The 2014 Illini Nike Uniforms and Rebrand

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#1,001      

AZillini

A
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AZillini
Groundhogday said:
euUFtN0.png


That gives the top a look of a column, but unfortunately gives the entire badge the look of a falling WWII bomb. And now the whole badge is clearly pointing down.
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True. Any protrusions at the top look like the stabilizing fins of a bomb.
 
#1,002      

ivwilsoniv

I
Aurora, IL
ivwilsoniv
Groundhogday said:
Yes, you need the two colors or negative space at the top to reveal the F's. But why do we want to reveal the F's? We are the F-Fighting Illini with a speech impediment?
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Yeah this is my thought - I understand that the blue area can be interpreted as "Fs" but I don't think this needs to be a main part of the design or accentuated with color. There's too much going on trying to include columns, Fs, and create a negative space "I" with the blue. Keep in mind, I still really like the Nike shield, and think it's a great design element & unifying secondary logo for the sports teams.

Also, I stuttered when I was a child (had to do speech therapy for a little while), so I'm not partial to the double Fs. ;)
 
#1,003      

AZillini

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AZillini
Groundhogday said:
Now I see that. THe top part is the torso, the bottom striped part represent briefs.
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And the protrusions at the top represent the guy's arms -- short, stubby, little arms.
 
#1,004      

Groundhogday

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Groundhogday
FinalFour88 said:
I was just thinking... if you were designing this logo, why not just find out what types of shields or badges were used in WWI; pick the one you like best and use that as the shape of the logo; put a block I in the middle of that badge; and maybe put some stripes in the background of the I, inside the shield, to signify the columns? Done. It's a WWI badge, it's a block I for Illinois, it's stripes for the columns. Simple, clean, iconic, great military meaning. And "Fighting Illini" is implied through it all, since it's a WWI badge.
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Yes, in hind sight this would have been a much better approach. The Nike guys got twisted into knots trying to give this logo some special meaning, when the only thing that resonates is an I in a shield.
 
#1,007      

pizzaman

pizzaman
Northwoods of Wisconsin
pizzaman
Groundhogday said:
the only thing that resonates is an I in a shield.
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No matter what Nike said, that's all the damn thing is. Everything else is an intellectual halucination. C'mon, underwear, columns and column capitals, forward and backward "F's? A freshman level design class couldn't come up with worse explanations. BS IMO.
 
#1,010      

ivwilsoniv

I
Aurora, IL
ivwilsoniv
Groundhogday said:
That does look much better, but you still have the functional problem of the bottom part vanishing into a white or orange jersey. Try that logo, but with all blue instead of blue/orange for the foreground, then use orange for the negative space (including the block I). Basically the logo you see with the women's soccer jersey top (I think) with blue on orange and no white.
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I don't necessarily mind the bottom white stripes of the original shield vanishing into a white jersey - your mind creates the bottom point of the shield in the middle white space.
 
#1,011      

mattcoldagelli

mattcoldagelli
The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
mattcoldagelli
Have people actually been confused by this/needed it explained to them? Or is this happening on that hypothetical plane where all the fanbases in the B1G are laughing at us?
 
#1,012      

ivwilsoniv

I
Aurora, IL
ivwilsoniv
JSpence said:
The break doesn't work, but that is somehow more suggestive of the Grange-era uniform than the others.

Of course, it's on a computer screen, not a uniform.
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Yeah, my first thought is that this would have been something seen on a 50s era letterman jacket.
 
#1,013      

JSpence

J
Evansville, IN
JSpence
ivwilsoniv said:
Yeah, my first thought is that this would have been something seen on a 50s era letterman jacket.
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Nice, I totally see that.

You know, we could always put Flyin' Illini wings on the d*** thing. :D
 
#1,015      

AZillini

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AZillini
mattcoldagelli said:
Have people actually been confused by this/needed it explained to them? Or is this happening on that hypothetical plane where all the fanbases in the B1G are laughing at us?
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The former. As several posters have observed, the official explanations are nonsensical.
 
#1,017      

Groundhogday

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Groundhogday
ivwilsoniv said:
I don't necessarily mind the bottom white stripes of the original shield vanishing into a white jersey - your mind creates the bottom point of the shield in the middle white space.
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I agree that it isn't as bad of a problem with the new V shaped logo, but you are still going to need some kind of a blue border as we see with the football unis.
 
#1,020      

bls60

B
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bls60
Didn't really notice the "briefs" in the shield until it was mentioned by others. Once noted, however, it's hard to overlook the "striped speedo" component of the various shields.
 
#1,021      

Indicchief

I
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Indicchief
Not checked the stats on these new unis, etc, but outside of the white ones, I am not enthused about them and certainly do not like the victory shield.

I think UoI ad program should be given this task of designing them.
 
#1,022      

ivwilsoniv

I
Aurora, IL
ivwilsoniv
Break removed. Honestly like the one with white "I" and stripes better.

But this looks like the retro version...

OB Shield 2.PNG
 
#1,023      

FinalFour88

FinalFour88
Charlotte, NC
FinalFour88
Indicchief said:
Not checked the stats on these new unis, etc, but outside of the white ones, I am not enthused about them and certainly do not like the victory shield.

I think UoI ad program should be given this task of designing them.
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Personally, I think the new football uniforms are nearly perfect. The all whites might be 100% perfect. The only imperfections I see are non-matching stripes on the orange pants and the fact that there's a blue helmet included at all. As for the shield logo, this is the context where I think it looks great, so that's working for me too on the football uniforms. Nike's grade on the football unis: A.
 
#1,024      

JCILL

J
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JCILL
ivwilsoniv said:
Count me in for Team Shield too, but I feel like they may have tried to cram too much imagery/meaning into this shield design. I'm definitely not sold on the two "Fs" facing each other, and simply let the orange stripes symbolize the columns at Memorial Stadium - the two abacuses or "wings" as people have called them seem extraneous and make it look more like a banner.

That being said, I'm being completely critical for the sake of being critical. I love this shield as our secondary logo, but if I had a say, I'd modify it as seen below. Would look just as awesome on jerseys, t-shirts, but especially helmets. Thoughts?

illini-alternative-victory-shield.png
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Other one is better.
 
#1,025      

DaytonIllini

D
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DaytonIllini
mattcoldagelli said:
Have people actually been confused by this/needed it explained to them? Or is this happening on that hypothetical plane where all the fanbases in the B1G are laughing at us?
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My wife (who is an alum but really doesn't follow sports) and my 3 high school kids (who have varying degrees of cleverness and interest in Illinois sports) all thought the shield looked silly when viewed by itself. My wife said, "that'll last a year before it get's !!!!-canned". They all liked the jerseys a lot though and none really noticed the shield on it. None of them get that those are columns. And my wife had no idea that there were columns prominently displayed on campus.

Hardly a scientific sampling I know.
 
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