2022-23 NBA Logo & Jersey Changes

[Krz]

I’d love it a lot more if it was navy instead of black

[WSU151]

3 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

Thank god they finally decided to not have both black & navy blue in the colour scheme, but that's the only element of this that is a clear upgrade. Removing the sword from their identity is an awful decision. A name like Cavaliers has lots of great design potential, but now they look completely generic.

 

The CAVS script is awful. They're trying to do way too much with it. Combining 3 different wordmarks from your history into 1 just makes for a disjointed mess. Having a logo that's supposed to look like the championship trophy is ridiculous, especially for a franchise that's only won 1 title in over 50 years.

 

I'm pretty indifferent on the athletic gold vs. metallic gold. It's strange though because on the new merch it looks a bit more yellow than it does on the press release.

 

 

I would disagree about the wordmark being disjointed. On its own, it's a pretty nice wordmark. It looks good on t-shirts. If the Cavs were an expansion team in 2022 and this was the wordmark, I think it'd get a lot of positive reviews. I think only when we realize that it uses elements from three different eras do we believe it must be "disjointed". 

[Dynasty]

I knew they were gonna change even before the rumors or leaks; THIS is the Cavaliers. Like almost half the league, they don't want a consistent identity and apparently they are fine with that. They just want to make money with an every-now-and-then "fresh" look and when it gets stale, they spin the wheel.

 

They'll probably either change the shade of colors again or add a new one in about 4-5 years.

[panthers_2012]

I have a feeling in the next few days, the Cavs might release the C sword logo. A lot of people are upset that the logo is gone, including me.

But I really like the logos. I think this fits the Cavs. As much as I liked the navy, I'm okay with the black since it is such an important piece in Cavs, not to mention Cleveland, history. 

[FiddySicks]

No idea why the Cavs keep insisting on changing their identity. They had a very solid look with the original Lebron era, decided to weirdly change to the yellow and maroon “Kyrie” look, as I call it, which was fine, but then they’ve changed again now twice since then. Just, why? Why do they insist on changing their identity like most people change pants? All it does is muddle their entire brand and make them kind of a forgettable franchise. Wild considering they had probably the second greatest player ever for a decade and a half. Dumb franchise. 

 

Its weird, the Warriors and Cavs have a lot of parallels. Older franchises that before the recent era were mostly forgettable and wearing goofy  uniforms. They both changed back to more traditional colors and have been mostly great since. But the difference is even with the tweaks, the Warriors have decided to keep their basic identity intact, where the Cavs mostly haven’t. You would think your most successful era would breed a desire for a consistent look that harkens back to that era of success. Warriors current look is pretty much cemented with their success. Cavs just look like the same ol dysfunctional Cavs they’ve always been. 

[VikWings]

So stupid that black is only part of their color scheme because of those stupid sleeved jersey that should have never existed. Also if you're going to keep black, darkening up your colors probably isn't such a good idea.

 

The shield still sucks too. As sick as I am of circle logos, would have preferred that to keeping the shield. 

 

And why remove the sword from your identity complete?

 

I like the mishmashing of eras wordmark though. 

[pepis21]

I'd say this shield is better than previous shield but whole concept of shield is still very bad and top 3 worse current logos in NBA.

Returning to gold is nice but chosen black over navy is not.

I quite like wordmark. For me thanks to inlining (even if they took that from 90's) has that strong early 80 vibe although due to combining of eras I'm afraid of uniforms, because I don't think they'll receive same treatment as current City based on same concept.

 

7 hours ago, Conrad. said:

number font will be the same as now, with just different treatment...so, no?

Let me guess numbers gonna be inline like wordmark?

 

BTW there are any rumor when new unis will be unveil?

[flyersfan]

Gold is such a hard color to use digitally but looks excellent on a uniform when done properly. (49ers a great example). So yes, this color stinks but your mind may change if it looks good in practice.

The colors are a bit muted, but I like dropping the navy, although I would keep black as nothing more than a tertiary accent. The shield mark is bad, the wordmark is a fun mashup but I hope I don't see it on much more than the baselines. I like the C, although it was better with the sword.

Overall it gets a meh from me until we see uniforms, which can really make or break it all.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

[Lights Out]

This Cavs rebrand is horrible. Just switch to brown and orange and promote the 2K League logo to the big-league club, it's not hard.

[pelicanfan]

lol i’m over here just salty cause my pelicans are no longer the only team to wear metallic gold now

[Old School Fool]

2 hours ago, Lights Out said:

switch to brown and orange

 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Old School Fool said:

 

I think perhaps Old School Fool wanted the Cavs to have the same colors as the Cleveland Browns?

[-Akronite-]

On 6/2/2022 at 10:55 AM, VDizzle12 said:

The Cavs have officially reverted back to "Thunder/Clippers/Nets" branding. Where your identity is now completely void of any design elements that reference your team's name. They are now just a generic basketball team. You could literally switch the name from Cavaliers to anything else and these logos would still work. It's the same problem they had from 80s-2000s.

 

I honestly don't think this is a problem. Even outside of basketball there are lots of teams with iconic logos that say nothing about the mascot. That said, like you I would've preferred if they kept the sword in some capacity, but I don't really miss the ones they had for a couple reasons:

• Not sure if the new, flatter look works with it (and I personally think the flatter C logo is much better).
• The C-sword doesn't work as a primary mark because the extra height of the sword doesn't scale well next to other NBA logos.
• The shield is better (still not good) without the sword because it awkwardly stops and starts for a crappy wordmark.

To me, the 03 primary logo made sense as a primary logo. You got the basketball, the sword, the wordmark, it says everything. But I think sports branding in general is more focused on simpler, more singular marks, which I get. I've seen basketball sword logo concepts that could be a great addition to this package, though.

 

9 hours ago, Lights Out said:

This Cavs rebrand is horrible. Just switch to brown and orange and promote the 2K League logo to the big-league club, it's not hard.

 

This would be 1000x worse. Lose any individual identity to ape off the more popular product in town and slap on a generic looking 2K logo. I personally have no affinity for the aesthetic of a "cavalier guy" (our original logo, Sir CC, etc. do nothing for me).

 

 

 

What I would change in this rebrand:

• Keep the previous gold. We know this switch isn't meant to last, but sell merch. We're gonna say THIS is the "real" gold? Not the original gold? Not the gold we've had the longest? Not the gold we won a championship in? Sure, Jan.
• Ditch the wordmarks and shield. The C works as a primary and an update to the 03 font is my preference, matching the logo again.
• Base the CaVs logo on the original cursive wordmark and use it for the gold alt.

I'll never get my perfect Cavs brand because, as many have noted, the team doesn't like settling on a lasting brand in favor of following trends and mixtaping their previous misadventures. That said, I think the new brand has great potential. The new gold still works well with the wine to me. Dropping navy is a big plus as it's held the look back for over a decade. The new C is so much better than the overly-accented-wait-which-is-our-third-color logos we had before. And I have high hopes for the uniforms which couldn't possibly make me miss the current primaries (knocks on hardwood).

[CLEstones]

RE: Cavs

 

Good:

• Getting rid of the navy.  It was too close to black and caused unnecessary confusion.  The black, wine, and athletic gold is a really nice color pallet.  Black pretty much had to stay, since they won the title in black, so it only made sense.
• The C-shield is an upgrade from the previous version.
• In general, the unnecessary drop shadow/strokes over-designing is gone.

 

Bad:

• The loss of the C-sword.  It was a nice logo.  It seemed very identifiable with the Cavs.  The greatest era in Cleveland basketball history is now gone from the identity.
• The middle stripe within the CAVS wordmark would have been a nice touch, but the stripe is too thick and the font is too thin to make it work.

 

Ugly:

• The font.  This over-serif font trend is so bad.  Frankly, I'm shocked it's lasted this long.  I LOVE a good, unique font.  I think every team in sports should have a unique font.  But man, this trend has gots ta go.

 

Areas to Improve:

• I think they need to bring back some sort of sword imagery.  They have no logo identity anymore, no symbolism.  It's just wordmarks.  As I state above, the sword was a staple in the greatest era of Cleveland basketball (and arguably Cleveland sports) history.
• If they insist on have the V-net logo, then I wish they would try to develop something with crossing swords that they used on their court (https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleveland.com%2Fcavshq%2F2010%2F08%2Fcavshq_wednesday_-_the_schedul.html&psig=AOvVaw0C3wRrk0VuBtCEtSZjoJNn&ust=1654446084937000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCJiAlI2alPgCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD) and made the V.
• If that didn't work, then they could have used some sort of battle flag (https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports-logos.fandom.com%2Fwiki%2FCleveland_Cavaliers&psig=AOvVaw2ujuqzOB7doNoDzXcLI330&ust=1654446135507000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCKjCvqqalPgCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD) like the LeBron 1.0 era.
• At worst, they could have incorporated the shield as the V to make it cohesive. 

 

The Cavs have always been a hot mess so I'm not sure why anyone is annoyed by the rebrand or expected anything different.  

 

Lastly - I thought there was a new rule in the NBA that each team had to have a roundel logo or some sort of basketball imagery in their primary logo?  Did I misread that or did that change after a couple years?

[Digby]

Most of my favorite Cavs uniforms have been navy blue (or even a lighter blue, that OG CavFanatic...), but I think the overall logo set/color palette looks nicer with black. Obviously they shouldn't do both. I'm so torn!

 

(But at any rate, only works with a bright gold/yellow to lighten the triad of them... metallic gold makes it all too muddy.)

[chakfu]

On 6/1/2022 at 1:16 PM, FinsUp1214 said:

I’m getting some Laimbeer Cavs vibes from that:

 

 

Also seems like the current wine and the LeBron 1.0 gold mashing up. I hope those are the only colors and no navy or black, because I think keeping it simple with those colors could look really good if used right.

 

Exactly what I jokingly suggested upthread.  Ugh.

 

Weird that it worked in 2003 but next to the black it looks awful like 1983.

 

Simplifying the wordmark and dropping the sword.  Just awful drabness and emptiness.  Hope we can see LeBron back in them

[Indigo]

The battle flag logo was lowkey underrated, IMO. I thought this was the best logo of the set, and it was the most underused. You only saw it on Fox Sports Ohio broadcasts or on second-rate sports sites like Fansided.

 

[The_Admiral]

The set the Cavaliers debuted in 2003 was the best they've ever looked, but they've never stopped tinkering with it. I wish they could have left it more or less alone. Who needed a modernization of their terrible '90s script with the V as a basketball net?

[UnclearInitial]

I don’t hate the Cavs going back to metallic gold, but a more brassy color would have been better than this drab Vegas gold. The shadowed C doesn’t work in 2 colors, just use the outlined version. Trying to be 5 different identities at once doesn’t work, the 2003 C Sticks out like a sore thumb, too bad it’s by far the most unique and recognizable part of the Cavs brand, which is why they should simply base their identity on that