Jackonville Jaguars New Look- Bringing Back the Gold

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I'm sure that by now you've all moved on from football season, but I'm still mucking around with new concepts. So, I'll start with the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'd like to preface this by saying that some of you may already have seen my design on Uni Watch, but I thought I'd bring it over here to get some feedback.

So, here goes. The very first step was to bring back gold, which livens up the otherwise bland color scheme, and better matches the helmet logo. The next change was a new helmet logo; I took inspiration from their famous prototype design to create a brand-new wraparound jaguar logo. From there on out, I simply added striping to the sleeves and pants, with a little bit of a modern flair, to form what is in my opinion a much more cohesive and unique identity then the one they just introduced this year. So, with that brief introduction, onto the concept itself:

Home Primary Diagram

Home Primary in Action

Road Primary Diagram

Road Primary in Action

And now, the black pants options...

Home Secondary Diagram

Home Secondary in Action

Road Secondary Diagram

Road Secondary in Action

Now, my process in creating these uniforms is probably pretty different than most others'. I first draw the uniform out onto paper (you may have seen my marker concepts before, such as this earlier design upon which this one is based). Then, I take a picture, upload it to photobucket, and fill, paint, and tweak to my heart's content. This gives it some semblance of a digitized look. I'd love to someday get to a point where my concepts are as clean as elliott's, or Bucco's, but until then I'm satisfied with this method.

One final note: dgnmrwrw, if you're reading this, I'm sure you noticed that I used your template for my diagrams of the uniforms. I traced them directly from the computer screen. I'm sorry if this is a problem.

Anyways, thanks for viewing, and thanks for putting up with all my writing! Hope you enjoy... C&C is welcome and appreciated!

[Quillz]

Yeah, that prototype Jaguars logo was interesting. Nice to see you revived it a bit, along with the gold.

Unlike Wayne Weaver, I never felt that the Jags had "too many" looks. What they had before the 2009 simplification was quite nice, really. And I see you sort of brought it back.

My only suggestion is maybe use a better template... Seems you're using MS Paint. Why not try Inkscape?

[9erssteve]

Yeah, that prototype Jaguars logo was interesting. Nice to see you revived it a bit, along with the gold.

Unlike Wayne Weaver, I never felt that the Jags had "too many" looks. What they had before the 2009 simplification was quite nice, really. And I see you sort of brought it back.

My only suggestion is maybe use a better template... Seems you're using MS Paint. Why not try Inkscape?

Yeah Jaguar the car manufacturer certainly thought so! That's why it was removed. It wasn't a concept logo it was their first OFFICIAL logo, I have catalogues with merchandise featuring that logo in them. But Jaguar took the NFL to court (or threatened to, not sure if it ever got that as far as an action) and the NFL completely scrapped it in favor of the Jags head that everyone is now familiar with. So with that in mind I'm not sure how successful an idea it is to try and bring back an unlawful logo?

Personally I never liked the first version, not only was it almost identical to the car makers mark the jaguar itself was not well rendered, imo it look fat and heavy and as a mark was pretty dull, whereas the 3/4 view used something that no other NFL team has had the balls to try, before or since, clever use of negative space. Of course they've gone and loused that up now with the use of the tacky pearlescent "flip" paint on the helmets which ruins the hidden black lines of the logo but what can you do?

With regards the uniform concepts, I dont have a big issue with them, the colours are truer to the originals so I like that but the wordmark on the chest is pretty poor, it says cheap sci-fi to me rather than football i'm afraid, and I have to second what Quilz said try inkscape or something as your current "technique" is not displaying your work in it's best possible light I'm afraid.

9erssteve

[logocruncher]

Just bumping this back to the front page... anyone got any more comments? Suggestions? I'm hoping for a little more response here... thanks!

EDIT: By the way, thanks for the above responses. 9erssteve, your responses are always so well thought out and I respect your opinion. However, I don't feel that, just because the logo was shut down by Jaguar (the company), that it wouldn't work for a concept. Obviously, this is never going to happen, so I'm just playing around with what I think looks best and gauging the response. Oh, and Quillz, thanks for your response, but I'm not using Paint; as I said, I draw my uniforms then import them onto Photobucket and "digitize" them there.

[The_Admiral]

This title is truncated on the main page to "Jacksonville Jaguars New Loo..." and I laughed.

[Jezus_Ghoti]

Nice work. I think I'd prefer to see gold stripes on the black pants (instead of white), which would better mimic the logo on the helmet. Beyond that, everything is very nice.

[9erssteve]

Just bumping this back to the front page... anyone got any more comments? Suggestions? I'm hoping for a little more response here... thanks!

EDIT: By the way, thanks for the above responses. 9erssteve, your responses are always so well thought out and I respect your opinion. However, I don't feel that, just because the logo was shut down by Jaguar (the company), that it wouldn't work for a concept. Obviously, this is never going to happen, so I'm just playing around with what I think looks best and gauging the response.

Thanks for the compliment, I do try to put a little more into my comments than "yeah cool" or "nah I dont like it" so it's good to hear people appreciate it.

With regards the use of the logo, yeah you're right none of the concepts on here are ever likely to be picked up and used especially by the clubs in question, but at the same time I've always approached any concept I've done as if it it was going to be used by the actual club and as such would have to fit all the restraints and regulations that a real logo or uniform should meet. I do it for two reasons one I'm a bit anally retentive that way and I try to make things as authentic as possible but also because I feel it stops me becoming lazy. As soon as I say "well it's not real anyway" I start cutting corners. I create a good looking uni, but cant fit TV numbers on it, "ah it's not real anyway" and I leave them off this one and it's a slippery slope from there.

I was once told by a design house in London (think it was Kino cant remember to be honest) that designers should love clear tight briefs... by that they didn't mean kinky pvc underwear! They meant that in order to push yourself creatively you should find projects that have as many restrictions and necessities as possible. If you can get all these things into your design and STILL produce a creative solution then you know you're on top of your game. Sometimes the best ideas come as a result of restriction and not from freedom to do anything at all as so many think.

I'm not saying you have to treat every project as real. I'm not even saying it's the best or most fun way to work, god knows it can drive you nuts sometimes and certainly raise your blood pressure, but I think treating the project as real and forcing yourself to work within certain guidelines will also raise the standard of your finished work as well.

At the end of the day if you want to stick with the old logo that's entirely your choice, from a personal stand point and legal issues aside I'll be honest I think it's a big backward step. I much prefer the current Jaguar logo as I feel it's more eloquent and certainly more creative than what was a pretty bog standard leaping cat logo. I mean besides the car company I can name at least two sports manufacturers who use a leaping cat logo, Puma and Slazenger (not sure if they still do but they certainly did) but cant think of another that uses a similar 3/4 head logo. Making your design unique is an important part of the process and I feel that the original logo just wasn't that unique.

9erssteve