Minnesota Twins Identity Fix-Up

[MJD7]

Being a Twins fan, when the team revealed their new home jersey back before the 2015 season, I wasn't sure how to feel. I liked the idea of differentiating from other red and blue teams, and as nice as the pinstriped jerseys were, they seemed out-of-place when they weren't in the Metrodome to me.

 

But although I liked the idea of adding gold, the execution I felt was somewhat poor, and it created a confused identity. 

 

So here is my proposed fix to the Twins to create a cohesive, unique identity.

 

Logos

-Primary is now the Minnesota-shaped logo. The roundel is too generic and common around baseball, and the Twins have something timeless and classic with this logo.

-Wordmark on the primary is inverted to match the uniforms, and gold is now the dropshadow

-I liked the use of gold in the 2014 All-Star Game logo a lot better, mostly because it is much lighter of a shade than the one used. The gold has been lightened to almost a cream-like color, much less noticeable on the white background (and closer to the actual color of the limestone backdrop at Target Field.)

-Another good yet underrated part of the ASG was the use of light blue. Light blue has been added to the river in the primary, as well as a drop-shadow on road jerseys.

-Navy and red are still the main colors, but gold is a home color that honors the old cream Metropolitan jerseys and the limestone, and light blue is an away color that honors the 70's aways and the Mississippi.

 

Uniforms

-The piping has been increased in size to a width similar to the Orioles, just so that the individual colors can stand out more and not blend in with each other. It also hearkens back a little bit more to the old 70's Twins uniforms.

-Front numbers are added back to all jerseys to fill up a bit more space.

-Numbers on road jersey are now navy to match.

-'Twins' replaces the 'TC' on the red jersey, because it feels just a little too "BP jersey" as is.

-The Minnesota logo is now a patch on all jerseys, not just the homes.

-The tri-colored piping is consistent among all jerseys, not changing because of jersey color.

-The drop-shadows are intended to be much less noticeable on the regular home and road jerseys compared to the alternates, just because that's what they are, alternates.

-The navy alternate receives the most change for the sake of consistency. The wordmark is now white with a red outline, just because it's different and feels 'Twins' to me, I'm not sure why. Maybe because of this. Drop-shadow is light blue to match the regular road jersey.

 

So hopefully, this would create a more streamlined identity for a team that seems to be a little in flux right now. What do you all think? All comments/criticisms are welcome.

[BenD]

I really like the idea for the blue and gold dropshadows, but I think you should just use the old all blue hat with no outlines for the home, away, and the red alt. I think the red hat would go best with the blue jersey. Also I think the red alt would look better with a white word mark so it would standout better. Although I miss the pinstripes you did a really good job with these.

[MJD7]

18 hours ago, BenD said:

I really like the idea for the blue and gold dropshadows, but I think you should just use the old all blue hat with no outlines for the home, away, and the red alt. I think the red hat would go best with the blue jersey. Also I think the red alt would look better with a white word mark so it would standout better. Although I miss the pinstripes you did a really good job with these.

Thanks! I'll put those ideas into consideration. Anyone else?

[coco1997]

I like the idea of powder blue being used exclusively on the road unis, and it really pops against the gray and navy. Also, I love that it's a nod to the '70s Twins. Nice job!

[MJD7]

1 hour ago, coco1997 said:

I like the idea of powder blue being used exclusively on the road unis, and it really pops against the gray and navy. Also, I love that it's a nod to the '70s Twins. Nice job!

Thanks! Hopefully it'd make them stand out a bit more against other red & navy teams, especially since their road looks very similar to Cleveland's right now.

[User9113]

I like these! Especially the primary logo, however I would lose the light blue in everything besides the river in the primary logo and get rid of all the white in the script.

[MJD7]

1 hour ago, User9113 said:

I like these! Especially the primary logo, however I would lose the light blue in everything besides the river in the primary logo and get rid of all the white in the script.

Thank you! Just out of curiosity, what's your reasoning behind wanting to lose the light blue? Also, get rid of all the white in which script?

[coco1997]

3 hours ago, MJD7 said:

Thanks! Hopefully it'd make them stand out a bit more against other red & navy teams, especially since their road looks very similar to Cleveland's right now.

 

Definitely. As a White Sox fan who watches his team play the Indians and Twins frequently, it's always bugged me that two teams in the same division have nearly identical uniforms and color schemes. 

 

Could you post each of the four uniforms as separate files?

[ChicagoOakland]

Powder blue gradients on the road jerseys! Be the next D-Backs!

...just kidding.

However, I would suggest maybe switching around the dark blue and the white in the road alt's numbers and script though. I feel like if I was in the upper deck, I might have a hard time making out the numbers when it's dark-on-dark like that. Other than that, I love this take on the Twins; they really need to embrace a third (or fourth) color to set them apart.

[MJD7]

9 minutes ago, coco1997 said:

 

Definitely. As a White Sox fan who watches his team play the Indians and Twins frequently, it's always bugged me that two teams in the same division have nearly identical uniforms and color schemes. 

 

Could you post each of the four uniforms as separate files?

Yea I agree. I personally think the Indians need to pretty much completely rebrand, but that's another conversation.

 

And sure thing:

10 minutes ago, ChicagoOakland said:

Powder blue gradients on the road jerseys! Be the next D-Backs!

...just kidding.

However, I would suggest maybe switching around the dark blue and the white in the road alt's numbers and script though. I feel like if I was in the upper deck, I might have a hard time making out the numbers when it's dark-on-dark like that. Other than that, I love this take on the Twins; they really need to embrace a third (or fourth) color to set them apart.

If the Twins looked anything like the D-Backs... I don't like to think about it

 

For the switching of the navy and white though, do you mean the home alternate? Although I like the navy on red, I can understand that it might be a little hard to read. If that's what you meant, I'll try to do a mock-up to see what that looks like.

And thanks! The Twins have had navy and red too long to ditch them, but like you said adding colors could maybe help distinguish a bit.

[ChicagoOakland]

43 minutes ago, MJD7 said:

Yea I agree. I personally think the Indians need to pretty much completely rebrand, but that's another conversation.

 

And sure thing:

If the Twins looked anything like the D-Backs... I don't like to think about it

 

For the switching of the navy and white though, do you mean the home alternate? Although I like the navy on red, I can understand that it might be a little hard to read. If that's what you meant, I'll try to do a mock-up to see what that looks like.

And thanks! The Twins have had navy and red too long to ditch them, but like you said adding colors could maybe help distinguish a bit.

 

Yep, I meant home alternate, my bad. Should've just called it the Dairy Queen one lol.

[MJD7]

58 minutes ago, ChicagoOakland said:

 

Yep, I meant home alternate, my bad. Should've just called it the Dairy Queen one lol.

It's all good, here's what having a white wordmark would look like for the two who asked:

I will admit, this jersey is probably quite a bit more readable. I'm mixed about it, though it's slowly growing on me. The only reasons I'm not too huge a fan of it are that it takes away a slight amount of consistency, (as this jersey would now be the only one without a navy fill or red outline in the wordmark,) and that, like you said, it reminds me too much of the Dairy Queen uniforms. (Also, since the jersey didn't have enough navy to merit a navy bill on the cap, I changed the hat to be like the old Twins batting helmets, and similar to their BP hats. It makes up a bit for the extra white in the jersey.)

[coco1997]

That's a marked improvement. 

[Lights Out]

In all honesty, I think you've made their identity a bigger mess than it already was. The home and road scripts still don't match, and now you've added an extra trim color on the roads that doesn't match the one on the homes. It's less cohesive, not more.

[MJD7]

45 minutes ago, Lights Out said:

In all honesty, I think you've made their identity a bigger mess than it already was. The home and road scripts still don't match, and now you've added an extra trim color on the roads that doesn't match the one on the homes. It's less cohesive, not more.

Fair enough. My thought process going into it was that the light blue would be used to sort of balance out the "warmness" that was added with the gold, much like the ASG logo does. And thinking it through, putting gold on the road jerseys didn't really make much brand sense, and neither did adding light blue to the homes. So I thought it would be cool and unique to have separate home and away accent colors.

[coco1997]

Did you consider using the old "Twins" script for the home sets?

[MJD7]

28 minutes ago, coco1997 said:

Did you consider using the old "Twins" script for the home sets?

I did think about using that script because I like it a lot, but ultimately stuck with what they have now. I do love how the script looks, though, now that I've mocked it up:

I also replaced the tail with the underline under "win" to match the road jersey better, as @Lights Out suggested.

[coco1997]

I like how it looks as well. How would the home alternate look with the same script?

[MJD7]

1 hour ago, coco1997 said:

I like how it looks as well. How would the home alternate look with the same script?

[User9113]

22 hours ago, MJD7 said:

Thank you! Just out of curiosity, what's your reasoning behind wanting to lose the light blue? Also, get rid of all the white in which script?

The "Twins" script, I think it's a bit too much on the eyes. And I think you should get rid of the light blue because with the tan, it's just too many colors imo

 

Edit: now I looked at the script on the jersey, I guess the white is fine I'm just not sure about the light blue