2020 NHL Winter Classic
During my junior year of college, I had the pleasure of getting to do a project of my choice. Well, it just so happens I am a huge hockey fan, and the Winter Classic was right around the corner. Although my favorite team was not participating, I couldn’t pass up the chance to bring a fresh look to such a special outdoor event.
Background
The Winter Classic is an annual event held on January 1st, where two professional hockey teams play a regular season game outdoors in a football or baseball stadium. This event aims to evoke nostalgia for both players and fans, recreating the outdoor pond hockey experiences from the past. It allows current and former players, as well as fans, to relive those cherished memories of playing hockey outdoors with friends and family. I know for myself personally, memories flood back when reminiscing on pond hockey.
This Event
The 2020 NHL Winter Classic was played between the Nashville Predators, and the Dallas Stars. The game was played January 1st, 2020 at the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas, Texas. Both teams outfitted brand new uniforms for the game, as well as a television documentary that followed teams leading up to the event, which always provides a unique behind the scenes look into the fast paced lives of professional hockey players.
Importance
I played hockey for 15 years growing up, finding solace in the sport during any stressful times in my life. During these times, hockey became a lifelong passion. Now, with skills in Adobe products, I aim to create better visuals in the world of hockey, and really tap into that emotional connection behind it.
For the 2020 Winter Classic specifically, I felt some of the graphics were lacking that outdoors feeling. The Winter Classic to me is about evoking those memories to fans watching. The misty clouds of condensation coming off our breath in the cold, rosy red cheeks, the bright whites of snow dusting over the ice, and that callback to feeling as though we returned to our ponds for a small pickup game before we’re called in for dinner by our parents.
Inspiration
The mood-boarding stage was pretty straightforward, as I had so many past ideas already in mind for this event. However, I felt it was necessary to take a look at the current graphics for the event before coming up with the overall look. As mentioned above, I felt as though the graphics for this event somewhat lacked that outdoors feeling. I wanted a random person to look at the graphics, hockey fan or not, and want to be at this event or watching from home on the television.
Final Results
Overall, I am very pleased with the result of this project. Throughout, the goal remained to really depict that outdoors feeling and represent the emotion behind it.
2016 NHL Playoffs
Being a big Washington Capitals fan, I decided to work on a free to download fan-pack for Capitals fans to rock during playoffs. Hundreds of downloads later, many fans were ‘rockin’ the red’ on their Twitter profiles! Or should I now be saying X?
