Edmonton CFL team rebrands as "Elks"

[officeglenn]

If they were going with Elks, then, to paraphrase @tBBP , they couldn't not try the antlers on the helmet. They'd be raked over the coals, particularly by uniform nerds like us, for not doing so. They might switch it up after a couple of years, and go to the EE or the full elk head, but when an opportunity like this comes up, you have to take it.

 

Elks front office possibly in a couple of years:

[8BW14]

10 minutes ago, Chromatic said:

It has a distinct, more "wild" flavour. It's gamey.

That’s a fair description, but to say it’s only good for sausage/ burger is selling it short. In my neck of the woods,“gamey” implies a musky or “off” flavor and I don’t think that’s true of a well taken care of and prepared piece of venison. Like I said, not relevant to the topic at hand, but deer/elk meat is awesome and a lot of folks don’t give it a chance.

[SFGiants58]

20 minutes ago, Sport said:

 

Yes teams can't just push out a new identity on a whim, but they weren't given 100 days to come up with a new name. They were given literal decades to make their change. If they'd done it in 1995 they could've rolled it out on their own timelines and we'd have moved on by now. They refused and kept refusing until we reached a  point where they were forced to come up with solutions that happened to be on compressed timelines. That's their fault. When I say "see how easy that was" I'm talking about 2, 5, 10, 20, 25, 30 years ago. 

Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

[oldschoolvikings]

1 hour ago, DNAsports said:

Like I pointed out before, Washington was given ~100 days to come up with a new name before the 2020-21 season started. Edmonton had a whole year of football operations off to figure this thing out without relative distractions. Cleveland made their announcement in December, two months before their season began.

 

Teams can’t just push out a new identity on a whim.

 

Yeah, they had 100 days... Last year.  What's their excuse this year?

[Cujo]

Edmonton.

 

Knocked.

 

This.

 

Out.

 

Of.

 

The.

 

Park.

[DCarp1231]

18 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

Yeah, they had 100 days... Last year.  What's their excuse this year?

Rebrands typically take 1-2 years. At least that’s what we’re lead to believe. It hasn’t even hit 12 months yet.

[gosioux76]

3 minutes ago, DNAsports said:

Rebrands typically take 1-2 years. At least that’s what we’re lead to believe. It hasn’t even hit 12 months yet.

 

That would be my assumption. Edmonton would seem like an outlier, but as has been mentioned already, their choice was comparably much easier. 

[BBTV]

IDK if Washington’s process has to be much harder - I’d be fine with Washington Elks, and just recollection Edmonton’s sweet logo. 
 

Seriously though, it is much harder, but for them not to have been working on it for a decade - even if solely for contingency purposes - is crap. 
 

if they make a shirt with just the elk head logo and no words, I’ll probably get one. I really like that style of logo, and love that it’s not perfect. 

[officeglenn]

30 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

That would be my assumption. Edmonton would seem like an outlier, but as has been mentioned already, their choice was comparably much easier. 

 

I doubt there's as much red tape to cut through in the CFL vs. the NFL too. 

[gosioux76]

6 minutes ago, BBTV said:

IDK if Washington’s process has to be much harder - I’d be fine with Washington Elks, and just recollection Edmonton’s sweet logo. 
 

Seriously though, it is much harder, but for them not to have been working on it for a decade - even if solely for contingency purposes - is crap. 
 

if they make a shirt with just the elk head logo and no words, I’ll probably get one. I really like that style of logo, and love that it’s not perfect. 

 

There's no disputing that, certainly. I completely understand that sentiment,  which is similar to the argument @Sport was making. 

 

But it seems like we're debating two different points. We can recriminate WFT all day long for its failure to act sooner.  They certainly should've pulled the plug on this name decades ago, but they didn't. They did it last year, and then launched -- seemingly from scratch -- a super complicated rebrand that affects a lot of stakeholders.  We can judge Daniel Snyder & Co. for a lot of things, but not having a ready-made replacement brand in the hopper isn't one of them. FWIW, Edmonton and Cleveland baseball should've pulled the plug sooner, too, but that's not really what we're talking about here. 

 

[Gothamite]

42 minutes ago, officeglenn said:

I doubt there's as much red tape to cut through in the CFL vs. the NFL too. 

 

But on the other hand, there's more institutional support from the NFL.  And more money behind it.

 

[Ricky_Roby]

3 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

 

Does anybody else want this for a pre-game chant?

 

We'll follow the path where the caribou elk walk

Our caribou elk headgear is

Off

On

Locked

 

 

+100 points if you actually get the reference.

 

[sparkychewbarky]

37 minutes ago, Ricky_Roby said:

 

+100 points if you actually get the reference.

 

OMG...Camp Caribou!...

I just saw one these guys doing the weather for a station out east.

Great blast from the past...Thanks Ricky

[Steve-O]

Love the name. Logo as a concept is nice but in my opinion somewhat poorly done. Overall shape and flow feel sloppy. No offense to anyone who did this work but you can't help but feel like this could have been executed better.

Could be improved in my opinion:

• The eye
• The brow jumping up slightly, which alters the line weight of the top of the head
• Yellow shape to the right couldn't have been a football? I feel like that could have been worked in. The shape that is there now feels gross.
• Left and right angle feels weird. Is the Elk coming off of a shield? Why not have both sides match with the curve?
• Someone else pointed this out earlier but the antlers look better attached to the head.
• The antler curves aren't very clean.

 

Not trying to be negative. Definitely not bad, just could have used a bit more time in the oven.

[IceCap]

This was a fantastic rebrand. They did everything right, from picking the right name to the right form of the name to keeping the EE but cleaning it up and...using the elk antlers on the helmet! That was 100% the right move, and it looks awesome. 

 

19 hours ago, 4_tattoos said:

Possibly morbid sidenote: Now that elk is  somewhat on my mind, I can't help but wonder how elk taste.

It tastes...alright. I can't really describe it other than "it tastes like meat, it's gamey, and is good." 

Take from that what you will. 

 

5 hours ago, DNAsports said:

Like I pointed out before, Washington was given ~100 days to come up with a new name before the 2020-21 season started. Edmonton had a whole year of football operations off to figure this thing out without relative distractions. Cleveland made their announcement in December, two months before their season began.

 

Teams can’t just push out a new identity on a whim.

The "Washington only had a hundred days" argument justifies one season as the WFT. 

 

What's their excuse for dragging it out another year? 

[SFGiants58]

Elk Quesadilla was a part of one of my favorite US Kitchen Nightmares episodes.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdHKgfpUysg

 

God, this show is so trashy. That's why I love it!

[DCarp1231]

49 minutes ago, IceCap said:

The "Washington only had a hundred days" argument justifies one season as the WFT. 

 

What's their excuse for dragging it out another year? 

 

4 hours ago, DNAsports said:

Rebrands typically take 1-2 years. At least that’s what we’re lead to believe. It hasn’t even hit 12 months yet.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/cleveland-indians-washington-(Washington Football Team)-future-sports-branding/amp/

 

Quote

Estimates vary, but experts say the franchise rebrands will take about a year or two, and complexity will vary depending on whether the teams pick an existing name or opt for something new, which will require an entirely new brand identity.

As a fan of the team, I’ll admit I was disappointed Washington didn’t have things ready by draft time, but I understand that they want to get things right. So, I don’t fault them for taking an extra year to figure it all out. Washington also probably wants to test the “Football Team” name out for one more season to see if fans truly like it as a primary option.

[IceCap]

34 minutes ago, DNAsports said:

As a fan of the team, I’ll admit I was disappointed Washington didn’t have things ready by draft time, but I understand that they want to get things right. So, I don’t fault them for taking an extra year to figure it all out. Washington also probably wants to test the “Football Team” name out for one more season to see if fans truly like it as a primary option.

I'll blame them, sure. Anyone could have seen the writing on the wall that the old name wasn't going to last. Ownership should have changed the name decades ago, but even factoring in nostalgic attachment to the old name? Smart ownership would have had a "just in case  gets real" name and identity on hand to switch to.

They didn't, and what do ya know?  got real. 

 

Now even with all of that said...I get it. They dropped the name a hundred days before the start of the next season. And in those circumstances going by "Washington Football Team" for a year is acceptable and understandable. 

 

Two years though? That's just dragging the process out. How do I know that? 'cause the Eskimos->Edmonton Football Team->Elks transition happened in about a year.

They tossed names up on their website, asked fans to vote for their favourites, and ran with the name that won. They even delayed the process a bit to consult with linguists over "Elk" vs "Elks."

 

So I have to believe the Washington Football Team- which has way more money and resources than the Edmonton Elks- could have pulled off a rebrand in time for the 2021 season. They just didn't because...Dan Snyder. 

 

 

[Lights Out]

It just struck me that this is the kind of aesthetic that the Rams tried and failed to pull off with their rebrand.

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, Lights Out said:

It just struck me that this is the kind of aesthetic that the Rams tried and failed to pull off with their rebrand.

I'm not sure I agree. The Elks' identity is very vintage- people have noted how the logo could have come out of the 70s (I'm getting 70s minor league hockey vibes). The helmet antlers are likewise vintage- they're a single colour on a single colour shell- green on athletic gold. 
We don't know what the jerseys will look like, or if they're even going to massively redesign them, but from what we've seen it's a very conservative identity that would almost seem to be analogous to the Rams' 1973-1999 identity. 

 

Now one could argue (and I certainly would) that the Rams should have tried for something like that with their 2020 redesign, but they almost took great pains not to. From the introduction of "bone" to the gradients, to taking a very simple colour on colour helmet logo and redesigning it, the Rams seemed to want to avoid retro as much as they could. 

 

Whereas the Elks' identity- at least what we've seen of it- seems like a loving embrace of a throwback identity that never existed but feels like it should have.