Minnesota Sports Forum

I think it all comes down to how the uniforms look and the redesigned court. I don't mind the logo, but if the uniforms aren't great I'll be disappointed.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Jon K wrote a story about how the logo rebrand process. I found it odd people were so in love with stuff from the past. IMHO Design something really new! Oh well it's still turned out pretty good. I'm going to be interested to ask a number of my friends who design for a living what their impressions are.

https://apnews.com/f6c7d6bd09914c86a31c0725084c1cfa/Timberwolves-rebrand-looks-to-shed-recent-failures

I love how marketers find ways to justify and add importance to design elements. It's a skill. But sometimes, those justifications/reasons are created AFTER the design is already hatched. Read some of those doozies here:

Zach Lowe on the new logo. (It's a shame what ESPN has done to this man. I miss his old onslaught of basketball columns... woe)...

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19135644/zach-lowe-minnesota-timberwolves-new-logo-nba

Also in the article...
More good news: The Wolves are scrapping their hideous, butterscotchy court design for next season, and revamping their uniforms. Some of the riskier motifs they left on the logo cutting room floor will pop up in those places. "As we get into those other elements," Johnson said, "we are going to be more aggressive."

This is a good thing. The court is terrible. And the secondary logos are an important part of the brand along with the uniforms. I visit a design community site that goes in-depth on new logos and branding. I doubt they'll have anything until the Wolves entire branding initiative is released though... For anybody interested in checking out other rebrands (including recent sports logos)... here it is... http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

Thanks for posting the Lowe article. It had some good stuff.

Abe I felt like reading Jon's article the designer was coming up for reasons they did stuff that the client (and all the people they talked to) wanted. I've heard plenty of that from my wife and friends often a bit frustrated with their creative process for a client and basically had to sell both to the client annnnndd to themselves some of the design elements. Obviously this logo isn't anything to be ashamed of but I would have liked a more simple and bold choice but I might get some of that with others they designed.

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Jon K wrote a story about how the logo rebrand process. I found it odd people were so in love with stuff from the past. IMHO Design something really new! Oh well it's still turned out pretty good. I'm going to be interested to ask a number of my friends who design for a living what their impressions are.

https://apnews.com/f6c7d6bd09914c86a31c0725084c1cfa/Timberwolves-rebrand-looks-to-shed-recent-failures

I love how marketers find ways to justify and add importance to design elements. It's a skill. But sometimes, those justifications/reasons are created AFTER the design is already hatched. Read some of those doozies here:

Zach Lowe on the new logo. (It's a shame what ESPN has done to this man. I miss his old onslaught of basketball columns... woe)...

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19135644/zach-lowe-minnesota-timberwolves-new-logo-nba

Also in the article...
More good news: The Wolves are scrapping their hideous, butterscotchy court design for next season, and revamping their uniforms. Some of the riskier motifs they left on the logo cutting room floor will pop up in those places. "As we get into those other elements," Johnson said, "we are going to be more aggressive."

This is a good thing. The court is terrible. And the secondary logos are an important part of the brand along with the uniforms. I visit a design community site that goes in-depth on new logos and branding. I doubt they'll have anything until the Wolves entire branding initiative is released though... For anybody interested in checking out other rebrands (including recent sports logos)... here it is... http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

Thanks for posting the Lowe article. It had some good stuff.

Abe I felt like reading Jon's article the designer was coming up for reasons they did stuff that the client (and all the people they talked to) wanted. I've heard plenty of that from my wife and friends often a bit frustrated with their creative process for a client and basically had to sell both to the client annnnndd to themselves some of the design elements. Obviously this logo isn't anything to be ashamed of but I would have liked a more simple and bold choice but I might get some of that with others they designed.

I'm not sure who has ultimate veto/approval power within the organization. Sometimes, when too many decision-makers/stakholders are involved... the safest approach wins out.

That could be part of the reason here. And there could be a lot of truth to the reasoning.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Jon K wrote a story about how the logo rebrand process. I found it odd people were so in love with stuff from the past. IMHO Design something really new! Oh well it's still turned out pretty good. I'm going to be interested to ask a number of my friends who design for a living what their impressions are.

https://apnews.com/f6c7d6bd09914c86a31c0725084c1cfa/Timberwolves-rebrand-looks-to-shed-recent-failures

I love how marketers find ways to justify and add importance to design elements. It's a skill. But sometimes, those justifications/reasons are created AFTER the design is already hatched. Read some of those doozies here:

Zach Lowe on the new logo. (It's a shame what ESPN has done to this man. I miss his old onslaught of basketball columns... woe)...

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19135644/zach-lowe-minnesota-timberwolves-new-logo-nba

Also in the article...
More good news: The Wolves are scrapping their hideous, butterscotchy court design for next season, and revamping their uniforms. Some of the riskier motifs they left on the logo cutting room floor will pop up in those places. "As we get into those other elements," Johnson said, "we are going to be more aggressive."

This is a good thing. The court is terrible. And the secondary logos are an important part of the brand along with the uniforms. I visit a design community site that goes in-depth on new logos and branding. I doubt they'll have anything until the Wolves entire branding initiative is released though... For anybody interested in checking out other rebrands (including recent sports logos)... here it is... http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

Thanks for posting the Lowe article. It had some good stuff.

Abe I felt like reading Jon's article the designer was coming up for reasons they did stuff that the client (and all the people they talked to) wanted. I've heard plenty of that from my wife and friends often a bit frustrated with their creative process for a client and basically had to sell both to the client annnnndd to themselves some of the design elements. Obviously this logo isn't anything to be ashamed of but I would have liked a more simple and bold choice but I might get some of that with others they designed.

I'm not sure who has ultimate veto/approval power within the organization. Sometimes, when too many decision-makers/stakholders are involved... the safest approach wins out.

That could be part of the reason here. And there could be a lot of truth to the reasoning.

Agree. Also if this is the outcome...it's pretty good all things considered. We have seen stuff that's MUCH worse. This logo also doesn't seem too trendy which is kinda nice. Like other have said let's see how everything shakes out with uniforms other alternate logos etc. I'm still worried about the font on the jerseys...

I think the font lends itself even better for uniforms... with the "w" and "v" being similar and signature elements of the word.

I think it'll look clean.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:I think the font lends itself even better for uniforms... with the "w" and "v" being similar and signature elements of the word.

I think it'll look clean.

Good points. I guess I was just thinking that on some of the jerseys they did some other things to hype up the font and it was ok but I'm hoping for a more clean look like you mentioned. Looking back at the last jerseys and logos it seems I was remembering some of that but it's still pretty much the same font. Thanks for helping to alleviate my fears about that. How would you feel about helping me work through my ever heighting fear of heights?

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:I think the font lends itself even better for uniforms... with the "w" and "v" being similar and signature elements of the word.

I think it'll look clean.

How would you feel about helping me work through my ever heighting fear of heights?

I would offer my advice. But I don't think you'd fall for it.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:I think the font lends itself even better for uniforms... with the "w" and "v" being similar and signature elements of the word.

I think it'll look clean.

How would you feel about helping me work through my ever heighting fear of heights?

I would offer my advice. But I don't think you'd fall for it.

Falling is part of the fear so...well um I'm not sure what that means. I think it's already helping!

Updated logo stuff... here's the design review site I mentioned that discusses the logo... and other stuff. The comments section is from other designers and creatives, so it gets a bit technical at times. (Designers REALLY REALLY care about fonts!)

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_minnesota_timberwolves_by_rare_design.php

A few notes:

- I'm not alone in missing the tree in the wolf's fur that was in the previous secondary logo.
- The designer is becoming THE guy for sports logos. As mentioned, that's both good and bad. (1) knows what he's doing. (2) Are teams getting his best ideas... or retread elements that other teams passed on? Does their creative process lend itself to a certain kind of logo more often than not? You can tell they've done this before by the justifications for every element... neon green for the trees?
- The reviewer/commenters are right about the seedy self-promotion video of the design company. Ugh.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Updated logo stuff... here's the design review site I mentioned that discusses the logo... and other stuff. The comments section is from other designers and creatives, so it gets a bit technical at times. (Designers REALLY REALLY care about fonts!)

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_minnesota_timberwolves_by_rare_design.php

A few notes:

- I'm not alone in missing the tree in the wolf's fur that was in the previous secondary logo.
- The designer is becoming THE guy for sports logos. As mentioned, that's both good and bad. (1) knows what he's doing. (2) Are teams getting his best ideas... or retread elements that other teams passed on? Does their creative process lend itself to a certain kind of logo more often than not? You can tell they've done this before by the justifications for every element... neon green for the trees?
- The reviewer/commenters are right about the seedy self-promotion video of the design company. Ugh.

Thanks for posting Abe that was interesting. I'll pass on watching the video.

I saw the supposed alternate marks and the one with the logo without the text...I actually really liked it probably partly because it had some contrast. I do think designing a wolf it's hard to get something that is too cartoony or real or cuddly etc. This treatment of the animal is reasonable.

I showed it to my sister in law who used to go to Wolves games and was in love with Wally as a teenager. She also has a degree in animal science so It's always amusing to send her pics of animals in advertisements or toys and have her break down why they aren't anatomically correct. She is also pretty creative. She basically said the logo was fine. Not bad and not great either but said it was a big improvement over the previous dated logo. She liked the alternative logo better but got the idea they were going for. I showed it to my wife and she said it was fine but wasn't sure about the "A" with no line. The fact that she didn't have any other critics probably is a good sign.

Hopefully I can talk to some actual graphic designers in the next week or 2. A couple guys I know Logos is what they do. Maybe I need to tell them about how to do a promotional video...