The 1993 LA Clippers Redesign that Never Was

[Gothamite]

19 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:

      

NYCFC says “hello, that’s a great color scheme.”

 

This is also a pretty good color:

 

Works best with just black, though.  Go easy on the orange. 

 

 

[Chromatic]

It's a shame. This is easily better than any logo/look the clippers have ever used, and is light years better than their current mess of a logo.

[San Diego]

Those are awful and no where near as good as the San Diego era uniforms. Are you ppl high or are you drunk?

[BadSeed84]

9 hours ago, San Diego said:

Those are awful and no where near as good as the San Diego era uniforms. Are you ppl high or are you drunk?

 

Get rid of the number in the orange circle (Which if it was approved, would've been dropped)  its a good uniform..

[JLJ]

The colors are nice, but I don’t like this. Orange and sky blue with a nautical theme or nothing. One day my team will get it right.

[Brian in Boston]

 

I'm sorry, but this - in my opinion - is absolutely awful.

For starters, if the name of your NBA franchise is the Clippers, and you're going to include an image beyond simply a word mark and/or a basketball in the team logo, ideally said symbol should somehow invoke the idea of a swift, 19th-century sailing vessel. It could be a depiction of such a ship in its entirety. It could be said craft's sails. It could be the vessel's wheel or its anchor. It could be the ship's bowsprit and figurehead. That said, give me a visual reference to the team's namesake mode of transportation.

This? Aside from the word mark, this is a logo for the Los Angeles Breakers, the Los Angeles Surf, the Los Angeles Surge, the Los Angeles Tide, or the Los Angeles Waves. I understand that a clipper ship is useless without a body of water to sail it on, but said body of water doesn't communicate the idea of the ship. If I owned the Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks, or Minnesota Timberwolves, I wouldn't think that a logo comprised of the team name, a basketball, and a fir tree was enough to visually communicate the franchise's identity in an effective manner.

Now, if - as he is quoted as saying - Tom O'Grady "felt the nautical theme the San Diego Clippers (used) after moving from Buffalo really was less appropriate in LA" and that "the surf and beach culture along Pacific Coast Hwy 1 inspired [his design team] to use a wave" as the central image of a rebrand for Donald Sterling's NBA franchise, that's certainly a legitimate creative impulse. However, at the point where he decided that a nautical theme was less appropriate than a surf and beach culture motif, the Clippers name should have been been off the table as part of said rebranding. Why? A nautical theme and a surf/beach culture theme are not one and the same. A nautical theme is - by definition - tied to ships, navigation, and sailors. If Mr. Sterling didn't want to jettison a team name inspired by a type of 19th-century sailing vessel, it was then up to O'Grady to either wrap his head around utilizing  a nautical theme, or commit to designing an identity package of a more generic nature - i.e. the equivalent of such NBA brands as those currently utilized by the Brooklyn Nets, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, and - oddly enough - Los Angeles Clippers.   

As for the depiction of the wave in this logo, it looks like something that a student in an elementary school art class would trot out. A wave - that kind of, sort of has hands - is either making or receiving a bounce pass. One wonders, how ever did the designer resist the urge to further anthropomorphize said wave? After all, give it a face - complete with a sly grin and a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses - and you'd have your mascot... "Clip Riptide"!

Finally, there's the color scheme. Frankly, as someone with homes in the California coastal communities of Santa Monica and Coronado, I can honestly say that this palette fails to capture any feel of "the surf and beach culture along Pacific Coast Highway" that I'm at all familiar with. The orange? It certainly could, depending upon the other hues with which it was combined. The black and silver? Not unless a member of the Los Angeles Kings was making a promotional appearance someplace in the South Bay. The sea foam green? A little bit of said hue goes a long way... and you have to be careful of what other colors you combine it with. In combination with the black, it becomes darkened to the point where it takes on a bilious look. That's hardly what you're trying to evoke in an identity package with ties to the ocean. Overall, it is far too drab a palette to effectively communicate the Pacific Coast Highway surf and beach scene.

These are the colors that I'd equate with the Southern California Coast... 

 

  

                

[The_Admiral]

Yeah, that's basically the same teal, orange, and grey in the concept. It's pretty good, not great, certainly better than some of its contemporaries that actually did get made (Pistons, Rockets, Raptors) and better than the failed New Jersey Swamp Dragons. I think you're just really mad at Tom O'Grady. 

[Brian in Boston]

48 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Yeah, that's basically the same teal, orange, and grey in the concept. It's pretty good, not great, certainly better than some of its contemporaries that actually did get made (Pistons, Rockets, Raptors) and better than the failed New Jersey Swamp Dragons. I think you're just really mad at Tom O'Grady. 

When it comes to the palette, the devil is in the details. As I pointed out in my critique, the sea foam green is best used sparingly. Too much of it and you're suddenly transported from the beaches along the Pacific Coast Highway to a hospital ward. As for black, if you're truly looking to evoke a beach vibe, I'm of the mind that it's best avoided entirely. If you need a darker color for contrast, better to go with a deep blue.

I stand by the rest of my commentary. The logo's a hackneyed mess overall, with the rendering of the central wave image being particularly juvenile in its execution. Further, it doesn't tie-in to the team name in any meaningful way. Frankly, besting the proposed New Jersey Swamp Dragons mark isn't exactly an achievement worth crowing about. To be honest, neither is finishing on par with the Pistons, Rockets, or Raptors identities that you cited... which is, at best, what this mark accomplishes.

As for my being "really mad at Tom O'Grady", I don't harbor any anger towards him. I simply critiqued a logo that he and his design team created. No more, no less.

          

[Digby]

Meh, it's okay. I think there was the essence of a good idea in there but it's bogged down by its datedness. (What was with the 90s and trying to bring back that Metropolis retro-future take on Art Deco, anyway?) The black jersey is my favorite of those concepts, which is weird because elsewhere I feel like the heavy use of black really bogs things down and it'd be better served with more white.

 

For some reason I'm never too confident in nautical theme concepts for LA teams, and no the Lakers don't count. This is sort of getting at some sort of Venice surf idea, which is better, though. The clipper ship's time came and went long ago.

[SFGiants58]

Heck, I used a modified version of the waves on that logo for a concept for the ‘90s Florida/Tampa Bay Whitecaps.

 

 

It’s very “of its time.”

[B-Rich]

1 hour ago, Brian in Boston said:

 

I'm sorry, but this - in my opinion - is absolutely awful.

For starters, if the name of your NBA franchise is the Clippers, and you're going to include an image beyond simply a word mark and/or a basketball in the team logo, ideally said symbol should somehow invoke the idea of a swift, 19th-century sailing vessel. It could be a depiction of such a ship in its entirety. It could be said craft's sails. It could be the vessel's wheel or its anchor. It could be the ship's bowsprit and figurehead. That said, give me a visual reference to the team's namesake mode of transportation.

This? Aside from the word mark, this is a logo for the Los Angeles Breakers, the Los Angeles Surf, the Los Angeles Surge, the Los Angeles Tide, or the Los Angeles Waves. I understand that a clipper ship is useless without a body of water to sail it on, but said body of water doesn't communicate the idea of the ship. If I owned the Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks, or Minnesota Timberwolves, I wouldn't think that a logo comprised of the team name, a basketball, and a fir tree was enough to visually communicate the franchise's identity in an effective manner.

Now, if - as he is quoted as saying - Tom O'Grady "felt the nautical theme the San Diego Clippers (used) after moving from Buffalo really was less appropriate in LA" and that "the surf and beach culture along Pacific Coast Hwy 1 inspired [his design team] to use a wave" as the central image of a rebrand for Donald Sterling's NBA franchise, that's certainly a legitimate creative impulse. However, at the point where he decided that a nautical theme was less appropriate than a surf and beach culture motif, the Clippers name should have been been off the table as part of said rebranding. Why? A nautical theme and a surf/beach culture theme are not one and the same. A nautical theme is - by definition - tied to ships, navigation, and sailors. If Mr. Sterling didn't want to jettison a team name inspired by a type of 19th-century sailing vessel, it was then up to O'Grady to either wrap his head around utilizing  a nautical theme, or commit to designing an identity package of a more generic nature - i.e. the equivalent of such NBA brands as those currently utilized by the Brooklyn Nets, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, and - oddly enough - Los Angeles Clippers.   

As for the depiction of the wave in this logo, it looks like something that a student in an elementary school art class would trot out. A wave - that kind of, sort of has hands - is either making or receiving a bounce pass. One wonders, how ever did the designer resist the urge to further anthropomorphize said wave? After all, give it a face - complete with a sly grin and a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses - and you'd have your mascot... "Clip Riptide"!

Finally, there's the color scheme. Frankly, as someone with homes in the California coastal communities of Santa Monica and Coronado, I can honestly say that this palette fails to capture any feel of "the surf and beach culture along Pacific Coast Highway" that I'm at all familiar with. The orange? It certainly could, depending upon the other hues with which it was combined. The black and silver? Not unless a member of the Los Angeles Kings was making a promotional appearance someplace in the South Bay. The sea foam green? A little bit of said hue goes a long way... and you have to be careful of what other colors you combine it with. In combination with the black, it becomes darkened to the point where it takes on a bilious look. That's hardly what you're trying to evoke in an identity package with ties to the ocean. Overall, it is far too drab a palette to effectively communicate the Pacific Coast Highway surf and beach scene.

These are the colors that I'd equate with the Southern California Coast... 

                

 

Hear, hear.  What he said, exactly.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Brian in Boston said:

Frankly, as someone with homes in the California coastal communities of Santa Monica and Coronado,               

 

Dude, I have to ask, what are you-- like BATMAN rich or something? To own a home not just in Santa Monica OR Coronado, but BOTH? And IN BOSTON, too? 

 

[Lights Out]

3 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

For starters, if the name of your NBA franchise is the Clippers, and you're going to include an image beyond simply a word mark and/or a basketball in the team logo, ideally said symbol should somehow invoke the idea of a swift, 19th-century sailing vessel.

 

I totally agree, but I also think the wave imagery had a valid place in the identity as well and would have been perfectly fine as a supplement to a ship logo (as opposed to being the primary logo itself).

[The_Admiral]

2 hours ago, Digby said:

(What was with the 90s and trying to bring back that Metropolis retro-future take on Art Deco, anyway?)

 

 

Never bothered me! And this font, I feel, is ~*iconic*~ of the '90s:

 

[Brian in Boston]

3 hours ago, Digby said:

For some reason I'm never too confident in nautical theme concepts for LA teams, and no the Lakers don't count. This is sort of getting at some sort of Venice surf idea, which is better, though. The clipper ship's time came and went long ago.

I completely understand a nautical theme not being the first thing to come to mind when people think of Los Angeles. That said, Greater Los Angeles has a long and rich maritime history that stretches from Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo's documented discovery of San Pedro Harbor in 1542 through to the 1909 annexation of San Pedro and Wilmington that officially established the Port of LA as City of Los Angeles-controlled property... and beyond. Today, the Port of Los Angeles is the #1 port by both container volume and cargo value in the United States, as well as the busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere.

I'll also concede that, even given the maritime history of Los Angeles, the Clippers name is simply a holdover from the franchise's time in San Diego, a community with a tie to the seas that is even more deeply felt than LA's own.   

Which is why, though I believe that the Clippers identity can work quite well in the Los Angeles marketplace, a rebranding to "some sort of Venice surf idea" would be a perfectly legitimate creative route to take. That said, from where I'm sitting, a renaming of the team should be part and parcel of such a rebrand. After all, the Clippers name doesn't really have anything to do with the idea of Southern California surf culture.  

As for the notion that the Clippers name is no longer suited to gracing a professional sports franchise simply because its inspiration is a mode of transportation that "came and went long ago", when will the Bay Area's NFL franchise be changing its moniker? After all, it isn't as if the thoroughfares of San Francisco are chockablock with prospectors.

[Brian in Boston]

2 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

Heck, I used a modified version of the waves on that logo for a concept for the ‘90s Florida/Tampa Bay Whitecaps.

 

 

 

Yes, but your wave isn't holding a bat and preparing to take a swing at a baseball. 

[Digby]

I was hoping “for some reason” would work as shorthand for “I understand that LA has beaches and an important port but nonetheless I feel this because LA doesn’t feel ocean-y in a way” without the history lecture. 

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, Brian in Boston said:

I completely understand a nautical theme not being the first thing to come to mind when people think of Los Angeles. That said, Greater Los Angeles has a long and rich maritime history that stretches from Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo's documented discovery of San Pedro Harbor in 1542 through to the 1909 annexation of San Pedro and Wilmington that officially established the Port of LA as City of Los Angeles-controlled property... and beyond. Today, the Port of Los Angeles is the #1 port by both container volume and cargo value in the United States, as well as the busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere.

 

But don't take MY word for it. *duh-dah-dot*

[Sodboy13]

My take on this is that it absolutely would have been one of the hottest things going in 1993, would have become very muted with a focus on black by 2000, and would get dumped wholesale for a return to red-white-blue by the mid-2000s. The main lesson here is that Donald Sterling is a racist slumlord who may have been rich, but when presented with a license to print money for a couple of years, was so stupid that he passed on it in favor of keeping a dollar-store Lakers knockoff with an incorrectly-drawn basketball.

[MCM0313]

5 hours ago, B-Rich said:

 

Hear, hear.  What he said, exactly.

 

 

 

 

Dude, I have to ask, what are you-- like BATMAN rich or something? To own a home not just in Santa Monica OR Coronado, but BOTH? And IN BOSTON, too? 

 

Thank you for asking this question. Is he Brian is Boston, or Brian the worldwide jet-setter? I get this feeling he drinks tea with his pinky finger not touching the cup.

 

Also, @B-Rich: are YOU Batman-rich? Because you could probably make a pretty compelling argument that that is the source of your username.

[SFGiants58]

2 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

 

Yes, but your wave isn't holding a bat and preparing to take a swing at a baseball. 

 

I was going for an "early '90s Phoenix Design Works" kind of deal. Think Rockies meets Marlins, but waves!

 

 + 

 

I'm glad Tom O'Grady (who was an asshat when he posted here) never thought, "Hey, Phoenix Design Works should do this redesign for a team!" We were spared their "variants on Friz Quadrata and Times-style fonts" school of design in the NBA.