Washington Commanders to debut new NFL identity

[CS85]

There are countless high schools around the country that exist on a shoestring budget whose uniforms and identity are more original and well-executed than this, and I think I know why:

 

This is what happens when you let a rich idiot design a football team's identity.  This whole brand reeks of some young, full of crap aristocrat asking his dad to buy the Mercedes F-150 Tungsten Limited Denali Platinum Reserve pickup that gets .04 MPG, putting in cheetah pattern leather upholstry, hanging some truck nuts off the back, and then selling it 3 years later with less than 1000 miles and the sale paperwork still in the glove compartment after he drove it to class a few times blaring Florida Georgia Line and donning a '47 brand Alabama cap and a Carhartt jacket so he can impress a cheerleader he plans to rufee at the next barn party.

 

They don't understand what a football identity is, they don't understand how branding a sports team works, they don't comprehend cohesion in uniform elements, they don't respect tradition from a uniform perspective, they don't know what they're doing in the least.  They throw money at it and get all the options, slapping every possible football-y college trend possible at it in hopes that it gets some decent marketing response.

It's all a complete and total failure, orchestrated by frauds and executed by fools.

[ramsjetsthunder]

Hoping we will see gold pants like the Browns orange

[MJWalker45]

Still the best looking version of the Commanders. 

[kmccarthy27]

6 minutes ago, Shumway said:

Just got the branding guide at work (client is a team sponsor) and all the "the circle represents unity..." jargon is as bad as always. Just once I'd like a team to do the Homer Simpson route and say "I thought this stripe looked pretty sharp".

Can you secretly share that somewhere? 

[PERRIN]

8 minutes ago, plastictaxicab said:

Pardon the super quick edit, but as usual, I feel like they were close to doing something decent, but they failed.

That's a good-to-great looking uniform and a great extension of Washington's brand under the new Commanders moniker, though a smaller wordmark and tv numbers would be ideal. Everything else in this entire team, from owner to management to stadium to logos to uniforms is absolutely awful. Nothing like a bad uniform reveal to ruin my day at 10:00 AM. The white set is the worst football uniform I have ever laid eyes on, and the black alternate doesn't fair much better. My expectations were low, but I'm still disappointed. I think having one great uniform in a pile of trash just makes it all the more infuriating. Why not just do a white version of this look? that'd be one of the better sets in the league right now and it'd work as a good evolution of the WFT's history. But no, Snyke™ had to happen and we're left with a horrid, mismatched, gimmicky, inconsistent, and downright ugly uniform set. Sometimes I wish actually talented people could be in charge of decisions like this, but alas, this is the world we live in. This rebrand, despite having a pretty darn good uniform combo, is the worst uniform set in the NFL, and I though nothing could top the Rams' all bone look. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

[Germanshepherd]

18 minutes ago, PaleVermilion81 said:

 

Is this lazy photoshooting, or is the white jersey also going to pair with the black pants???

Given how often the Jets do it, I’d be shocked if they didn’t. 

[dont care]

14 minutes ago, kmccarthy27 said:

Those look like the waistband of some basic sweatpants. 

Probably but you’d be a fool to think they won’t try to wear the black pants with the white uniform, and even the burgundy uniform

[pepis21]

2 hours ago, WSU151 said:

There’s no “testing” going on

Do you think NFL aren't considering of putting ads on uniforms? After NBA made a first step and NHL followed them I guess it's gonna be sooner rather than later when NFL and MLB introducing (unfortunately) ads.

 

1 hour ago, tBBP said:

Actually, I think the left chest wordmark on this black jersey approximates the service branch name tapes over the left breast pockets of cammie/utility/combat uniforms.

 

Good point, might be because of that too.

 

Btw stripeless pants are a crime. I hope they gonna fix them asap.

[nuordr]

21 minutes ago, plastictaxicab said:

Pardon the super quick edit, but as usual, I feel like they were close to doing something decent, but they failed.

I mean this is better, but without stripes on the pants, I will never love this rebrand. Right now I would give it a F. 

[Shumway]

5 minutes ago, kmccarthy27 said:

Can you secretly share that somewhere? 

 

All the same garbage is in the 3rd and 4th paragraphs here...

 

https://www.commanders.com/news/the-washington-football-team-is-now-the-washington-commanders

[infrared41]

 

"The gold and maroon shoulder patch is a nod to our American fighting forces. The stars represent the generals who commanded our brave troops in the jungle and the stripes are inspired by flag of South Viet Nam to represent our allies in one of America's greatest military achievements. Or...it could be a nod to the Marine Corps. We have no idea. We're just making this up as we go along. "

 

[Red Comet]

I’m not surprised this whole thing was leaked because someone forgot to send in the censored footage to a local TV station. Anyone thinking otherwise apparently forgot the clown show Dan Snyder runs. 

[IceCap]

7 minutes ago, Lights Out said:

I'm pretty sure the teams are the ones pushing bull on Nike, not the other way around. Left to their own devices, Nike would be making ultra-plain glorified practice gear like they've been doing in college football in recent years.

 

This rebrand reeks of Dan Snyder trying to be hip and trendy and failing miserably because he's an out-of-touch douche. These uniforms feel like they're from 2012, not 2022.

I disagree because elements of this can be found the Rams redesign. No tv numbers and an aesthetic disconnect between home and road. 

It's like how once you looked at the elements you could tell the gradient helmet Jags and alarm clock number Bucs clearly came from the same design team. So for the Rams and Commanders. There's too much connective design tissue to think they were arrived at independently of each other.  The Rams have even been hinting at a black alternate since their rebrand. 

 

It seems to me that Nike's moved onto a new design fascination. Gradient helmet Jags, alarm clock Bucs, and swords for shoulders Titans were the old Nike trends. Mismatched and overthought Rams and Commanders are the new Nike trends. 

[1908_Cubs]

We are always prone to overreaction on day 1, but this does feel like the worst uniform "set" in all of football right now due to the complete and utter lack of cohesion.  Some of this is subjective; if you told me you hated the Titans or the Cardinals or the Rams, etc look more than this I'd understand that there are aspects of those uniforms that are just horribad (the Titans cartoonish swords, or the Cardinals piping atrocity), but each of their sets has some version of cohesion to it; the Titans have goofy ass swords, but hey, they're dark blue, columbia blue and white on each set, with those goofy ass swords.  Sure, the Cardinals have random piping everywhere, but they're the same colors. 

 

Conversely, the Commanders are a gold and burgundy team at home, they're a black and burgundy team on the road. and sometimes they're a black and gold team, but without the helmet being the loosest of ties between two of those looks, the team seemingly has zero actual identity.  I have to mark that as the worst set right now, because it's not a set.  And as much as we can be prone to that initial shock/overreaction of a new look/name, I think the idea that this is the worst set will probably be an enduring aspect until they ditch the random looks and pick an aesthetic (I bet in...looks at clock....5 years from today or round about that).

[WSU151]

6 minutes ago, pepis21 said:

Do you think NFL aren't considering of putting ads on uniforms? After NBA made a first step and NHL followed them I guess it's gonna be sooner rather than later when NFL and MLB introducing (unfortunately) ads.

 

I don't think they're seriously considering it yet. Otherwise they would have done it. There's nothing stopping them.  

[GriffinM6]

So Nike decided to recycle a nearly 13 year old uniform design for the road jersey?

 

At least VT still used school colors on this one. The Commanders jersey would still look bad with yellow on it, but at least it would seem somewhat cohesive. 

 

This entire rebrand is a mess, and I have little doubt they'll clean it up in five years, especially if Dan Snyder is still the owner by then. 

[IceCap]

2 minutes ago, GriffinM6 said:

So Nike decided to recycle a nearly 13 year old uniform design for the road jersey?

The iconic jaws of Husky Stadium. 

[kmccarthy27]

7 minutes ago, pepis21 said:

Do you think NFL aren't considering of putting ads on uniforms? After NBA made a first step and NHL followed them I guess it's gonna be sooner rather than later when NFL and MLB introducing (unfortunately) ads.

 

 

The practice jerseys already have them

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Helmet's cool. The rest is hot garbage. It's actually funny how terrible they are across the board: unappealing mono, black helmet portending the death of common NFL branding, terrible dot matrix prints, way too letters in the name that will immediately lead to unappealing nicknames, etc.

 

You have to try hard to be that terrible, and they Yahtzeed it.

 

Hopefully in this one for them, one for us NFL design world, the eventual Cardinals rebrand (it has to be coming soon?) will be a Bucs-esque reversion to something nice rather than this overdesigned mess in DC.

 

 

 

[WSU151]

8 minutes ago, Shumway said:

 

All the same garbage is in the 3rd and 4th paragraphs here...

 

https://www.commanders.com/news/the-washington-football-team-is-now-the-washington-commanders

 

the bottom left quadrant features three stars, representative of the stars on the D.C. flag and the team's position within the Nation's Capital.

 

what