DesignFootball.com partnered with TemplateFC to provide a series of free tutorials to assist the creation of concept/fantasy football kits.

Covering options and tools available in Adobe Photoshop and the similar Photopea, this first episode covers the integration of different layers in terms of colouring, making them visible/invisible and adding/editing details, as well as providing an initial template to work on - with an aim of creating a finished product which suggests a photorealistic shirt.

Creative directors and illustrators Darren Urquhart and Tom Smith - known as “IdeasByUs”, “Urquhart + Smith” and “Daz and Tom” - are treating us to 134 Star Wars-themed football crests this Star Wars Day (May 4th) and here are some of the Scottish Premiership examples.

Star Wars Day 2021 is almost upon us - May the 4th be with you, pun fans - and two New York City-based creative directors and illustrators have come up with a Star Wars and football crossover project for the occasion.

Originally hailing from two very different examples of the British east coast, Darren Urquhart and Tom Smith - “IdeasByUs”/”Urquhart + Smith”/”Daz and Tom” - have united their love of The Beautiful Game and George Lucas’s epic space opera by artistically combining the two in the form of adapted crests.

Presumably based on leaked information, this is Fayed's prediction of the FC Barcelona Home shirt for the 2022-23 season.

The upcoming design, which is being speculated on despite next season's still being unconfirmed, features the "blau" (blue) part of the famous Blaugrana name divided into royal blue and navy stripes, with a third stripe in the famous grenadine.

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Designfootball.com is 13 years old this year, and I thought it about time I outlined some of the occasions I’ve noticed an “IRL” release sharing traits with a design we’d earlier seen on the site.

The following representations of both DF designs (cover versions, if you will) and notable releases of the last decade or so are the work of the brilliant Kitbliss's Chris Oakley. Each separate graphic draws a comparison between design ideas which made it to the real world, and similar thoughts that had appeared on DF (with one exception) at a previous point - the latter on the left, the former on the right.

So, without further ado, in rough chronological order of the actual designs’ releases...

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West Germany and, latterly, the side representing the reunified Germany - a natural progression from the previous Fifa member, and absorbing Germany DR (East Germany) - have one of the most glorious histories in international football. And a kit history to match.

Courtesy of designer Emre Gultekin, this progression has been beautifully rendered. The Home designs have generally been white and black, with varying proportions, from beginning to end, but there have been notable exceptions.

Everton would, but for local neighbours Liverpool, have been the English team of the 1980s. They started the 1990s' poorly but were hoping shiny new Premier League football would spur them on.

Carrying over their 1991-92 kit for the first season, long-term partner Umbro was paired with the iconic NEC sponsor on a collared shirt with jacquard pattern and sleeve and hip embellishment.

South London's Crystal Palace began their Premier League life in a Bukta kit, but this was replaced mid-season by a virtually identical Ribeiro effort due to Bukta hitting financial trouble.

The Nehru-style button-up collar shirt with the bold red and blue stripes was decorated with a full colour crest and the Ribero logo and sponsor Tulip Computers in white. As was common in that era, the fabric had a complex jacquard pattern.

The 1990s is often remembered as a period of excess in graphic patterns on football kits, and the Ribero example Coventry City wore as they kicked off their Premier League life is no exception.

At first look, the sky blue with scattered white and truer blue seems random, but there is some structure to the effect. Add in a Peugeot logo - eventually placed on a white rectangle for legibility - and you have an iconic Nineties design from an iconic Nneties Premier League side.

Chelsea had received a new contrast collar kit from Umbro in 1991, complete with the longer shorts the double diamond brand pushed with that season's releases, but they didn't enter the Premier League era with a complete hand-me-down.