mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
PB knows
Illinois Football Uniforms
- Status
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
Well… so much for this helmet being a one-off.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, I took the unveiling of the Script helmets as more of a coming out party than a one-off gimmick. I would be shocked if we don't regularly wear those from now on given that our social media is constantly promoting and utilizing the Script font ... and I honestly wouldn't be TOTALLY floored if they ever just became our main helmet.Well… so much for this helmet being a one-off.
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
On this note, I think the oft-repeated argument that the Block I should be on the helmet because "it is our main logo" totally doesn't work. Some of the best helmets out there do not have their school's main logo on them! From totally unique designs like Michigan to excessively plain classic designs like Alabama/PSU to other great script/cursive ones like UCLA/Florida ... it's a perfectly traditional and classic move in football to have a helmet that is unique within an athletic department's overall branding.
I'm definitely Team Script!
Actually, I just want us to stick with one main design and sprinkle in alternatives on rare occasions one or two times a year at most. The constant switching is my issue. IMO the Block I is the most identifiable, but I can be persuaded otherwise. Just pick one!!
Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
My problem is with the capital I. It just does not look like an I, even if technically correct in cursive. Keeps me from endorsing the script. Maybe I can get a "change the I" petition going.....
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Absolutely kills me when a recruit or anyone else posts this on social media:
I've cozied up to the Slant ILLINOIS on the football helmets at least a little, and I view the Mike Thomas Era rebrand as a huge failure overall (especially the 1LL1NO1S font that we're somehow still stuck with), but the one thing they absolutely got right was giving us a better Block I logo.
This is our absolute worst logo, too much going on, the mac and cheese shade of orange. I'll be glad when this is a distant memory.Absolutely kills me when a recruit or anyone else posts this on social media:
I've cozied up to the Slant ILLINOIS on the football helmets at least a little, and I view the Mike Thomas Era rebrand as a huge failure overall (especially the 1LL1NO1S font that we're somehow still stuck with), but the one thing they absolutely got right was giving us a better Block I logo.
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- Batavia
I agree. Even as a major ILLINOIS fan, I absolutely hated this logo. The Block I and ILLINOIS should be their own things. And that orange was absolutely awful.Absolutely kills me when a recruit or anyone else posts this on social media:
I've cozied up to the Slant ILLINOIS on the football helmets at least a little, and I view the Mike Thomas Era rebrand as a huge failure overall (especially the 1LL1NO1S font that we're somehow still stuck with), but the one thing they absolutely got right was giving us a better Block I logo.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
I dunno. I kinda like it. Or maybe I just associate with that first delicious sip of coffee in the morning.
️AyoDos11
- Southern Illinois
Personally, this is one of my favorite logos we've had. It's probably because I grew up with this logo so there's a nostalgia factor involved. The only thing I would do to it is update the washed out orange color.Absolutely kills me when a recruit or anyone else posts this on social media:
I've cozied up to the Slant ILLINOIS on the football helmets at least a little, and I view the Mike Thomas Era rebrand as a huge failure overall (especially the 1LL1NO1S font that we're somehow still stuck with), but the one thing they absolutely got right was giving us a better Block I logo.
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
The rebrand font aesthetically kills everything it touches
this is why there's a proverb about curiosity
I don't love the old orange either, but this one^^ is WAY too red. Yuck. The good news is that this is not the official orange any more...
Here are the logos as of 2015:
Here they are as of today:
Much better.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Plus, I will just go ahead and say my opinion that it indeed feels like overkill and (dare I say!) somewhat insecure to plaster our school name over an orange Block I logo. We are the only major school that really utilizes a Block I to begin with, and the color orange itself is unique enough. We don't need to (quite literally) spell out that we are Illinois ... the orange Block I does a perfectly fine job at it, standing alone.
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
It is much easier to just "make good things that are complementary to the overall brand" and let the chips fall where they may, as opposed to worrying about the multi-level context and comparative sports landscape.
You could daisy-chain your way to the perfect use case for the rebrand font based on type of uniform, nobody else using the colors or serifs involved, etc. and it would still look bad because it evokes a school that opened its doors in 1967, as opposed to one that celebrated its centennial then.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
What you described would sound a lot like these hokey design briefs for new logos that I read and wonder exactly how you can say so much while saying absolutely nothing.
If it takes one significant time and effort to explain the logo or branding, then said logo or branding is not very good.
The answer seems so simple - Flying Illini font as the base branding font, Script Illinois for certain logos, only use the arched Illini on the football helmets (I've been sold on not using it as a third type of font from others' comments using examples from UCLA and Florida helmet logos). Done.
(Plus, as I believe @Mr. Tibbs has said, the 1LL1NO1S font is from the Mike Thomas era. Only one thing left to do with anything related to that wobegone era of Illini Athletics.)
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Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Speaking of the MT Era rebrand, we are at an almost shocking number of years of use for a rebrand that nobody likes that was pushed through by an AD that nobody likes who has been gone for almost a DECADE. It's especially bewildering considering that our athletic department has had an absolutely dramatic uptick in success since 2021 or so.
From what I can tell using basketball uniforms and memory, we started using this font as the DIA standard somewhere around 2000, and we stuck with it until the MT Era:
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It looks like we then first saw the 1LL1NO1S font during the 2014-15 basketball season. So the font pictured above (presumably chosen by RG), made it just four years into MT's tenure before he completely revamped everything while having what should have been next to zero clout or leverage, lol. We are now nearly a decade into Whitman's tenure, and while Bielema seems to get most things he asks for ... nothing else has changed. And you'd think Whitman would have more than enough pull to put his own stamp on this.
Is this just not on the DIA's radar? Do the powers that be actually like 1LL1NO1S and/or just not understand how unpopular it is among fans? I have to think the constant use of the Script in our social media indicates at least a vague awareness that it is popular. It's one thing to expect another total brand redo like in 2015 or whatever, but this could be as simple as just using one of two wildly popular fonts that we already have AND use, just on a more consistent basis (those being either the Script or the block Flyin' Illini font). I do not get it, haha.
From what I can tell using basketball uniforms and memory, we started using this font as the DIA standard somewhere around 2000, and we stuck with it until the MT Era:
It looks like we then first saw the 1LL1NO1S font during the 2014-15 basketball season. So the font pictured above (presumably chosen by RG), made it just four years into MT's tenure before he completely revamped everything while having what should have been next to zero clout or leverage, lol. We are now nearly a decade into Whitman's tenure, and while Bielema seems to get most things he asks for ... nothing else has changed. And you'd think Whitman would have more than enough pull to put his own stamp on this.
Is this just not on the DIA's radar? Do the powers that be actually like 1LL1NO1S and/or just not understand how unpopular it is among fans? I have to think the constant use of the Script in our social media indicates at least a vague awareness that it is popular. It's one thing to expect another total brand redo like in 2015 or whatever, but this could be as simple as just using one of two wildly popular fonts that we already have AND use, just on a more consistent basis (those being either the Script or the block Flyin' Illini font). I do not get it, haha.
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
We also have an annoying habit of font-mixing, as @Fighter of the Nightman illustrated above. Those curvy, chunky numbers that you see McCamey, Tisdale and Rayvonte wearing started in 1997-98 and had a corresponding-ish "Illinois" on the jersey:
You can see it a little better here:
It's not a "set" per se - but the "S" actually curves, the "O" is a true oval, etc.
But then we shift to a hard-edged, angular font (the McCamey and Tisdale pics) or [grimacing] the two-tone....and just make zero changes to the numeral font.
It's sloppy.
You can see it a little better here:
It's not a "set" per se - but the "S" actually curves, the "O" is a true oval, etc.
But then we shift to a hard-edged, angular font (the McCamey and Tisdale pics) or [grimacing] the two-tone....and just make zero changes to the numeral font.
It's sloppy.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
This is also just my subjective opinion, but it seems with each iteration of those uniforms we became a bit more of trend-chasers. I actually remember at the time in 2005 thinking that our uniforms "weren't that cool" or whatever ... and the "boringness" of them that I didn't appreciate as a seventh grader is what I NOW appreciate about them. The evolution from Dee to Tisdale to McCamey to Rice in those photos just gets more and more obnoxiously subservient to whatever gimmicky trend Nike uniforms were doing at the time. Until, finally ... we lost our souls completely and wound up looking like this somehow, lol:
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I know people kind of roll their eyes at the "Look like Illinois!" critique of uniforms, but ... having a gray and orange uniform with no blue because it's "in" is the epitome of lame. I do think there's a reason that everyone (A) largely approves of the new football uniforms and (B) always wants our basketball team in the Script or Flyin' Illini uniforms, and it goes beyond them just looking good or being nostalgic. All of them genuinely do look "on brand" for (as you alluded to earlier) an athletic program as old as a Big Ten charter member like Illinois. They're classic, the colors are understated and in good proportion, etc. While that gray uniform Malcom is wearing was definitely the low point of our current rebrand mess ... we are obviously still wearing the exact same uniform, they have just at LEAST got our actual colors involved again.
Hate to pay them a compliment, but Michigan basketball is doing it right. While I think the Crisler Center itself is somewhat "meh," when you watch them on TV, everything about their brand speaks to classic Big Ten, Midwestern college hoops program steeped in history and proud of it. The simple court design, the classic block lettering using nothing but the team colors, the "update of a classic design" uniforms, etc. And I feel it makes sense for the Fighting Illini to try to go for the same vibe. I feel like we have one foot in that world...
... and one foot in the Iowa State world, where we throw shlt at the wall and hope it sticks because we don't even actually think our own colors or logos are cool.
I know people kind of roll their eyes at the "Look like Illinois!" critique of uniforms, but ... having a gray and orange uniform with no blue because it's "in" is the epitome of lame. I do think there's a reason that everyone (A) largely approves of the new football uniforms and (B) always wants our basketball team in the Script or Flyin' Illini uniforms, and it goes beyond them just looking good or being nostalgic. All of them genuinely do look "on brand" for (as you alluded to earlier) an athletic program as old as a Big Ten charter member like Illinois. They're classic, the colors are understated and in good proportion, etc. While that gray uniform Malcom is wearing was definitely the low point of our current rebrand mess ... we are obviously still wearing the exact same uniform, they have just at LEAST got our actual colors involved again.
Hate to pay them a compliment, but Michigan basketball is doing it right. While I think the Crisler Center itself is somewhat "meh," when you watch them on TV, everything about their brand speaks to classic Big Ten, Midwestern college hoops program steeped in history and proud of it. The simple court design, the classic block lettering using nothing but the team colors, the "update of a classic design" uniforms, etc. And I feel it makes sense for the Fighting Illini to try to go for the same vibe. I feel like we have one foot in that world...
... and one foot in the Iowa State world, where we throw shlt at the wall and hope it sticks because we don't even actually think our own colors or logos are cool.
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