Painted Ram's Football Helmet 

In 1947, when a University of an art–graduate–turned–professional–football–player by the name of Fred Gehrke decided he had enough with the dull Rams helmets, and presented an idea to the owners. He took a brown leather helmet home, painted it blue, and then added the yellow horns. This design decision became the first decorated helmet design in the NFL.

Gehrke painted helmets for 2 years afterwards until post-war ingenuity combined with the newly popular plastic fabrication paved the way for plastic helmets. It was shortly after that the entire league adapted much more prominent helmet branding.

It was this early development that started the trajectory of modern designs in sporting gear, and branding.

Clear, bold design felt new and in a time of widespread cultural and marketplace innovation it signaled a new direction in how sports were represented. It now meant that sports were a part of the wider culture and could enjoy the bold graphics other sectors did.

Its no coincidence that this all occurred around a time when professional sports gained economic success, leading to the media behemoths we all know today.

In its infancy it created what some would consider The Golden Era of Sports Design. The timelessness, honesty and soul the sport had back then is mostly due to the fact the entire industry was produced by hand. It was fresh, clean, concise, simple but felt human—and not overtly industrialized and sterile.