University of Hawaii T.C. Ching Stadium Pt. 3

For as long as I could remember, my football experiences were memorized around the design of the field. I could remember at my home using my finger to draw football fields in the blue tufted broadloom carpeting of my living room. With the limited room I had, I could recall drawing end-zones, a 50 yard line, and a 20 yard line. On the 50, Hawaii used to always have a helmet with the logo—I remember the UH Rainbow logo on the white helmet of the Aloha Stadium AstroTurf of the 90’s, the green and black rainbow menehune of June Jones’ ‘99 inaugural season, and then the most-recent Hawaii “H” logo originally on the green helmet, now with simply just the “H” on the field. The end-zones are what I remember the most: with the iconic “Hawaii” and “Aloha” wording with stars and icon to the right. As a kid I fondly remember Michael Carter running in touchdowns in a hurricane of newspaper streamers and confetti down the Home sideline in front of the band of the north end-zone. I believe things like design of your play field is important and a distinct part of home field advantage.

June Jones standing on the “H” logo on helmet prior to the ‘00 opener. (Courtesy of G. Lee, Star-Bulletin Archive)

Today I’ll make an attempt to design a field.

Inspirations from the past:
Some of my favorite designs are the following:

Aloha Stadium Field Design up until about 1999. End zones reading “Aloha” (South End zone) and “Hawaii” (North End Zone). At the 50 yard line was a white helmet with the UH Rainbow logo. At this time, the field was AstroTurf

Aloha Stadium Field Design in 2005 against a visiting USC. The tribal triangles, from what I’ve researched, was commonly used in tribal war. At the very least, there was an attempt to be culturally relevant in design. Hawaii changed the end zones to read Warriors and lost the dark green color of the end zones (not to my preference). They also used to sport the “WAC” conference logo near the 25 yard lines

Aloha Stadium Field Design circa 2019-2020 with the alternating darkened green field increments at every 5 yards, Mountain West Conference logo at the 25, “Hawaii” End zones and Field names on opposing 25 yard lines. Unfortunately we lost the tribal triangles at the sidelines.

Design Considerations:
– Incorporate a “Hawaii Local Flavor” to the field design
– Produce something different from previous field designs
– Design specifically football since the field can be repainted for soccer season.

A101 – CONCEPTUAL SITE PLAN
Notes A through F annotating field design elements

A102 – CONCEPTUAL FIELD DESIGN
Overall rendering of field design

A103 – Annotated call outs for Conceptual Field Design

A501 – Details
Design of the 50 Yard line

A502 – Details B and C
End Zone design and inspirations

A503 – Details
25 yard line Logo and stripe and inspiration

A504 – Details
Sideline Design and Inspiration

Observations:
1) I realized that this was way more fun than originally anticipated. It was probably because the idea of incorporating pieces of local flavor that I grew up with, as well as impact on my memories—made this a really fun exercise.
2) I realized is that a school color of green makes it difficult to design on a green field. There’s a way to have more contrast, but I’m just not experienced enough to have worked it out. I like the ideas regarding the endzones and sidelines, but I’m not completely happy about the execution.
3) Keeping this simple is difficult, but more important than going overboard. I feel my design is already busy, but there’s gotta be a better way to be simple and impactful. Maybe the current Aloha Stadium design is more effective than I thought.

Things I learned:
1) Traditional is better when it comes to football field design. I think emphasis should be just with Endzones and the 50 Yard line.
2) Keep it simple. The design of your field should highlight players, not the playing field. It surely shouldn’t make it harder to watch the game.

Ideas to explore:
1) I like the idea of maybe having something like ALOHA and IMUA “To move forward (towards a goal)” at the endzones.
2) Gotta be a better way to incorporate Diamond Head’s imagery.

It would be a dream to design for UH for some capacity someday, be it their field, stadium, football jerseys, whatever.

Go ‘Bows

-Duane