0041: The Identity Crisis Islanders

On this Freak Out Friday, we continue a neat series by Ross Taylor. Over the last couple of weeks, he's merged identities of teams from different eras but tied to one city. For this one, it's one team with multiple identities rolled in to one. I have to be honest, I don't hate it. But then I never hated the fisherman as much as other people did. It was really just the wavy striping that got me. Very amateur. The rest of the uniform was pretty solid.

As it turns out, this series won't be ending here. It was originally planned for three weeks, but Ross has since provided a lot more examples of his brand blending. So I'm sure we'll see more next week. But I won't give anything away yet.

Meantime, if what you want has more of an Ohio flavor — say, a combination of the Columbus Blue Jackets and Cleveland Barons — then you're in luck with tomorrow's Winter Classic concept. Don't miss it.

0034: The Colorado Rockalanche

Ross Taylor is tossing NHL history into a blender for a three-week series here on the Icethetics Concepts page. Last week, it was Minnesota and a mix between the North Stars and Wild. Today he sets his sights on Colorado with the Rockalanche — a combination of the Rockies, who played from 1976 to 1982 before becoming the Devils, and, of course, the Avalanche.

Sure, it's strange, but my goal with this series of posts is to demonstrate that the Freak Out Friday label doesn't have to be a bad thing. There are some very talented artists with some very interesting ideas. I hope we continue to see more of them.

0027: Green-a-thon Freak Out

There seems to be a sense that concepts featured in a Freak Out Friday post are somehow a bad thing. I want to change that. It was never my intention to make it seem as though work featured here was anything other than perhaps a bit outlandish. Different. Sometimes in a good way.

For the next three Fridays, I'm going to feature the imaginative work of Ross Taylor, whose excellent logo design skills have been featured in the IceHL Project. His goal with this series of NHL concepts was to take history and put it in a blender. First up is the Minnesota Wild Stars — an obvious combination of Minnesota's NHL teams, the North Stars and Wild. It's unusual to say the least and I can guarantee you nothing like it will ever see action in the NHL. But even if it is a little freaky, it's still pretty cool.

Green-a-thon Week wraps up tomorrow with a St. Patrick's Day edition of Winter Classic Weekends. Then I think we'll focus on some other colors for a while.