Los Angeles NFL Brands Discussion

[FinsUp1214]

49 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I'd much rather wear this:

 

Than this:

 

For the retail audience, I think they did the right thing. The old road shirt was nice on the field, but kind of corny off of it. The new shirt will work much better as street wear.

While I can totally see where you’re coming from, I have a big problem with designing uniforms based on how it’s going to look on some dude taking an afternoon walk vs. how it’s going to look on the field. Sure merchandising is massive in this day and age, but I’m a bit unsettled at the thought of designing a jersey to match with jeans when you should be far more concerned with how it looks on the team that’s actually wearing it as a uniform. The respective aesthetics don’t always work in both applications; the things that supposedly make the gray jersey a good streetwear item are frankly the same things that make it a bad football uniform.
 

If you want to design team-issued streetwear? Go for it. Want to make fashion jerseys that are strictly for fan fashion? Cool, go wild. But I’m not keen on blurring those onto the football field unless you can ensure that it’s going to work and look fitting for both applications.

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I'd much rather wear this:

 

Than this:

 

For the retail audience, I think they did the right thing. The old road shirt was nice on the field, but kind of corny off of it. The new shirt will work much better as street wear.

I disagree. In part because I have an issue with designing uniforms to cater to the "will it go with my khakis?" crowd. That's the sort of thinking that got everyone to darken their colours in the late 90s/2000s.

 

I'm also opposed to the idea just based on...principle I guess? If I'm buying a jersey with the intent to wear it? How well it matches the rest of my outfit shouldn't be a concern.

I'm committing to buying and wearing a LA Rams jersey. I want it to look like the LA Rams. Not like it was designed to go with my khakis and navy polo. 

 

11 hours ago, dont care said:

I blame this on the Rams, Nike doesn’t even do elements like what’s on these uniforms in college anymore. They have since gone minimal mean while the Rams tried shoving every idea they could think of into this and failed miserably. All they had to do was change the color of the helmet to the new color, and update the throwbacks with a new font at the most. 

Eh...I disagree. Many posters have pointed out that these uniforms have design elements lifted from the Off White clothing brand, which is a brand Nike does a lot of work with. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

6 minutes ago, IceCap said:

I disagree. In part because I have an issue with designing uniforms to cater to the "will it go with my khakis?" crowd. That's the sort of thinking that got everyone to darken their colours in the late 90s/2000s.

 

I'm also opposed to the idea just based on...principle I guess? If I'm buying a jersey with the intent to wear it? How well it matches the rest of my outfit shouldn't be a concern.

I'm committing to buying and wearing a LA Rams jersey. I want it to look like the LA Rams. Not like it was designed to go with my khakis and navy polo. 

 

Eh...I disagree. Many posters have pointed out that these uniforms have design elements lifted from the Off White clothing brand, which is a brand Nike does a lot of work with. 

 

Clearly that bone jersey absolutely will not go with khakis, and if you combine the two you deserve a punch in the belly. And there is a very, very significant portion of pro sports fans that are very intentional about matching their jerseys to their hats to their shoes to whatever else. Plus they buy stuff.

 

I get the idea that streetwear and on-field uniforms should be different....but that horse is long out of the barn. Authentic stuff sells better than fashion designs because, at the core, we want to wear what the players wear. And if what the players wear is a little more fashion-forward than it was a year prior? That's just a bonus. Merchandising opportunities are just too big to not at least take the chance on something a little bit different.

[IceCap]

5 hours ago, Ben in LA said:

There are PLENTY of people online that like “that bone design”.

I can show you two different articles written by major publications that tear this rebrand apart like the mess it is. And I too can link twitter posts that confirm to my opinions. 

 

What are we proving, other than there will always be fans ready to defend any stupid branding their team does? 

 

And before you get mad...I'm sorry, but it happens every time. We had Jags fans defending the two-toned helmets. Bucs fans defending the alarm clock numbers, Browns fans defending the rise shadows and contrasting stitching (those are all gone now, see a trend?). 

We even had one Buffalo Sabres fan who rode for the Buffaslug because it was his team. 

 

I get it. The Rams are back where they belong. And you, a LA sports fan, are happy. You should be. And I want the Rams to succeed in LA, because it's where I think they belong. 

Thing is...I think this branding is a huge cluster on par with the previous Nike looks that have all since been jettisoned. I want the LA Rams to do well, but I'm not gonna lie and tell you I think this stupid uniform is good because of it. 

 

I think it sucks, and I'm far from alone. 

[Lights Out]

3 hours ago, SJAnfield said:

I’m more concerned as to how these organizations and ownership are refusing to admit there was a mistake and ignore the massive backlash that is churning.

 

Can't speak for the other teams you mentioned, but the Clippers' current uniforms were already a correction from the "pool noodle" jerseys that everyone made fun of, and there's been talk of another rebrand for the new arena.

 

Honestly, the Rams' rebrand is a far bigger disaster. The Clippers' 2015 rebrand was rushed into place by a new owner who understandably just wanted to move on from the Sterling era. The Rams, on the other hand, had years' worth of planning and feedback, the fan demand for the old-school blue and gold look was overwhelming, and they still managed to screw it up.

[IceCap]

5 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Clearly that bone jersey absolutely will not go with khakis, and if you combine the two you deserve a punch in the belly.

Oh I disagree, but I do like my earth tones. 

 

6 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

And there is a very, very significant portion of pro sports fans that are very intentional about matching their jerseys to their hats to their shoes to whatever else. Plus they buy stuff.

Is there though? The trend towards dark colours (particularly black or navy) in the late 90s/early 2000s was to be fashion conscious. Maybe someone doesn't want to wear a bright royal blue Mets cap with their street wear but black? Yeah! Make two of them! 

 

That trend not only stagnated, it reversed. Teams that darkened their colours have mostly or fully re-adopted brighter, earlier colours. 

Part of that was a realization that fans will wear what the team wears- regardless of design or colour scheme. 

 

8 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

I get the idea that streetwear and on-field uniforms should be different....but that horse is long out of the barn. Authentic stuff sells better than fashion designs because, at the core, we want to wear what the players wear. And if what the players wear is a little more fashion-forward than it was a year prior? That's just a bonus. Merchandising opportunities are just too big to not at least take the chance on something a little bit different.

I think we're talking past each other so I'll attempt a re-direct. 

 

It's not necessarily a problem if teams want to design their uniforms to be more fashion conscious, but that isn't necessarily a good thing either. You can do anything well or bad, and I think the Rams' current identity skews far closer to the "bad" end of things than the good. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

All I'm saying is that people who are old enough to remember the dark color fads of the late 90s might not be the best arbiters of what today's style trends are.

[Digby]

As streetwear or on-field, the yellow and white cracked egg look all over the sleeves ruins it, so it’s a moot point. 
 

Also we haven’t been worried about “pairs with khakis” in a long time. Have you BEEN in an Urban Outfitters lately? Well nobody has, but you know. It’s not the time of Gap restraint anymore. The kids are wearing insane remnants of early 90s vomit, and everyone else has cultural permission to wear trainers and track pants anyway.

[Lights Out]

I'll be honest, I'm baffled at how anyone thinks the bone jerseys look any better in retail form. They still look unwashed, and the longer sleeves just call even more attention to how much of a mess the stripes are.

[Digby]

Just now, Lights Out said:

I'll be honest, I'm baffled at how anyone thinks the bone jerseys look any better in retail form. They still look unwashed, and the longer sleeves just call even more attention to how much of a mess the stripes are.

I want to like it! I love nonwhite variations on traditional away looks, and warm grays are a favorite color range for me in most applications. 
 

I’m less bothered by the color as I am with the rest of the design, and how poorly it fits with the overall rebrand the Rams did.

[IceCap]

3 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

All I'm saying is that people who are old enough to remember the dark color fads of the late 90s might not be the best arbiters of what today's style trends are.

I go back to what I said earlier. Classic aesthetics all re-assert themselves. 

 

The Jags, Bucs, and Browns all had modern and stylistic new uniforms and dumped them almost as soon as they could. 

There's a reason more traditional looking stuff gets called timeless. It doesn't matter how old you are or what decade you're in, it just looks good. And that stuff always endures while trendy fashionable designs end up getting replaced. 

 

There have been tons of bad uniforms discussed here that people have defended with the same sorts of arguments you're using, and most got replaced by more traditional designs. So

[Around the Horn]

6 minutes ago, Digby said:

As streetwear or on-field, the yellow and white cracked egg look all over the sleeves ruins it, so it’s a moot point.

I am never unseeing this...

[Lights Out]

1 minute ago, Digby said:

I love nonwhite variations on traditional away looks

 

So do I, but the bone color is both just close enough to white to be a pointless gimmick and just different enough to make the uniforms look dirty.

 

If they wanted to deviate from the traditional white road look, gold jerseys would have made a million times more sense.

[Ridleylash]

There are examples of non-conformal designs in sports that are absolute smash hits as far as aesthetics go. The Rams just completely missed the mark on the kind of non-conformism people actually like. For instance, there's NHL jerseys that aren't O6-conformant that people absolutely adore;

There's a reason these two fanbases, in particular, are clamouring for these jerseys to be the primaries again. They're both gorgeous, in spite of being more unconventional.

 

But the key to those is simplicity. They don't cram 30 different "unique traits" into a single jersey. The Mighty Ducks' main deviation is the diagonal striping. The Coyotes' main deviation is the shape of the striping. Those are the big things; there's not too much thought put into them, or if there was a lot of it, that thought was properly restrained into a more streamlined form. There's just enough to be interesting but not enough to be overdesigned.

 

The Rams seem to have had too much thought and not enough restraint, hence the endless Nikespeak about how the new color scheme "truly encapsulates the sunny beaches of Los Angeles" and thus why the jerseys have too many ideas pulling in too many directions.

 

The Rams thought they were making a Mighty Ducks or Kachina jersey. Instead, the Rams got a Canucks gradient jersey;

[IceCap]

12 minutes ago, Digby said:

I want to like it!

I feel like a lot of people who "like" these like them because they feel they should, or have to. 

[BrandMooreArt]

34 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

Clearly that bone jersey absolutely will not go with khakis, and if you combine the two you deserve a punch in the belly. And there is a very, very significant portion of pro sports fans that are very intentional about matching their jerseys to their hats to their shoes to whatever else. Plus they buy stuff.

 

I get the idea that streetwear and on-field uniforms should be different....but that horse is long out of the barn. Authentic stuff sells better than fashion designs because, at the core, we want to wear what the players wear. And if what the players wear is a little more fashion-forward than it was a year prior? That's just a bonus. Merchandising opportunities are just too big to not at least take the chance on something a little bit different.

 

im for splitting the difference. especially when the branding of a team is leaning of the most fleeting of fads; fashion trends. 

 

this comes with problems that need to be worked out but id love to see team uniforms built with some lasting value and a fashion line catered to individual teams. i look at Montreal in the CFL; they presented this idea really well

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Just now, IceCap said:

I feel like a lot of people who "like" these like them because they feel they should, or have to. 

 

Oh that's just silly.

 

The Kroenke family? Maybe. Anyone else? I think it's silly to ascribe motives to people's aesthetic preferences. Or at least in particular to one football jersey.

 

Also, lol at that guy calling the Picasso Coyotes sweater simple. The exact opposite was the point!

[VikWings]

I either posted in the wrong thread or forgot to hit submit so if this is a duplicate I apologize...

 

My Rams fan friend loves the gray jersey and said it's the one he will get. Even after ignoring the design flaws I pointed out. He said he "just loves off-white" and his favorite jerseys are the Sixers city unis from a few years back. He also said he doesn't mind the new horn. But hates the L@ logo.

 

So I think some people are just like that and are more attracted to color and what not and aren't that focused on other elements unless their jump out at you terrible like alarm clock numbers or a two-tone helmet.

[Chromatic]

The part that ruins the white jerseys, imo, is that they went with actual white striping in lieu of blue. If it were blue the "bone" base colour would have just looked like they chose an unpleasant shade of white. But now you have white striping on an off white jersey and the contrast really shows, and it looks gross. But it also isnt balanced by the presence of the teams main colour and makes the jersey look dirty and unfinished, like a template that hasnt been filled in. It's a shame too because I think the blues are fine. Not incredible, but not the inexplicable hot bag of trash the aways are. They came so close yet so far.

[IceCap]

10 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Oh that's just silly.

 

The Kroenke family? Maybe. Anyone else? I think it's silly to ascribe motives to people's aesthetic preferences. Or at least in particular to one football jersey.

I guess I'm just tired of seeing the same thing play out? 

 

The Buffaslug, any of Nike's crappy college unis, the Bucs, Jags, Browns...you can name any number of bad uniforms people here have only "liked" because they felt the need to defend their team on the internet. 

And you also have people who feel the need to champion stuff like this because it's "new," "the future," or whatnot. And none of it lasts. None of it. The Rams will be in some variation of their classic look in 5-10 years and this discussion will just seem silly. 

 

Fact is trends don't equate to design evolution, and classic looks always cycle back into style. 

 

I've seen this exact same discussion play out across countless uniform unveilings and I'm just pointing out trends.