2023 - 2024 NBA changes

[tBBP]

8 minutes ago, SantosD_ said:

Sixers updated jersey:

 

 

These video game graphics are getting too real. That is amazing.

 

2 hours ago, sayahh said:

 

Touché.

 

 

 

Somewhere in or near Beaverton OR there's a think-tank group conferencing around a campfire right now drawing up the next Spurs Statement edition...inspired by this right here. BOOK IT.

[jp1409]

1 hour ago, SantosD_ said:

Sixers updated jersey:

 

 

[MilSox]

5 hours ago, iamdaviinci said:

I won't defend the white sun as a great design choice by any means, but it feels like a lot of folks are overthinking it. Bulls aren't red, Hornets aren't teal, Bucks aren't green, etc. Team mascots don't have to be literal to work, and they rarely are. I also think the white sun is an odd point of contention when there are many other, more egregious and fundamental flaws with the uniform design (distracting wordmark, disjointed front number, poor spacing on jersey, lazy design on shorts).

 

Maybe not in the literal sense, but those colors are associated with those animals never the less.  Red is the traditional color used to distract bulls and make them charge, and some actual bulls do have quite a reddish brown hue. Bucks tend to live in forested areas, which are quite green. This was actually a major complaint of mine when they wore purple, which is not a very forest-y color.

 

Sometimes it works regardless... as with your example of the Hornets. But typically that's because of tradition. Tradition dictates that the ball on the Suns uniform be orange, as it was on the uniforms that inspired them, which is also when the Suns had their biggest period of mainstream notoriety.

 

The fact that the ball is white doesn't make or break these uniforms for me. But I have to agree it'd look much better orange.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, tBBP said:

Somewhere in or near Beaverton OR there's a think-tank group conferencing around a campfire right now drawing up the next Spurs Statement edition...inspired by this right here. BOOK IT.

 

*Pizza Hut has joined the chat*

 

 

[BBTV]

10 hours ago, iamdaviinci said:

Bulls aren't red, Hornets aren't teal, Bucks aren't green, etc. Team mascots don't have to be literal to work, and they rarely are

 

But basketballs are orange, the sun appears orange, and their secondary team color (which appears in their logo and uniform) is orange.  I'd say this is a case where it should be literal.

[iamdaviinci]

8 hours ago, dont care said:

But their logo that is also on the uniform is orange

 

5 hours ago, MilSox said:

The fact that the ball is white doesn't make or break these uniforms for me. But I have to agree it'd look much better orange.

 

23 minutes ago, BBTV said:

But basketballs are orange, the sun appears orange, and their secondary team color (which appears in their logo and uniform) is orange.  I'd say this is a case where it should be literal.

 

I think these points all allude to deeper issues across the brand as a whole, including logos and uniforms. They've created a drastic inconsistency between the chest graphic on the jersey and the primary logo on the belt buckle of the shorts. The white ball is a necessary evil to help balance an off-center wordmark....but the orange ball is a time-honored tradition that remains their primary logo. I really think they could've alleviated a lot of the perceived issues with this set had they picked a single look - white or orange - to establish one coherent vision for the brand.

[j'villejags]

7 hours ago, tBBP said:

Somewhere in or near Beaverton OR there's a think-tank group conferencing around a campfire right now drawing up the next Spurs Statement edition...inspired by this right here. BOOK IT.

I’d like it. Calling them ‘icy’ may be underselling how cold they’d be.  

[Old School Fool]

11 hours ago, SantosD_ said:

Sixers updated jersey:

 

 

My favorite thing here is noticing that 2K Sports may have finally gotten the wordmark and number proportions on the jerseys right. Ever since Nike took over, 2K hasn't had accurate wordmark and number sizes and it was kinda annoying even though it looked better because in real life the jerseys have small numbers and stuff now.

 

[truepg]

I don't see the issue existing with the Suns' wordmark having to be "balanced out" with a white ball. The wordmark is fixed inside a slanted graphic that goes across the entire chest. There's not that much importance for it to be aligned rigorously at the centerline.

[pelicanfan]

Edited August 9, 2023 by pelicanfan
literally no idea why i cant type anything when linking a tweet... but anyways those spike things on the shorts are a huge turn off i didn't expect them to take the literally keep that same exact template from their previous set.

[Lights Out]

20 hours ago, SantosD_ said:

Sixers updated jersey:

 

 

Are we sure that's not just 2K getting the details wrong? Not like that hasn't happened many times before with sports games.

[iamdaviinci]

3 hours ago, truepg said:

I don't see the issue existing with the Suns' wordmark having to be "balanced out" with a white ball. The wordmark is fixed inside a slanted graphic that goes across the entire chest. There's not that much importance for it to be aligned rigorously at the centerline.

 

This is a case where optical alignment is more appropriate than exact alignment.

 

With the wordmark fixed inside the full chest graphic, I agree it wouldn't make sense to center the wordmark exactly -- the ball/sun is already truncated as is, and this would just about eliminate it altogether.

 

But that being said, an off-center white wordmark followed by an orange ball would create an unbalanced composition given the centered numbering. It isn't as obvious with Booker's #1, but gets worse with Beal's #3 and worse again with KD's #35.

 

Ignoring the preferred color of the ball for a second, which of the following three options feels most balanced? I'd argue Option 1, as the full composition appears balanced in terms of both color and density. Option 2 lacks color balance for the reason mentioned above, while Option 3 corrects that issue only to make one side significantly more dense than the other.

 

I'll take the fundamentally sound design choice over the familiar/traditional/literal/etc. ones every single time.

 

[gosioux76]

13 minutes ago, iamdaviinci said:

 

This is a case where optical alignment is more appropriate than exact alignment.

 

With the wordmark fixed inside the full chest graphic, I agree it wouldn't make sense to center the wordmark exactly -- the ball/sun is already truncated as is, and this would just about eliminate it altogether.

 

But that being said, an off-center white wordmark followed by an orange ball would create an unbalanced composition given the centered numbering. It isn't as obvious with Booker's #1, but gets worse with Beal's #3 and worse again with KD's #35.

 

Ignoring the preferred color of the ball for a second, which of the following three options feels most balanced? I'd argue Option 1, as the full composition appears balanced in terms of both color and density. Option 2 lacks color balance for the reason mentioned above, while Option 3 corrects that issue only to make one side significantly more dense than the other.

 

I'll take the fundamentally sound design choice over the familiar/traditional/literal/etc. ones every single time.

 

I don't know, man. No. 2 just looks better. 

[truepg]

6 minutes ago, iamdaviinci said:

 

This is a case where optical alignment is more appropriate than exact alignment.

 

With the wordmark fixed inside the full chest graphic, I agree it wouldn't make sense to center the wordmark exactly -- the ball/sun is already truncated as is, and this would just about eliminate it altogether.

 

But that being said, an off-center white wordmark followed by an orange ball would create an unbalanced composition given the centered numbering. It isn't as obvious with Booker's #1, but gets worse with Beal's #3 and worse again with KD's #35.

 

Ignoring the preferred color of the ball for a second, which of the following three options feels most balanced? I'd argue Option 1, as the full composition appears balanced in terms of both color and density. Option 2 lacks color balance for the reason mentioned above, while Option 3 corrects that issue only to make one side significantly more dense than the other.

 

I'll take the fundamentally sound design choice over the familiar/traditional/literal/etc. ones every single time.

 

I see where you are coming from, and what I meant to imply was focusing on the idea of centering the wordmark in general.

Yes, the first pic with the actual design looks most balanced out of the three, if you compare side by side. But with the white ball being such an egregious misstep, and the offset of the middle version being so minimal to the degree of it being irrelevant for the reasons I mentioned above – going with the orange ball is a no-brainer.

[MDGP]

Yeah, 2 is easily the best. Not everything has to be geometrically perfect to look good. At least in my mind the wordmark doesn't need to be centered because it's a part of a larger graphic as a whole that fills in that space.

[McCall]

2. The white ball, although it balances the white across the chest, seems too out of place just in general that it takes away from the overall composition. In this scenario, composition>color balance.

[eRay]

Am I the only one who thinks #3 looks the best? It's the highest point the graphic reaches, therefore it leaves a perfect spot for a number below it. The number being on the right balances out the wordmark being pushed toward the left,  slanting number matches the overall design, adding orange makes it more vibrant, I choose that one. Make it reality.

[fortunat1]

I came across a post online talking about the Jazz and Clippers being in line for new unis for the '24/25 season. After a brief look at the user's previous posts, it does seem that they have some kind of relationship with Nike (to the point that they would know things like this). The Clippers will have been sticking with their largely unchanged (and sub-par) logo/jersey package for nearly a decade at that point, so it makes sense to release new unis once they move into their new arena. Also, as everyone knows, the Jazz have gotten nothing but pushback on the highlighter unis, so it also makes sense for them to change soon.

 

FWIW this is a fairly tame assertion that we have all could have assumed by now, but it does seem like it's more likely to happen than not.

[BadSeed84]

4 hours ago, Lights Out said:

 

Are we sure that's not just 2K getting the details wrong? Not like that hasn't happened many times before with sports games.

 

No, most figured they would just be changing the dropshadow to the bottom right.

[iamdaviinci]

4 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

No. 2 just looks better. 

 

4 hours ago, truepg said:

But with the white ball being such an egregious misstep, and the offset of the middle version being so minimal to the degree of it being irrelevant for the reasons I mentioned above – going with the orange ball is a no-brainer.

 

3 hours ago, MDGP said:

Yeah, 2 is easily the best.

 

2 hours ago, McCall said:

2. 

 

Fair enough!

 

Now I'm curious -- do you feel the same when we apply the same ideas to the Association Edition?

 

I often struggle to "balance" Association and Icon Edition design concepts when they aren't clear reciprocals of one another. Examining each Option 2 (orange ball), the purple Icon feels unbalanced to me due to the white wordmark being offset against the white numbering....but the white Association feels unbalanced to me due to the white wordmark being offset in isolation as the lone focal point of the composition.

 

Curious to see some takes on this, but fully expecting to realize my design-fueled OCD is even more extreme than I imagined