San Diego Padres 2020 Rebrand Discussion

[MCM0313]

13 hours ago, Gothamite said:

My photoshop color picker identifies it an orangish gray. Which gives it a slightly tannish brown tinge, since brown is often made by mixing black to orange.

 

It’s like that short-lived Brewers road gray, that had a slight greenish tint.  Not so much that you’d look at it and think it was green, but enough so that it highlighted and complimented the green trim on those jerseys.

...I didn't know that either.

[oldschoolvikings]

Way back when, I always assumed those Padre road uniforms were a tan-ish gray, but if someone knew for sure that was a trick of the eye due to the proximity of the pinstripes, that wouldn't shock me.  Gothamite's color picker sounds like it picked up something like a putty color, like a nineties computer.

[larrypep]

On 6/21/2019 at 10:44 AM, leopard88 said:

 

Is this really tan or is it just grey that appears to have a brown tint as a result of the pinstripes?  I've always assumed those uniforms were grey.

 

I've been trying to find side-by-side comparisons to a grey uniform, but haven't had much luck.  The best I have been able to find are some NL All Star team photos. Unfortunately, they are all pretty small and/or of poor quality.

 

In this one, the Padres uniforms mostly look to be the same color as the grey uniforms (see Steve Garvey on the bottom right and Gary Templeton (?) on the bottom left, who are both next to Cardinals players).

 

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:43 AM, cheo25 said:

I think the Padres uniform in that All-Star picture is much lighter than the Cards' gray and the Mets' gray. It's really noticeable on the left side of that photo.

 

And the Padres jersey in the auction photo looks like a shade of brown more than it does a shade of gray. I see it as being tan.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:49 AM, leopard88 said:

 

To me, it seems like it depends on where you look.  If you look at Steve Garvey's and Graig Nettles's (?) legs, they look to be about the same color as the legs of the Cardinals player between them.  At the same time, Nettles's (?) jersey looks substantially lighter than Garvey's.  Meanwhile, Ozzie Smith's jersey (bottom right), looks substantially lighter than that of the Cardinal between Garvey and Nettles (?).

 

At best, this picture is pretty inconclusive.  What we need is a mound visit with Garvey standing next to multiple players in grey jerseys.

 

I will say that the uniform looks pretty gray in this picture, but there is nothing to compare it to.

 

 

On 6/25/2019 at 6:49 PM, MCM0313 said:

I always thought that set looked pretty good, but I also always saw that away as grey. 

 

When they first released the uniforms in late 84/early 85, the San Diego Union reported the away color as “taupe”.  The article had a picture of Tim Flannery modeling the home uniform and Alan Wiggins modeling the road uniform.  

[bosrs1]

On 2/4/2019 at 12:28 PM, Ray Lankford said:

Brown used to be very unpopular. They got compared to everything from UPS deliverymen to Taco Bell employees to straight up poop.

 

I mean it’ll only be a matter of time before that opinion returns. Brown isn’t a particularly attractive color... especially paired with yellow. 

[SFGiants58]

8 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

I mean it’ll only be a matter of time before that opinion returns. Brown isn’t a particularly attractive color... especially paired with yellow. 

 

I doubt it. Once you go back to the original color scheme, you’ve basically admitted that all of the other color experiments were failures (e.g., Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Blue Jays - sort of, Houston Astros, and hopefully the Rams).

 

Navy isn’t coming back. Get used to it.

[Ray Lankford]

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

I doubt it. Once you go back to the original color scheme, you’ve basically admitted that all of the other color experiments were failures (e.g., Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Blue Jays - sort of, Houston Astros, and hopefully the Rams).

 

Navy isn’t coming back. Get used to it.

Until the Padres suck again and drive Gen Zers into nostalgia.

[hawk36]

15 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

I mean it’ll only be a matter of time before that opinion returns. Brown isn’t a particularly attractive color... especially paired with yellow. 

That's just personal preference. Many including myself think brown is a great color regardless of if it's for the Padres or if it's used in fashion.

 

Having worked in design for 25 years, I'd say the most divisive color is orange. Clients either love or hate it. On the other hand, blue isn't really loved or hated which is why it's the color of most teams and big businesses. It's basically ok for the majority.  

[IceCap]

4 hours ago, Ray Lankford said:

Until the Padres suck again and drive Gen Zers into nostalgia.

We've got, what, two decades before that happens? I'm sure the Padres can manage a few winning seasons in that time

 

8 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

I doubt it. Once you go back to the original color scheme, you’ve basically admitted that all of the other color experiments were failures (e.g., Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Blue Jays - sort of, Houston Astros, and hopefully the Rams).

 

Navy isn’t coming back. Get used to it.

Pretty much this. The Padres will be a brown team again, because studies showed that's what the preference was. Embrace it.

 

16 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

I mean it’ll only be a matter of time before that opinion returns. Brown isn’t a particularly attractive color... especially paired with yellow. 

 

 

I mean come on. Looking at the above examples? You had to know that navy was a losing battle for the Padres. They probably would have gone to brown five years ago if it wasn't for an ownership group that was insistent on navy. It's important to know when the battle's been lost.

[bosrs1]

7 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

We've got, what, two decades before that happens? I'm sure the Padres can manage a few winning seasons in that time

 

Pretty much this. The Padres will be a brown team again, because studies showed that's what the preference was. Embrace it.

 

 

 

I mean come on. Looking at the above examples? You had to know that navy was a losing battle for the Padres. They probably would have gone to brown five years ago if it wasn't for an ownership group that was insistent on navy. It's important to know when the battle's been lost.

 

I’m sure people told the Bring Back the Brown campaign the same thing ten years ago. Bring back the Blue will be victorious some day. As so one said, nostalgia drove brown, it’ll drive blue one day too. Particularly is the Padres fail to win anything in this brown Part 4 scheme. 

[FiddySicks]

Some day the world is going to end (probably in a loud, fiery nightmare) and then it’s really not going to matter what color the Padres wear, you guys. 

[McCall]

6 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

I’m sure people told the Bring Back the Brown campaign the same thing ten years ago. Bring back the Blue will be victorious some day. As so one said, nostalgia drove brown, it’ll drive blue one day too. Particularly is the Padres fail to win anything in this brown Part 4 scheme. 

They haven't won anything in blue Part 1, 2, 3 or 3.75.

[SilverBullet1929]

6 hours ago, Bucfan56 said:

Some day the world is going to end (probably in a loud, fiery nightmare) and then it’s really not going to matter what color the Padres wear, you guys. 

I have to respectfully disagree. If the world is ending, I'll most likely check these forums once last time and then continue to criticize the Padres as I burn to my death, perishing in a gorgeous toasty brown shade hopefully similar to what the Padres will have adopted by then.

[Marlins93]

I can't imagine there ever being nostalgia for what the Padres have been wearing since 2004 (or 2012). It's a pretty unremarkable and bland utilization of navy blue and most of the wordmarks they've tried have been hideous. There's also nothing pleasantly distinctive or iconic about this look outside of perhaps the camo alternates which need not be tied to the Navy blue era anyway.

 

Admittedly I don't have much of a connection with the Padres fanbase, but I see very little (if any) aesthetic appeal of their Navy blue years. I can't imagine most of their fans strongly disagreeing. A "bring back the blue" campaign would need that kind of appreciation for the aesthetics, but I get the sense that most of their fans have been begging for a change for many years now.

 

Winning is also something that contributes to branding nostalgia, but of course the Padres have not really had great teams while wearing navy. They won their division twice (but fizzled out early in the playoffs) and have been rather lousy since 2008.

 

I seriously doubt 2004-2019 throwbacks will ever being worn outside of perhaps the sand colored road uniforms from a few years back, but only because they were a little different and unconventional.

 

 

[bosrs1]

3 hours ago, Marlins93 said:

I can't imagine there ever being nostalgia for what the Padres have been wearing since 2004 (or 2012). It's a pretty unremarkable and bland utilization of navy blue and most of the wordmarks they've tried have been hideous. There's also nothing pleasantly distinctive or iconic about this look outside of perhaps the camo alternates which need not be tied to the Navy blue era anyway.

 

Admittedly I don't have much of a connection with the Padres fanbase, but I see very little (if any) aesthetic appeal of their Navy blue years. I can't imagine most of their fans strongly disagreeing. A "bring back the blue" campaign would need that kind of appreciation for the aesthetics, but I get the sense that most of their fans have been begging for a change for many years now.

 

Winning is also something that contributes to branding nostalgia, but of course the Padres have not really had great teams while wearing navy. They won their division twice (but fizzled out early in the playoffs) and have been rather lousy since 2008.

 

I seriously doubt 2004-2019 throwbacks will ever being worn outside of perhaps the sand colored road uniforms from a few years back, but only because they were a little different and unconventional.

 

 

 

Won’t disagree that since ‘04 hasn’t been overly memorable (other than the ASG season). But the ‘90’s unis were and are great. And the fact they played their best season in 50 years (‘98) wearing it probably doesn’t hurt. 

[IceCap]

20 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

And the fact they played their best season in 50 years (‘98) wearing it probably doesn’t hurt. 

And yet focus groups showed it wasn't nearly as possible as brown was  

[SFGiants58]

2 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

And yet focus groups showed it wasn't nearly as possible as brown was  

 

That and the 1984 team was arguably better than 1998. Guess what their primary color was?

[Marlins93]

50 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Won’t disagree that since ‘04 hasn’t been overly memorable (other than the ASG season). But the ‘90’s unis were and are great. And the fact they played their best season in 50 years (‘98) wearing it probably doesn’t hurt. 

I should clarify and mention that while the 90s uniforms incorporated navy blue, I have always considered that to be a separate look from what they've been adopting from 2004 until the present (or ever since they moved into Petco). I prefer the brown/yellow identity for the Padres, but the 90s uniforms have throwback value on account of them being worn during the 1998 World Series and for a healthy chunk of Tony Gwynn's career. Of course the 1996 season was also memorable. The wordmark and pinstripes were great and I thought the navy/orange color pairing worked well enough. Having said that, the 2020 rebranding certainly seems to be a move in the right direction.

[IceCap]

The Padres' navy and orange look was a real ship of Theseus situation. 

 

They start off brown and gold. 

They add orange to become brown, gold, and orange. 

They remove gold to become brown and orange. 

They replace brown with navy to become

navy and orange. 

 

At that point there was nothing left of the original identity. 

[Marlins93]

3 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

The Padres' navy and orange look was a real ship of Theseus situation. 

 

They start off brown and gold. 

They add orange to become brown, gold, and orange. 

They remove gold to become brown and orange. 

They replace brown with navy to become

navy and orange. 

 

At that point there was nothing left of the original identity. 

This is a good take and while I agree that what they wore from 1991 through 2001 bore little resemblance to the brown and gold years, it was still a decent enough look in its own right (at the very least, much superior to what they've been wearing since 2004).  It's worth pointing out that during those years they used the same wordmark from the 1985-1990 uniforms (which was brown although it didn't recall the "original" look very much).

[bosrs1]

1 hour ago, Marlins93 said:

This is a good take and while I agree that what they wore from 1991 through 2001 bore little resemblance to the brown and gold years, it was still a decent enough look in its own right (at the very least, much superior to what they've been wearing since 2004).  It's worth pointing out that during those years they used the same wordmark from the 1985-1990 uniforms (which was brown although it didn't recall the "original" look very much).

 

To its benefit. The only brown look that was tolerable was the immediately preceding ‘85 look. Everything ‘84 and before was varying levels of “meh” to “gouge your eyes out”...