coat of arms of Moscow as I had no better ideas.

Thursday 29 October 2009

FC Midtjylland

Located in the centre of Denmark, Midtjylland (literally central Jutland) are a very recently formed team, having existed for only 10 years they have spent all but one year in the top Danish league they have made some very respectable season finishes including 2 second placed ones and runners up in the Danish cup, but actual honours have are still yet to materialise for them. Some of their star players over the past few years have been Mohammed Zidan who made his name at the team scoring 30 goals in just one season, who due to this actually had his shirt number 14 retired in his honour. Another player who may be familiar to fans of the English leagues and who features on the shirt is former Derby County and West Bromwich Albion defender Martin Albrechtsen.

For the shirt I used the same design as I had previously for Brescia and Tromsø but as Midtjylland only have a short recent history I have thrown in some unusual elements to make it a bit more striking and engaging on the eye. The 'traditional' colours of the team are red and black so I ran with this as to gain a tradition it would need to build up after many years. The teams nickname is 'Ulvene' which is 'The Wolves' in Danish, and if you look closely at the logo you can make out a wolves face too which I though was just some kind of odd wican symbol to start with, so I decide to try something which looks roughly like it has been torn by a wolf's paw so the stripes flow in an unusual way. I have also made the shoulders unsymmetrical to give more of an unusual look to the shirt.


For the away I have opted for a neutral white colour with black and red elements of the home shirt. You can also see the unsymmetrical look of the shoulders in the red a lot better than you could on the home.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Tromsø & Brescia

Hello again and welcome to another edition of more kits, I'll cut out some of the usual waffle though, but I can't promise that.

Today I am posting up kits I have made for Tromsø I.L. of the Norwegian Tippeligaen and Brescia Calcio of Italian Serie B they use the same new template as the previous Kielce and Saturn kits but a different design, I am however more pleased with how this one turned out. I have returned to a symmetrical design instead and it doesn't look as unusual but I think in comparison this rises above the other by having better elements on the sleeve and a nicer looking collar and pleasant flicks here and there.

Tromsø I.L. are the most northern most premier football team in the world so come as a bit of a novelty to me for this reason. I would like to hear of other team who may be further north who are in lowers leagues though. Tromsø always pose a difficult test in both domestic and European competitions due to a mix of the climate and skill of the players who are used to such conditions. In their '97 Cup Winners' Cup run they managed to defeat Chelsea 3-2 at home in blizzard conditions only to be turned over 7-1 in the return leg and Stamford Bridge. In their 2006 UEFA Cup run they also managed to defeat both Galatasaray and Red Star Belgrade, but still finished bottom in the group stage.

Their kit is traditionally red and white stripes so it was important I didn't play with that too much, the rest of the kit is just something I thought looked good, involving both curves and sharp angles resulting in a bit of a flame look on the sleeve which wasn't on purpose, it just happened like that. The shorts and socks are sort of knock off of Nike designs, the socks are pretty much identical, but the shorts do have their own unique look.


The away throws together the identifiable red and white of the home with a distinguished blue colour, a colour which is pretty regularly used as an away colour by the club, the collar can also be seen a lot better on this than the home, I have given it a quite dynamic sharp look something that was missing quite a bit from the previous designs.


Now on to Brescia, a perennial Italian yo-yo team to say the least. They have bounced all around the Italian league system for their near 100 year history having employed a wealth of talent in that time, probably most famously Roberto Baggio even retiring the number 10 shirt in his honour for a 4 year stint at the end of his career. Currently Brescia are competing in Serie B, the Italian second division and only just missed out by result of promotion playoffs to get back into the top flight football.

These Brescia kits are among some of the favourites I have made, I think they're really classy even though they're quite minimal and the touch of gold from the logo really sets off the kit. I also think it helps that they have a minimalist looking sponsor logo in the shape of the 'Banco di Brescia' logo.


The away, predictably is just a reversal of colours from the home shirt, not much else to say other than that.

Sorry that I waffled.

Sunday 25 October 2009

Once again...

Sorry for the long time between posts, I recently tranferred a lot of files to my external hard drive including kits I had made but then it stopped working *sigh* so I couldn't get anything for sometime but luckily it is back and operating as normal so I can show you something I have made, quite some time ago now.

To be honest though I've not made a great deal either due to a combination of mental blocks and lack of desire, but I do have stuff I can post up.

The first two teams which I am going to be displaying today are from Eastern Europe, and one of which I have already posted something up on, but didn't go into any detail about the club at all, so I'll do that now shall I?

Korona Kielce, from Kielce funnily enough, that's in Poland and currently compete in the Polish Ekstraklasa. A team I follow to an extent because of a Polish friend of mine, it was my first and only real affiliation with any Polish team so I consider them to be my team there. They have quite a checkered history involving promotion, relegation, corruption, new stadium and even challenging for European places. the team was founded in 1973 from a merger between two teams and since then they have further merged with other teams to become what is recognized as Korona Kielce today. 2002 is pretty much when I first heard about them and funnily enough (yeh quite humorous mood today) they started what wikipedia describes as their golden age began with their rise to the Ekstraklasa from the 3rd division no less. On the back of this success they have had a new stadium constructed and even made a fifth placed finish in the league, two years later however along with Zagłębie Lubin they were relegated to the second division for their part in a corruption scandal. All has worked out now though and are back flying high in Poland.

The kit is in their traditional yellow and red stripes with yellow shorts and yellow socks. I wanted to try something asymmetrical with my design as I had noticed a slight pattern emerging so I mixed it up a little with the kit of low sash you can see, (this will be more apparent on the next team I show you). The collar is inspired a bit from one of Adidas' old 'uns and is supposed to look a little turtle neck like just hugging a little but not constricting the throat. Their are also flicks of black over the shirt as a tertiary colour it is also a colour Kielce regularly use in their designs. The shorts are also asymmetrical but again you will be able to see this more clearly on my next kit.


For the away I have used black as the main colour with yellow as a secondary, black is regularly used as change strip in real life also. With this you can also see the asymmetrical design on the shirt better.


My second team I am covering with this design is Saturn Ramenskoye or now known as FC Saturn Moscow Oblast (Сатурн Московская область) a Russian team who if I am honest i don't know a great deal about so excuse me while I recite a wiki article to you. Based in Ramenskoye / Ра́менское on the far outskirts of Moscow they are nicknamed the Aliens because of the Saturn name, which I don't have the foggiest where it comes from at all. The club have had limited success in their history but have managed, like Kielce, to come from the 3rd division to the first in the space of 5 years and have cemented themselves as a regular in the league, citing a 5th placed finish, again like Kielce, as their best to date. Oh one last thing they also boast a record of fielding the oldest scoring player in the Russian Premier League which was Sergei Natalushko at the age of 39 against Lokomotiv Moscow.

The team are also known for playing in black-blue stripes but I ditched this in favour of predominantly blue with dark blue as the secondary colour. The shoulders are in dark blue as well as the 'sash' across the kit, the sleeves are mainly white just cut of by the dark blue spikes. As I told you before you can see the shorts properly on this kit, giving them almost half each colour and white at the sides. The socks are also an amalgamation of the three colours.


The away strip is a grey and blue number much in the same style as the home just with a few tweaks to where the colour on the template is located.