The 2014 Illini Nike Uniforms and Rebrand

KansasIllini · Apr 17, 2014

dgcrow said:
The point is, I don't see any reason to wear gray at all, since it isn't a school color. Just my opinion.

TheSecretWeapon said:
white isnt a school color either.

I realize everyone has different tastes, I'm just trying to understand the hate for the gray.

The gray uniform is my least favorite, but not because it's gray. I think it's too bland. Needs blue or orange lettering to be more to my liking

Figured I might as well add in my take on gray/silver uniforms. I'm already on the record as saying that I don't like them at all, regardless of school, and I personally think that it's just another dumb fad that will eventually pass. I especially don't like 'grayscale' uniforms, which is what ours feels more like, with using the white wordmark on the silver jersey.

The more I've thought about it, the more I've been able to come up with a relatively more technical explanation for my thoughts, though it's still nothing more than personal opinion. I want the blue and orange to be the focus of our uniforms 100% of the time. For our light jerseys, I want white instead of gray/silver since white is the ultimate neutral color. Having white as the base gives us more contrast and makes our primary colors of orange and blue pop, and allows the orange and blue to still be the featured colors. Whereas on a slightly darker base like gray or silver, we're left with slightly less contrast, and the base color of the jersey ends up dominating. If a casual fan flips on the TV and sees us in white, I'd think they'll notice the blue and orange quicker, and be more likely to recognize us as Illinois. If the same fan sees us in our silver uniforms with only a little bit of orange, I think it would take quite a bit longer to recognize us as Illinois, especially with how many schools are wearing silver and gray now. Again, I have zero background in graphic design to technically back this up; it's just my personal thoughts/opinion.

I still wouldn't like it, but I'd be willing to give the silver BBall uniforms more of a chance if they simply changed the wordmark from white to navy. I can handle our silver uniforms once or twice a year, since there would still be 30-some other basketball games. But this is also why I'd be even more strongly against the inevitable gray football uniform. When you're only on once a week, and 12-14 times total, I want blue and orange to be the focus all the time to build more of an identity.

georgeuremovich · Apr 17, 2014

VAIllini35 said:
Jim Brown.

Floyd Little, Jim Nance, Art Monk

STL FANATIC · Apr 17, 2014

AZillini said:
Then you must also be opposed to white jerseys or pants, right?

There's no hard and fast rule or anything, but white is considered part of pretty much every organizations color palette in the history of ever whether officially or not.

It's the ultimate neutral. It can interact well with any color, and nobody can claim it as unique (on any level) to them.

Greys and black don't follow that principle.

Technically speaking, they are neutral. But they're not ubiquitous nor can they interact in a smooth way with every color.

GilThorpe · Apr 17, 2014

So it looks to me that on the computer, the block I orange is now more red than before. Correct ? More similar to Auburn now than to Clemson as before.

Or are my eyes deceiving me?

Kams Bathroom · Apr 17, 2014

STL FANATIC said:
They're ok. Conventions matter, and in baseball the convention is for a road uniform to be outside of the color palette of the team's brand.

So powder blue is really no different than the past and current gray in that since.

I think grey looks better, but the Cardinals were one of the teams that could pull of powder blue too. I choose grey, but I don't hate the blue on the basis that it doesn't really break any principles of the brand.

No. I'm not letting you get away with that. Light blue road baseball uniforms were absolutely an ephemeral trendy fad that had nothing to do with any existing brands. They were every bit the equivalent of the Nike generated design bandwagons that you spend all your time decrying.

Kams Bathroom · Apr 17, 2014

GilThorpe said:
So it looks to me that on the computer, the block I orange is now more red than before. Correct ? More similar to Auburn now than to Clemson as before.

Or are my eyes deceiving me?

Honestly, if there's one thing I learned in this process, it's that the more you read about color tones and reproduction, the less you understand.

STL FANATIC · Apr 17, 2014

GilThorpe said:
So it looks to me that on the computer, the block I orange is now more red than before. Correct ? More similar to Auburn now than to Clemson as before.

Or are my eyes deceiving me?

I wouldn't necessarily get into comparing which orange they're more similar too bc that stuff can vary and some schools have the same trouble we've had keeping their colors consistent. A lot of times I'll see people talk about a color being more like someone than someone else and in reality they all three specify the same shade.

But, I don't think your eyes are deceiving you about it being redder. Peacher really. That's in RGB (on-screen) graphics, anyways. The textile of the uniforms is pretty close to what we've had for a while. But the RGB values appear significantly different. I can't say I love how they're rendering.

It will be interesting to see what some of the printed material looks like once it gets rolled out. See if the CMYK does a better job matching the uniform textiles than the RGB does.

Orange is a particularly hard color to match across these various mediums. I know a goal of this rebrand was to do it. It's not quite there, but like I said, it was never going to be perfectly done with orange. (No color can be perfectly done, actually.)

KansasIllini · Apr 17, 2014

Kams Bathroom said:
Honestly, if there's one thing I learned in this process, it's that the more you read about color tones and reproduction, the less you understand.

When one color tone really loves another color tone...

But seriously, your post is exactly why I generally don't read too much into the technical side of things I know very little about. I'm too likely to come away feeling dumber than I did going in.

STL FANATIC · Apr 17, 2014

Kams Bathroom said:
No. I'm not letting you get away with that. Light blue road baseball uniforms were absolutely an ephemeral trendy fad that had nothing to do with any existing brands. They were every bit the equivalent of the Nike generated design bandwagons that you spend all your time decrying.

They were absolutely a trend. But my point was the trendiness of it didn't matter. Road uniforms in baseball are conventionally of a color not within a teams actual brand.

I probably would have disliked the powder blue jerseys at the time for being caught up in a trend (in the same way I dislike the Cardinals alternates being cream for being part of a trend). But I wouldn't hate them because they were off-brand. In baseball the road uniform base color is off-brand always (which means it doesn't even factor into the brand).

In the case of our silver uniforms, they're checking off both boxes of frustration. 1. They're off-brand. 2. They're only inspiration is piggybacking on a trend of other schools.

Kams Bathroom · Apr 17, 2014

STL FANATIC said:
Road uniforms in baseball are conventionally of a color not within a teams actual brand.

No, road uniforms in baseball, for decades upon decades, almost without exeption, were gray. And to the extent that was deviated from in the 70's by some teams, it was for team colored pullovers.

dgcrow · Apr 17, 2014

KansasIllini said:
Figured I might as well add in my take on gray/silver uniforms. I'm already on the record as saying that I don't like them at all, regardless of school, and I personally think that it's just another dumb fad that will eventually pass. I especially don't like 'grayscale' uniforms, which is what ours feels more like, with using the white wordmark on the silver jersey.

The more I've thought about it, the more I've been able to come up with a relatively more technical explanation for my thoughts, though it's still nothing more than personal opinion. I want the blue and orange to be the focus of our uniforms 100% of the time. For our light jerseys, I want white instead of gray/silver since white is the ultimate neutral color. Having white as the base gives us more contrast and makes our primary colors of orange and blue pop, and allows the orange and blue to still be the featured colors. Whereas on a slightly darker base like gray or silver, we're left with slightly less contrast, and the base color of the jersey ends up dominating. If a casual fan flips on the TV and sees us in white, I'd think they'll notice the blue and orange quicker, and be more likely to recognize us as Illinois. If the same fan sees us in our silver uniforms with only a little bit of orange, I think it would take quite a bit longer to recognize us as Illinois, especially with how many schools are wearing silver and gray now. Again, I have zero background in graphic design to technically back this up; it's just my personal thoughts/opinion.

I still wouldn't like it, but I'd be willing to give the silver BBall uniforms more of a chance if they simply changed the wordmark from white to navy. I can handle our silver uniforms once or twice a year, since there would still be 30-some other basketball games. But this is also why I'd be even more strongly against the inevitable gray football uniform. When you're only on once a week, and 12-14 times total, I want blue and orange to be the focus all the time to build more of an identity.

Good post. Also, there are 18 different combinations, just for the home football uniforms (no white shirts), using only orange, blue, and white shirts, pants, and helmets.

STL FANATIC · Apr 17, 2014

Kams Bathroom said:
No, road uniforms in baseball, for decades upon decades, almost without exeption, were gray. And to the extent that was deviated from in the 70's by some teams, it was for team colored pullovers.

I think we're saying the same thing here. Grey isn't a color for most teams so road uniform color was never tied to team identity. Do I prefer grey in that case because it's technical neutral? Yes. But they weren't breaking a rule of their brand any more than they already had been by switching to powder blue. In 1970 and 80s baseball, powder blue was also a neutral road uniform color.

It was a trend, and one that didn't always have pretty results, so in that sense I probably would not have been a fan. But it would have been for that reason and not because it was not on-brand. (Because road color uniform isn't related to brand in baseball.)

And while some teams did have team colored pull-over uniforms, the powder blues were never that. No team in baseball had powder blue as a color. It was just a new base uniform color.

AZillini · Apr 17, 2014

STL FANATIC said:
There's no hard and fast rule or anything, but white is considered part of pretty much every organizations color palette in the history of ever whether officially or not.

It's the ultimate neutral. It can interact well with any color, and nobody can claim it as unique (on any level) to them.

Greys and black don't follow that principle.

Technically speaking, they are neutral. But they're not ubiquitous nor can they interact in a smooth way with every color.

But I thought the ubiquity of gray was one of the complaints?

STL FANATIC · Apr 17, 2014

AZillini said:
But I thought the ubiquity of gray was one the complaints?

No. White is truly ubiquitous. It's everywhere one everything for everyone.

Grey is a trend that a lot of schools have begun using without much reason or without much consistency.

I think there's a pretty clear difference between the two, myself.

Kams Bathroom · Apr 17, 2014

STL FANATIC said:
I think we're saying the same thing here. Grey isn't a color for most teams so road uniform color was never tied to team identity. Do I prefer grey in that case because it's technical neutral? Yes. But they weren't breaking a rule of their brand any more than they already had been by switching to powder blue. In 1970 and 80s baseball, powder blue was also a neutral road uniform color.

Well guess what, in 2010's basketball, gray is also an all-purpose neutral color.

You can't have this both ways. It's not like we're wearing lime green uniforms. We're just getting in on a massive trend, and looking rather sharp doing so, IMO.

AutoPoster 3000 · Apr 17, 2014

dgcrow said:
Good post. Also, there are 18 different combinations, just for the home football uniforms (no white shirts), using only orange, blue, and white shirts, pants, and helmets.

If you love mix-n-match, this is probably the golden era, because I think the days are numbered for multiple helmets. The NFL has already decreed that teams may only use one helmet because modern ones are carefully form-fitted to the player's head to prevent concussions, and apparently this process is so exacting that they require it be done only once per season. I recall that Tampa was not permitted to roll out a special Bucco-Bruce throwback helmet last year, and this was the reason given. I imagine it's only a matter of time before the NCAA follows suit. Why they can't just swap out the shell of the helmet, or apply some 3M vinyl wrap to the surface like they do with cars, I can't say.

pizzaman · Apr 17, 2014

Kams Bathroom said:
No, road uniforms in baseball, for decades upon decades, almost without exeption, were gray. And to the extent that was deviated from in the 70's by some teams, it was for team colored pullovers.

Home team wore white, visitors wore grey, until...................Charles Finley, owner of the Athletics put them in bright green shirts. It was a big deal at the time and introduced baseball fans to color. Until then baseball's color came from the grass, the arms of the undershirt and the cap.

BLloyd2311 · Apr 17, 2014

We're can we buy the gear at Nike.com I'm guessing?

Deleted member 29907 · Apr 17, 2014

georgeuremovich said:
Floyd Little, Jim Nance, Art Monk

Legends?

AutoPoster 3000 · Apr 17, 2014

In the majors, yes ... although, minor league, negro league, and various all-star tour and barnstorming teams were known to break with those traditions a bit more freely in the 1930s-50s. A nice catalogue of some of the more interesting incarnations can be seen at the website for that awsome Seattle-based Ebbets Field Flannels company. Still the #1 source for the coolest retro caps on the planet.

okawillini · Apr 17, 2014

STL FANATIC · Apr 17, 2014

Kams Bathroom said:
Well guess what, in 2010's basketball, gray is also an all-purpose neutral color.

You can't have this both ways. It's not like we're wearing lime green uniforms. We're just getting in on a massive trend, and looking rather sharp doing so, IMO.

I don't really think I'm having it both ways.

1. As I stated about the powder blues, I probably wouldn't have liked the trend part of it anyways. Trends encourage thoughtless design rather than meaningful design. That's what grey feels like.

2. Not even Nike believes grey is a neutral with no impact on the brand. If they were comfortable with just calling it a neutral they wouldn't keep creating alternate palettes for schools that include grey. But they did and they do.

3. All of the discussion about whether grey is or isn't acceptable as a neutral color still doesn't address this point: We have one instance of silver/grey appearing in the uniform (not including the circle around the I on the collars of the basketball uniform that itself is a bit off brand), so to randomly have a silver/grey based uniform is pretty inconsistent with everything else, and the fact that navy blue barely exists on that uniform only serves to accentuate that issue.

illini1 · Apr 17, 2014

pizzaman said:
Home team wore white, visitors wore grey, until...................Charles Finley, owner of the Athletics put them in bright green shirts. It was a big deal at the time and introduced baseball fans to color. Until then baseball's color came from the grass, the arms of the undershirt and the cap.

Not true. There have been baseball uniforms that have been all black, blue, navy, plaid etc. since at least the beginning of the National League.

SuperMetroid · Apr 17, 2014

STL FANATIC said:
But, I don't think your eyes are deceiving you about it being redder. Peacher really. That's in RGB (on-screen) graphics, anyways. The textile of the uniforms is pretty close to what we've had for a while. But the RGB values appear significantly different. I can't say I love how they're rendering.

It will be interesting to see what some of the printed material looks like once it gets rolled out. See if the CMYK does a better job matching the uniform textiles than the RGB does.

Yeah, if you grab any of the main assets and check them out in Photoshop, the RGB values for the orange show up as R233 - G74 - B55. By comparison, I checked out photos from the actual unveiling (from a couple different sources) and the RBG numbers are very similar except there's basically no blue. The extra blue is pushing the screen logos into that peachier color. Not entirely sure why they would shift the screen colors that far. Have they released the Pantone colors anywhere?

illini8507 · Apr 17, 2014

STL FANATIC said:
I don't really think I'm having it both ways.

1. As I stated about the powder blues, I probably wouldn't have liked the trend part of it anyways. Trends encourage thoughtless design rather than meaningful design. That's what grey feels like.

2. Not even Nike believes grey is a neutral with no impact on the brand. If they were comfortable with just calling it a neutral they wouldn't keep creating alternate palettes for schools that include grey. But they did and they do.

3. All of the discussion about whether grey is or isn't acceptable as a neutral color still doesn't address this point: We have one instance of silver/grey appearing in the uniform (not including the circle around the I on the collars of the basketball uniform that itself is a bit off brand), so to randomly have a silver/grey based uniform is pretty inconsistent with everything else, and the fact that navy blue barely exists on that uniform only serves to accentuate that issue.

Forgive me for my ignorance, but if I am understanding you correctly... you don't like the silver/grey basketball uniforms?

The 2014 Illini Nike Uniforms and Rebrand

KansasIllini

georgeuremovich

STL FANATIC

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GilThorpe

Kams Bathroom

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Kams Bathroom

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STL FANATIC

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KansasIllini

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Kams Bathroom

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dgcrow

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AZillini

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Kams Bathroom

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AutoPoster 3000

pizzaman

BLloyd2311

Deleted member 29907

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okawillini

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illini1

SuperMetroid

illini8507