For nearly four years, Rams fans have read about their team getting new uniforms. COO Kevin Demoff has talked about redesigned jerseys and pants since the team moved back to Los Angeles in 2016.
On Wednesday, those new jerseys were released to the public, ushering in a new era of Rams football for 2020 and beyond. It was the second and final part of a complete rebranding of the organization, from the logo and colors to the jerseys and helmets.
Unfortunately, the whole refresh fell kind of flat. And the result has been a lukewarm reception from fans, many of which hate the new logo and dislike the redesigned uniforms. No rebranding is ever met with unanimous praise and joy from fans, but surely the Rams wish this redesign was better received than it has been.
Demoff even admitted this week that he’s aware a large number of fans are still upset about the logo. The same will probably be said about the uniforms a month from now.
The biggest issue with this entire rebranding was the overcomplicated approach taken by the Rams. They tried to do too much with a brand refresh that should’ve been incredibly simple.
Not long after the uniforms were released, people on Twitter shared their own takes on the redesign and what the Rams should have revealed. Like this one from For The Win’s Steven Ruiz, which takes from past uniforms worn by the Rams and modernizes them.
it's not too late @RamsNFL pic.twitter.com/kuAGrMDafa
— Steven Ruiz (@theStevenRuiz) May 13, 2020
The response to that set of uniforms was overwhelmingly positive and just about exactly what Rams fans were hoping the team would go with. Unfortunately, it was not. Instead, the team released only three uniform sets with two more coming in the next two years.
This rather simple rebrand was made far too complicated by those who were in charge of it. There was too much focus on tailoring it to the city of Los Angeles and not enough emphasis put on the cohesive look of the uniforms and logos themselves.
Let’s start with the logo, which drew the ire of a huge number of fans.
When it was revealed, there was a lot to digest. The curve was inspired by the Fibonacci Sequence – or the “golden ratio.” It was compared to the perfect spiral of a football, a crashing wave and the design of SoFi Stadium.
That’s interesting and all, but it’s too deep for a logo redesign.
The same goes for the white-to-yellow gradient in the logo, which was meant as a tribute to the Rams moving forward by going from white horns to yellow horns. The orange color in the logo is a nod to West Coast sunsets. Again, it didn’t need to be that complicated.
An updated ram head with a one-piece horn would’ve sufficed. But instead, fans got a helmet with a horn that Eric Dickerson says “looks like two bananas” and has has been compared to a crescent roll by fans on Twitter. The helmet is one of the bright spots of the refresh, but the two-piece horn has the fanbase mostly torn.
That brings us to the uniforms, which draw off inspiration from the logos.
Make no bones about it (bad pun intended), the colors of the royal and yellow look awesome on the jerseys. They really stand out, more so than they did in the throwback uniforms. The royal helmet matches the jersey color now, and the yellow horns are even brighter than before.
That’s about where the high praise ends, unfortunately. The gradient numbers simply don’t work. In fact, the numbers as a whole missed the mark. The “perfect spiral” is incorporated in the heavily rounded numbers, which have reflective elements to showcase their curvature.
Solid yellow digits would’ve made this jersey infinitely better, as would a solid yellow or white stripe on the pants – instead of a thick white-yellow gradient stripe. We just didn’t need a reminder of their transition from white to yellow in the uniforms.
And then there’s the patch above the left breastplate, which reads “Rams” – as if to remind everyone what team is wearing these uniforms. An actual logo, as the Steelers and Chiefs have, would’ve fit better, but sticking the Rams’ L.A. mark or updated ram head there probably would’ve led to even more outrage. The yellow zigzag stitch at the top seems out of place, too, though the team says it’s meant to look like a fashion designer’s signature mark on a piece of clothing, according to The Athletic.
As for the “Bone” color, it’s not as bad as some are making it out to be. I actually like the idea of wearing a gray uniform as the secondary/away set – though the Rams aren’t designating it as their “away” uniform.
But again, the depth of the color wasn’t necessary. The bone color is supposed to resemble the color of a ram horn, as well as the sand on a beach.
Instead of prominently featuring this unique color in the jersey and pants with very little blue and yellow incorporated, the Rams could’ve simply drawn off these magnificent uniforms and still used the “bone” color – similar to the concept from Ruiz’s tweet above.
Yellow and blue on the sleeves, yellow pants, blue and white stripes. The whole nine yards.
Rather than sticking to their roots and simply updating their already great history of uniforms, the Rams wanted to go in a new direction. They wanted to push the envelope with gradient numbers, a monochromatic secondary uniform called “bone” and a redesigned horn that strays too far away from the iconic design fans have come to love.
“The easiest changes to get done are to go backward. The hardest changes to get done are to move forward,” Demoff told ESPN.
It’s fine to move forward with change, and given the state of the franchise after moving back to L.A., it’s completely understandable. But for a historic team like the Rams – who already had one of the best logos and uniform sets in the NFL – going backward was probably the best move in the minds of most fans.
It’s what the Bucs, Browns and Chargers did this offseason, and unsurprisingly, those are three of the most popular uniform redesigns in recent memory. The Rams hope they’re not one of the teams that has to do this all over again in five years like the Buccaneers and Browns did, but will gradients really hold up a decade from now?
We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.
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