Pittsburgh Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers were born in 1933 as the Pittsburgh Pirates. They would become the Steelers in 1940, eight seasons before their MLB counterparts would don black-and-gold. During the Second World War, the Steelers would combine their team with another squad and form joint teams with the Eagles (Steagles, 1943) and the (formerly Chicago) Cardinals (Card-Pitt, 1944). From their inception in 1933 through most of the 1962 season the Steelers wore yellow helmets, with the exception of the combined teams and 1941, when white helmets and green jerseys were used. Over those early seasons the Steelers experimented with white and gold pants as well as different striping patterns on the pants and jerseys. The 1960s saw the team experiment with pointed gold shoulders before settling into the familiar black helmets and thick sleeve stripes they currently use. Outside of the Steelers using a throwback in 1994 for the NFL’s 75th Anniversary, the next big change would come in 1997, when Pittsburgh would update their numbers to a form of Futura Condensed at the beginning of the Kordell Stewart era. The team would wear a pair of throwbacks in recent seasons, with the gold helmet-black jersey-white pants combo from 2007 through 2011, and the “Bumblebees” from 2012 through 2016. My Steelers rebrand puts the focus away from the US Steel logo the team co-opted in 1969 and places it on the steel workers who built the city. The team signature contains a primary icon of a steel worker in a hard hat over a beveled STEELERS and PITTSBURGH rendered in Futura. The hard hat has hints of red and royal as well as a hypocycloid highlight to pay homage to the classic logo. The alternate logo is a modernized version of the US Steel logo with the hypocycloid diamonds streaking from left to right within a beveled ring. A hypocycloid-P and the classic logo used on throwbacks complete the logo offerings. The team typeface is a block serif with a beveled outline. The helmets stay black but break the hypocycloids out of the ring for an asymmetrical design that leaves the left side of the helmet blank, just like old times. The jerseys feature black cap sleeves with a diamond-plate pattern and red or blue trim, depending on the sleeve. The collars are also black with a gold accent. The home jersey is black with gold numbers and grey player names. The away jersey swaps the black base for white with black numbers and a grey NOB (Name-On-Back), while the alternate jerseys are athletic gold. The home, away, and alternate are paired with athletic gold or black pants. The throwback uniforms bring back the gold helmet and white pants along with the classic circular logo.