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Blue Jays to change uniforms for next season


whateverman42

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Someone long ago in this thread (IceCap maybe?) said that all the Blue Jays had to do was go back to the World Series uniforms and they'd be perfect.

I did say that, because I saw what happened when the team tried to "update" the World Series uniforms in 1997. I figured that any attempt to upgrade the World Series set again would result in something like that, where they tried to hard to make the World Series uniforms seem "cool." I'm very happy to have been proven wrong. This is a fantastic (not perfect) attempt at an upgrade. All in all I'm glad this is the direction they went in.

I know how you Blue Jays fans feel. When the Reds finally dropped the vests, black hats and sleeves on the road, and pinstripes, it felt like I had my team back. Everything about their current set isn't perfect (I'd like to see black completely eliminated from the set, and I don't like the drop shadowed numbers/NOB), but it's good enough for me.

The Reds looked like Cincinnati's baseball team again, and I'm sure you guys feel like you got Toronto's baseball team back. I wouldn't be surprised if the Jays attendance was better this season for this reason alone.

Well said. I'd like to see the Jays ditch the navy outline on the road wordmark, and I'd like to see the "TORONTO" get the split letter treatment on the logo, but I'm very, very happy with how this turned out. They did almost everything right. My biggest fear was that the red would be included in the uniform beyond the maple leaf in the logo. I'm glad to see they didn't go overboard with it.

Yeah, it's weird seeing your team look so drastically different. The first year of the 2004 change, with the graphite hats, were the worst.

:cry:

Sad to see Graphite go... but it's easy when they replace it with something that just feels right.

I still maintain that back in 2004, for a team who from a branding standpoint had lost control (T-bird), they needed to start fresh. I applaud them for having the guts to try something new like the J bird & Graphite hats... in the copy-cat world of baseball design it was kinda neat seeing a team that ignored that mentality. Personally, I liked their look... but even I know it just wasn't right for the Blue Jays to have with their history and fan base, and it was doomed to catch on with fans no matter how they did on the field.

This was the right move at the right time for them, and I think that many feel like they have their team back, but I'll still wear my Graphite Blue Jays cap with pride.

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For those interested, if you order off MLB.com and enter INSIDERS15 as a promotional code, you can save 15% off your order.

I did this for the Toronto Alt and with shipping, currency conversion, it will cost me less than it would if I buy it in store with the 13% taxes on top.

Just an FYI for those interested...

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Slightly OT: Am I the only here who absolutely LOVES the inclusion of Black for the Reds, and would be greatly disappointed if they got rid of it?

Other than black shoes, they shouldn't have anything on their uniform but single-layer red.

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I still maintain that back in 2004, for a team who from a branding standpoint had lost control (T-bird), they needed to start fresh. I applaud them for having the guts to try something new like the J bird & Graphite hats... in the copy-cat world of baseball design it was kinda neat seeing a team that ignored that mentality. Personally, I liked their look... but even I know it just wasn't right for the Blue Jays to have with their history and fan base, and it was doomed to catch on with fans no matter how they did on the field.

You and I agree on this. I still think the '04-'11 look is a very well-rendered logo/wordmark and was certainly unique for baseball. It really could have been a great brand if they didn't use so much black in the uniforms. It just wasn't right for the Blue Jays.

I own all three hats from this era (Graphite, Black and toothpaste-T), and I'll now cherish them and show my future kids what the Bizarro Black Jays era looked like.

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Didn't see this here, from the National Post (and via Uni Watch):

1118jays1.jpg

Looking at this makes me wish the original Blue Jays logo lasted from 1977-2011. Those middle three logos should have never happened.

Granted, the 1997-2002 logo is passable, but they really hammered the maple leaf into your head. And, of course, 2003-2011 was the worst, with the death of split numbering, blue and pretty much everything else that made Toronto, Toronto.

EDIT: Also, I've seen many people now refer to the inconsistent typeface in the logo. But, aren't "TORONTO" and "BLUE JAYS" exactly the same, except the latter has split lettering? The only other font used on the uniform that is different is the standard block font for the NOB.

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I think the reason they didn't do split lettering on "TORONTO" is because it would look too wide and busy, at least in relation to the rest of the logo. I think it worked in the first iteration because there was no outer outline and the bird itself was a little smaller. But I think by turning the modern logo into a roundel, there might have been too much split lettering.

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I also think there's an objection to "TORONTO" being slightly smaller than "BLUE JAYS" in the logo.

Neither of those bother me - I rather like setting the city name apart just a bit, while maintaining a through-line - but I can see how it would bug some people.

I think the reason they didn't do split lettering on "TORONTO" is because it would look too wide and busy, at least in relation to the rest of the logo. I think it worked in the first iteration because there was no outer outline and the bird itself was a little smaller. But I think by turning the modern logo into a roundel, there might have been too much split lettering.

It could be an homage to the original uniforms, which didn't use the split-letters for the TORONTO on the road:

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"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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Slightly OT: Am I the only here who absolutely LOVES the inclusion of Black for the Reds, and would be greatly disappointed if they got rid of it?

Other than black shoes, they shouldn't have anything on their uniform but single-layer red.

Agreed. This with a red hat would be the ultimate classic Reds look:

164610d1250950800-gambo-t_wil1-photopack-luis_arroyo_1959_reds.jpg

Incorrect.

This is the answer we were looking for.

Pete-Rose1.jpg

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Heh, that Pete Rose image/jersey is bad ass. Point well taken. But can you guys create a "Reds need to look like Charlie Hustle of the late 60's" thread or something?

I'd like more glorious praise about my Blue Jays' new branding on this thread please. :)

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Someone long ago in this thread (IceCap maybe?) said that all the Blue Jays had to do was go back to the World Series uniforms and they'd be perfect.

I did say that, because I saw what happened when the team tried to "update" the World Series uniforms in 1997. I figured that any attempt to upgrade the World Series set again would result in something like that, where they tried to hard to make the World Series uniforms seem "cool." I'm very happy to have been proven wrong. This is a fantastic (not perfect) attempt at an upgrade. All in all I'm glad this is the direction they went in.

I know how you Blue Jays fans feel. When the Reds finally dropped the vests, black hats and sleeves on the road, and pinstripes, it felt like I had my team back. Everything about their current set isn't perfect (I'd like to see black completely eliminated from the set, and I don't like the drop shadowed numbers/NOB), but it's good enough for me.

The Reds looked like Cincinnati's baseball team again, and I'm sure you guys feel like you got Toronto's baseball team back. I wouldn't be surprised if the Jays attendance was better this season for this reason alone.

Well said. I'd like to see the Jays ditch the navy outline on the road wordmark, and I'd like to see the "TORONTO" get the split letter treatment on the logo, but I'm very, very happy with how this turned out. They did almost everything right. My biggest fear was that the red would be included in the uniform beyond the maple leaf in the logo. I'm glad to see they didn't go overboard with it.

Yeah, it's weird seeing your team look so drastically different. The first year of the 2004 change, with the graphite hats, were the worst.

:cry:

Sorry :(

Don't get me wrong, it looked great on the rack/on fans. In fact one of my two hats from the 2004-2011 set is graphite. It just made the home uniforms look dull, in my opinion. Graphite hat, graphite numbers, and a primarily white/silver wordmark on white just didn't do it for me.

Sad to see Graphite go... but it's easy when they replace it with something that just feels right.

I still maintain that back in 2004, for a team who from a branding standpoint had lost control (T-bird), they needed to start fresh. I applaud them for having the guts to try something new like the J bird & Graphite hats... in the copy-cat world of baseball design it was kinda neat seeing a team that ignored that mentality. Personally, I liked their look... but even I know it just wasn't right for the Blue Jays to have with their history and fan base, and it was doomed to catch on with fans no matter how they did on the field.

This was the right move at the right time for them, and I think that many feel like they have their team back, but I'll still wear my Graphite Blue Jays cap with pride.

If you take the 2008-2011 road uniform and create home and alternate sets based off it you would have had a great looking uniform for a hypothetical modern day Toronto Blue Jays expansion team.

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Apparently this is supposed to be a better version that fixes up all the "errors"...just to create even more errors.

20111119-blue-jays-better.jpg

My god that is revolting. Looks childish, at least to me.

Yeah, I'm not a fan. The bird head I could go either way on. The font and maple leaf design, however, is inferior to what the team actually went with.

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So today, I bought an old-school Blue Jays 59-Fifty, the white-paneled cap they wore up until mid-1993. Anyway, I asked the employee there about when they might get the new caps in stock, and he told me probably not until early next year, although they did seem to have exactly one new Orioles white-paneled cap in stock, which I probably should have bought but didn't.

So, I guess the only way to get one now is through MLBShop or eBay or something. I kind of like the new cap and might buy it once I can locally.

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If you take the 2008-2011 road uniform and create home and alternate sets based off it you would have had a great looking uniform for a hypothetical modern day Toronto Blue Jays expansion team.

It would be great if this was the Carolina Silver Jays. But it was a completely wrong look for a baseball team in Toronto, a city that has a superb and proud connection to baseball for decades.

I think that's why so many of us reacted so harshly to the "Silver Jays" movement. It was because it looked like a sinister attempt to remove the team's identity with Canada and to remove the word "Blue" from the title. It was, to my eyes, a distinct severing of the chord from the team's history and origin. And it was cynical corporate move to remove the word "blue" from the title, because of what the word "blue" represented in the team's history.

You couple this with the re-branding of the stadium, the ridiculous decision to put advertisements over the names and faces of legacy players and the obvious choice of colors they thought were "trendy" (instead of meaningful), well the whole thing reeked of a regime change that was arrogantly assuming we the lemmings fans would eagerly consume the new identity.

Even the way in which the new identity was built was wrong, (by just tapping a marketing firm, without any real contact or feedback from fans or stewards of baseball in the city reeked of arrogance).

I'd say the old "pencil lead logo" is practically a text book of how NOT to launch a new brand identity. I'd say this launch, so far, is pretty close to a text book on how you do it correctly. Even the speeches at the unveiling, pretty much concede this reality. If you listen to the speech's in the video it pretty much states:

"Man we messed up. We heard you. We spent some time on this one, we think we got it right, enjoy it..."

I think the Jays did exactly what you should do when a corporation tries something new and it sucks. It admitted the mistake, it took careful, cautious care for its next step and when it was confident it had amended the error, it announced its revision with pride.

I can think of a lot of companies and brands that can learn a lot from that.

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If you take the 2008-2011 road uniform and create home and alternate sets based off it you would have had a great looking uniform for a hypothetical modern day Toronto Blue Jays expansion team.

It would be great if this was the Carolina Silver Jays. But it was a completely wrong look for a baseball team in Toronto, a city that has a superb and proud connection to baseball for decades.

I think that's why so many of us reacted so harshly to the "Silver Jays" movement. It was because it looked like a sinister attempt to remove the team's identity with Canada and to remove the word "Blue" from the title. It was, to my eyes, a distinct severing of the chord from the team's history and origin. And it was cynical corporate move to remove the word "blue" from the title, because of what the word "blue" represented in the team's history.

You couple this with the re-branding of the stadium, the ridiculous decision to put advertisements over the names and faces of legacy players and the obvious choice of colors they thought were "trendy" (instead of meaningful), well the whole thing reeked of a regime change that was arrogantly assuming we the lemmings fans would eagerly consume the new identity.

Even the way in which the new identity was built was wrong, (by just tapping a marketing firm, without any real contact or feedback from fans or stewards of baseball in the city reeked of arrogance).

I'd say the old "pencil lead logo" is practically a text book of how NOT to launch a new brand identity. I'd say this launch, so far, is pretty close to a text book on how you do it correctly. Even the speeches at the unveiling, pretty much concede this reality. If you listen to the speech's in the video it pretty much states:

"Man we messed up. We heard you. We spent some time on this one, we think we got it right, enjoy it..."

I think the Jays did exactly what you should do when a corporation tries something new and it sucks. It admitted the mistake, it took careful, cautious care for its next step and when it was confident it had amended the error, it announced its revision with pride.

I can think of a lot of companies and brands that can learn a lot from that.

Now the only hope is the Blue Jays are serious when they said something to the effect of "logo for life." What they're wearing now could easily go 10-20 years without any major revisions. Let's hope that's the case.

They mentioned the Black/Silver/Graphite Jays look was going to last "for a very long time," which turned out to be 8 years.

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