Minnesota Twins New Identity

[B-mer]

On 11/22/2022 at 9:42 PM, PERRIN said:

I've used this exact same idea for years with my Minnesota NAFA team, not accusing you of stealing or anything but it's worth pointing out that it's a concept that can fall under the category of "too simple to be stolen". Slapping a star in the negative space of an M is an elegant look, no matter how it's executed, even if it's a bit generic.

(most recent iteration, March 2022)

 

Original team concept, June 2019

 

 

To discuss the rebrand itself, I'm quite pleased. I'm not much of a baseball fan so I'm not the most in tune with baseball aesthetics, but I'm a fan of this rebrand. I like the simplicity of the set and the wordmarks and number font are really classy. Logos are solid. Wish they included a powder blue uniform, but it's an elegant-looking set that's really nice at best and inoffensive at worst. Solid job all around, despite some small flaws.

 No, I know. I was joking. I like those too

[B-mer]

On 11/21/2022 at 12:15 PM, BBTV said:

 

was this for a Wild concept?  It would make for an amazing crest (or shoulder patch) for them.  Nice work.

It was for a North Stars concept, yes. It’s in the concept thread. Though I’m thinking of making a different version for the Wild. 

[habsfan1]

Even though I was always used to the Twins having a blue outline around the many variations of the red script, I don't hate this more simplified version.

 

It's definitely appealing. Interesting decision for number fonts and color choice. I think it's well done. The Twin Cities alt script is neat.

[Carolingian Steamroller]

On 11/24/2022 at 10:57 AM, FiddySicks said:

 

So you want all of those logos to have their ding a lings swinging around in the wind? 

 

Now I’m just picturing that Pat Patriot logo without pants and am like

 

Ngl, though. I’d like to see a company try to Nikespeak their way outta that one. 

 

Given what we know about Ben Franklin's social life as Ambassador to France, it would be extremely appropriate.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

52 minutes ago, Carolingian Steamroller said:

Given what we know about Ben Franklin's social life as Ambassador to France, it would be extremely appropriate.

 

"Diplomacy happens at night."

 

— The Decemberists

 

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, Carolingian Steamroller said:

 

Given what we know about Ben Franklin's social life as Ambassador to France, it would be extremely appropriate.

Well I guess we should add this one to the pantsless-logos list:

 

[VikWings]

The home jersey is meh, feel like the wordmark needs an outline though.

 

Road jersey - love the return of the road pinstripes but the wordmark is boring and the cap logo is terrible. Especially when they have the old M they could have used, even tweaked some.

 

Meh on the navy and I do like the cream alt.

 

Sad about Minne and Paul and the baby blues going away.

[SilverBullet1929]

I'm not convinced these are an upgrade over the previous set and that bugs me because it should have been an upgrade by it's existence alone. In time I'll probably love these more (I think we overlook how our first reactions are just first reactions and our opinions can change over time and those who put these uniforms together have looked at them over time and settled on their decisions with the benefit of time behind them).

 

Anyways, my collection of thoughts on these...

-I don't like the road pinstripes being so subtle. They weren't subtle in the Metrodome set and that's why people loved them. To me those road pinstripes were the most iconic part of that set because they were unique. So either do the pinstripes or don't, commit to them. 

-TC upgrade is good and cleans it up but honestly most fans won't even notice this so it's not like anything is lost here. 

-The M hat sucks. It's a Loria-era Marlins hat all the way. The star is a good idea but it's tiny and doesn't stand out at a distance, not enough contrast. Should have just refreshed the Metrodome M, not sure why they seem to be running away from it.

-I like the serifs on the font except that this comes when they remove the serifs from the TC??? How does that happen? Either keep the serifs on the cap and the font together, or remove them both. How do we eliminate something and then put it right back elsewhere?

-Speaking of eliminating something, I can't believe Minnie and Paul are completely gone from the uniforms. They should have been kept somewhere on at least one uniform, namely the home one. Big mistake there. Even if they wanted to change everything, that's the one thing that should be kept to imply consistency with their history, like the A's elephant and even that Devil Ray on the Rays sleeve.

-Surprised there isn't more complaints about them darkening the navy. It's almost black, not a fan of that at all because then it's suddenly like they're a black and red team instead of navy and red. Leave the dark navy to the Yankees and Tigers. Twins were already the normal navy, why change that?

-Twin Cities alt works as a City Connect because those are supposed to be outliers but this isn't that and they are getting a City Connect soon so why is this uniform so different than the rest? If this fit with the rest it would be fine. Can't stand that it's got no red and that the cap is different. And this leads to my biggest issue with the whole set...

 

-Why does this set about consistency have so much inconsistency??? The biggest thing that they wanna promote with this rebrand is having consistency throughout the whole set yet I see that as the biggest lie. Serifs gone from the cap but added to the fonts. 2 different wordmark styles in 3 different colors. The home jersey looks like a different team than the road and navy alternates.  The M hat is supposed to look like it goes with the TC but it doesn't as there's no interlocking on the M hat so to me it's 2 completely different team hats.  I like the contrasting numbers with the wordmarks but it's a different pairing on every jersey. The Twin Cities alt has a completely different color scheme than the rest including having a 2nd TC logo when they just needed one. That also makes 3 different caps.

 

Yes plenty of teams have elements that don't match but apparently that's what these guys were trying to get away from yet it's still all over the place.

 

Also, the modern update that worked for Toronto and San Diego is because those refreshed those teams most beloved uniforms but the Twins ran completely away from their most beloved uniforms. The one element of those uniforms that they kept is just done "subliminally" because they're apparently afraid to go with those uniforms. The Padres and Jays embraced their history, not these guys.

 

[MJD7]

On 11/29/2022 at 10:53 AM, SilverBullet1929 said:

-Surprised there isn't more complaints about them darkening the navy. It's almost black, not a fan of that at all because then it's suddenly like they're a black and red team instead of navy and red. Leave the dark navy to the Yankees and Tigers. Twins were already the normal navy, why change that?

They decided to darken the navy because the navy of the jersey didn't match the hat previously:

 

Granted, I would've maybe tried to see if I could lighten the hat to match the jersey, but I don't believe New Era has a lighter navy like that. So I can see why they went the route they did.

 

On 11/29/2022 at 10:53 AM, SilverBullet1929 said:

Also, the modern update that worked for Toronto and San Diego is because those refreshed those teams most beloved uniforms but the Twins ran completely away from their most beloved uniforms. The one element of those uniforms that they kept is just done "subliminally" because they're apparently afraid to go with those uniforms. The Padres and Jays embraced their history, not these guys.

I'm not quite sure the Twins have a singular set or brand element that is unanimously beloved in the way the Blue Jays and Padres were. For me, as a Twins fan I've never been a fan of the '87-'09 pinstripes set, I much prefer the 70's-80's set they seem to have taken a bit more inspiration from.

[SilverBullet1929]

On 11/30/2022 at 8:26 PM, MJD7 said:

They decided to darken the navy because the navy of the jersey didn't match the hat previously:

That makes sense but did they darken the caps too? I just don't want to look at the Twins now and see the caps nearly black as the Tigers and Yankees often do appear.

[Bmac]

3 hours ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

That makes sense but did they darken the caps too? I just don't want to look at the Twins now and see the caps nearly black as the Tigers and Yankees often do appear.

No, New Era offers two shades of navy, and the Twins already used the darker one. They continue to use the darker one. Jerseys have been darkened to match.

[HOOVER]

Haven't followed this thread, just jumping in to say that I think this redesign was extremely well-done, and turns their look into something pretty timeless.

[Mingjai]

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

No, New Era offers two shades of navy, and the Twins already used the darker one. They continue to use the darker one. Jerseys have been darkened to match.

I’ve always thought the Twins should be using New Era’s lighter navy (just Milwaukee using it now?) versus the midnight navy (basically every other navy team). Here was their chance to fix it and they decided not to. I guess I can see them needing the darker navy to make the unbordered red pop a bit more.

 

On the topic of New Era navy, it drives me crazy that New Era uses the lighter navy for the Chicago Bears hats when their on-field uniforms have always seemed midnight navy.

[MJD7]

I just wanted to come back in here to say that I’m loving the Twins’ rebrand more and more every day. They simplified everything across the board to include only the most essential elements from their history, creating a clean, streamlined, cohesive identity.

 

The cream jersey only using navy is really growing on me too, and that was my least favorite aspect of the brand during the reveal. I might even be happy that they didn’t include any red at this point.

 

Otherwise, the only change I’d make would be to flip the stripes on the navy jersey, to make it white/navy/red. Beyond that, I really think this is a pretty much perfect evolution of the Twins’ brand, and I couldn’t be happier. I think it’s right on par with the Blue Jays, Padres, and Brewers as far as near-perfect rebrands go. I think it’ll end up growing on people with time.

[TruColor]

I'll post some side-by-side examples later, but the official Pantone values for the Navy and Red did NOT change for the Twins. However, the RGB, CMYK, Textiles, and threads all DID change. I've been needing to update my site, but you won't see a difference there.

[TenaciousG]

On 11/20/2022 at 4:34 PM, BadSeed84 said:

 

Well if they kept the same Minnesota script or something similar, they could've done this.

 

 

Or to match the no outlines simple look they are going for.

 

I just cannot get over how much better the No-outline “M” is versus what they actually went with. SMH. 

[WSU151]

On 11/20/2022 at 7:34 PM, BadSeed84 said:

 

Well if they kept the same Minnesota script or something similar, they could've done this.

 

 

Or to match the no outlines simple look they are going for.

 

 

Has anyone done a white 80s-2000s M with a red underline? If not, can someone mock it up?

[seasaltvanilla]

[coco1997]

17 minutes ago, seasaltvanilla said:

 

[tBBP]

1 hour ago, seasaltvanilla said:

 

It shouldn't be, for obvious reasons, but I'm catching a bit too much of a BiG "M" vibe from this. It's probably the serifs.