Cleveland Indians Unveil New Uniform, Cap for 2019

[Gothamite]

40 minutes ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

This. Cleveland really is in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. Even the term Indian would be a hard sell today. I'm not opening that statement up for debate, merely stating facts. It's a term that is mainly still in use because the US government keeps it on official agency titles (BIA, IHS, etc), but most of the people it is used to describe don't identify as such, and some even openly reject the term in favor of Native American, Indigenous Peoples, First Nations, or simply their tribal affiliation. Now I don't personally know any NA people lobbying for Cleveland to change the name, but it's here because it's a relic of a time where something like Chief he-we-do-not-name would fly. That leaves Cleveland in the unfortunate place where every branding move they make is under a microscope.

 There's certainly an argument to be made that they might be better off just making a clean break and rebranding. I'm not arguing it, but I see the justification. It would be unfortunate to break with more than a century of an identity. No matter which side of the argument you're on, it's hard to not admit that the identity has become problematic/constraining for the management.

 

I think you're absolutely correct with this analysis.  Society has changed around the club, to the point where the identity just may not be feasible anymore.  They'll always be somewhat hamstrung by it.

 

It's a shame that of all the names they considered (and even tried out) back in the day, they had to arbitrarily land on this one.  Just hasn't aged well.

[The_Admiral]

Name's not going anywhere after 100+ years, just gotta work around it.

[Glover]

19 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

At this point, it’d be less trouble to change the name to Spiders, Guardians, or another non-Native American name.

I'm starting to agree with this. Fans would be furious, but we've had poor attendance the last 3 years while fielding a playoff team each year. Any "fans" that will stop supporting the team because of a name change probably aren't coming to games right now anyway.

 

Rip that band-aid off entirely and start fresh. 

[Gothamite]

4 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Name's not going anywhere after 100+ years, just gotta work around it.

 

Practically, that's probably true.  Doesn't mean keeping it is the best course of action, only the most likely one.   

[BeerGuyJordan]

12 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

Practically, that's probably true.  Doesn't mean keeping it is the best course of action, only the most likely one.   

Precisely, if they had been willing to give up Wahoo earlier, they could have made a branding change that would be cemented by now, and not under all the added scrutiny. Trying to redesign under the Indians name will never stop being a minefield, meaning the likelihood of a bland and uninspiring identity is high. Objectively, they're going to have more freedom if they part with it. It's a move that would rile the fanbase now, but would probably seem like a no-brainer with hindsight, a generation in.

Again, I'm not arguing for or against, but there's objectively a strong case to be made for a complete rebrand. Most of the argument against is built on nostalgia for an identity that has caused them a lot of headaches, sans the benefit of a championship in living memory. Without Wahoo, they don't even really have brand recognition to fall back on, anymore. It's a crappy situation to be in, but it's where Cleveland is at.

[simtek34]

While trying to circumvent all of the Native American Talk, I would prefer, if a name change doesn’t happen, for the Indians to resurrect the Cleveland Script wordmark and to bring back the cursive “I” cap.

 

[Gothamite]

Why would they wear a "J"? 

 

The wordmark, and everything that derives from it, is so inferior to the original.

 

 

That would work beautifully even today.

[CLEstones]

14 hours ago, wyopokes2 said:

I'm personally a huge fan of the designs GV Artwork puts out. I think it fits the history of the team without being over the top.

 

 

For the life of me, I can't figure out why people pine for this version of the C logo.  It looks like grade school clip art.

[SFGiants58]

9 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Why would they wear a "J"? 

 

The wordmark, and everything that derives from it, is so inferior to the original.

 

 

That would work beautifully even today.

 

Totally. I also like the 1946-49 version:

 

 

Shameless self-plug: I've merged that design with the 1948 version for one of my designs. 

 

 

I like the idea of the un-tilted script with the wide brush tail. Unlike the 1994-present scripts, I wanted to keep the lighter weight of the letters and some of their roughness.

 

An appropriate amount of roughness is always desirable in scripts. This:

 

 

...just doesn't look as good.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

53 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I have consistently given the same interpretation: woodworking by hand. 

 

 

Which is deliberately primitive.  So... what I said.

 

This is simply not true. The woodworking style is no more "primitive" than is the Western-style lettering that informs the Rangers' current wordmark as well as that team's (far superior) original wordmark.

 

 

The only reason that anyone would perceive the woodworking style as "primitive" is on account of outmoded racist ideas. We ought to reject that reasoning, and see that that style is a legitimate aesthetic that does not deserve to be tied to those racist ideas.  

[Gothamite]

12 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

This is simply not true. The woodworking style is no more "primitive" than is the Western-style lettering that informs the Rangers' current wordmark as well as that team's (far superior) original wordmark.

 

 

 

That is a really tough position to defend.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 minute ago, Gothamite said:

That is a really tough position to defend.

 

It is actually quite easy. You are arguing for evaluating an entire font category by means of associations that have nothing to do with those fonts, and you are thereby ruling out an excellent cap logo. I am rejecting that reasoning as spurious, and defending the merits of that particular logo that looked superb when it was used.

[Gothamite]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

It is actually quite easy. You are arguing for evaluating an entire font category by means of associations that have nothing to do with those fonts

 

 

Yeah, those camp signs aren't deliberately designed to be crude.  At all.

[BeerGuyJordan]

27 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

It is actually quite easy. You are arguing for evaluating an entire font category by means of associations that have nothing to do with those fonts, and you are thereby ruling out an excellent cap logo. I am rejecting that reasoning as spurious, and defending the merits of that particular logo that looked superb when it was used.

Yeah...from where I'm standing, as half Native, you're on the wrong side of this one. If Cleveland had given up on Wahoo fifteen years ago, they might have been able to move to this, and have it already cemented with minimal criticism (ala the Chiefs, Blackhawks, or the Braves). They didn't, though. Were they within their right to hold onto Wahoo as long as they did? I suppose, but they are also now running afoul of much more progressive guidelines for appropriation, co opting, and acceptability. Trying to move to it now falls firmly in the minefield category that makes this whole topic dicey for the boards. Management should be hesitant. If they are going to implement any sort of Native imagery, throwing feathers on a block C is much more serviceable, and doesn't carry as much potential for shade.

[IceCap]

Gonna be honest. I don’t see the problem the block C. It’s not super exciting, but it has history. Go with the block C, some script wordmarks on the jerseys. Maybe throw the C in a roundel for the primary. 

 

Is it the most exciting option? No, but Cleveland fans do seem to have taken to the block C, and it has some historical cache. Do all of that, keep the name “Indians,” move on. 

[The_Admiral]

Are Indians ownership or a sizable contingent of Indians fans wringing their hands about a name change, or is this a problem we've projected upon them?

[Dynasty]

You could always take the Warriors route and just brand around the city, although the Bay Area has much more recognizable features than Cleveland does.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

Yeah...from where I'm standing, as half Native, you're on the wrong side of this one. If Cleveland had given up on Wahoo fifteen years ago, they might have been able to move to this, and have it already cemented with minimal criticism (ala the Chiefs, Blackhawks, or the Braves). They didn't, though.

 

I'll have to take your word for it.

 

But it seems such a shame — and not only from the aesthetic standpoint of making a beautifully crafted logo off-limits. This feels to me like a kind of concession to the racists.

 

Anyway, the block C is an aesthetic nightmare; it should be replaced by something. In the 80s the cap logo at least had the decency to have a white outline; the current one manages to be even more awkward by that outline's absence. The current logo looks like it was selected (in a hurry) from the catalogue that is sitting on the counter of your local sporting goods store.

 

There are other C logos in the team's history that can be used as a basis for a cap insignia. Or surely someone could come up with a new way of rendering the letter C that is in some way artistic.

[gosioux76]

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

Name's not going anywhere after 100+ years, just gotta work around it.

I don't know, I think changing the name to Spiders is a clever workaround.

[Gothamite]

Indeed - we used to talk about the greatest logos not currently being used.  Well, "Spiders" is probably the greatest historical identity currently lying fallow.