Red, White, and Black: An Cultural Exploration of American Football

This project explores the culture of modern American football players through contrast against the visual identity of college athletes of the 1960s. Drawing from my experience working with the University of Georgia football team, I became interested in how the aesthetics and cultural presence of athletes have shifted over time. Today’s version of collegiate American football is strongly tied to fame and social media attention, playing a large role in culture due to the monetary opportunities associated with them. While vintage football imagery often presents athletes through a standard and uniform appearance, contemporary players express identity through jewelry, style, and personal fashion. By blending this modern method of personal expression with the static, simple styles and poses of 1960s football documentary photos, this project accentuates where American football is today through visual signs of its development into an entity that is much more than just a sport and its players.

Night Train, 2026

Glint, 2026

Old College, 2026

Magnolia, 2026

Setting out to explore this idea visually, I expanded my workflow to include photography and fabric by knitting a letterman sweater and sewing together a 1960s style football jersey, both with modern trends. The jersey was stitched together from mesh fabric, with the stripes painted with acrylic paint, and the jersey numbers and tag sourced from a current Georgia Football practice jersey. The sweater was hand knit, and the letter was felted and attached by hand. With two current Georgia football players, Ellis Robinson (left) and Nate Frazier (right), as models for my photography, I used medium format color slide film and black and white film as an ode to the era. The work as a whole highlights the culture, ethnicity, and style of modern athletes of the sport against the backdrop of the fashion of their football forebears.

As a graduating BFA from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, I was a part of the Spring 2026 BFA Exit Exhibition, titled Everything Now. This is an art show highlighting the graduating students and their work, with my exhibition being shown from April 3rd to April 10th, 2026 in Athens, GA.

LOGAN BEARD

LOGAN
BEARD