For this week’s Uni Watch Premium article over on Substack, I have an interview with designer Eric Bodamer, who was working for Nike when they had to quickly redesign the Jaguars’ number font in the middle of the 1997 preseason. It’s a really interesting story, full of good details.
You can read the first part of the article here. In order to read the whole thing, you’ll need to become a paid subscriber to my Substack (which will also get you access to my full Substack archives). My thanks, as always, for your consideration.
It’s funny, the Jags’ drop-shadow preseason font reminds me so much of what the Ravens successfully switched to that same season without legibility issues, and their replacement font reminds me so much of the ORIGINAL font the Ravens had in 1996 that they switched FROM. I apologize if this is covered in the full article (I can’t justify the subscription cost at the moment but hopefully soon), but it’s strange to me that Nike had such similar plans for both Jacksonville and Baltimore in 1997 but had to scrap one and not the other. And the Ravens number font with the drop shadow is still in use today!
When people talk about ugliest uniforms, I will always bring these up.
Have you seen the current set? At least these aren’t afraid to use teal and gold.
Agree with Tyson. These were great. Miss these so much. Hate the flat set they have now. Brunell era unis were my favorites from Jaguars, by far. When they went BFBS they ruined it and they haven’t fixed them ever since.
Would love to see them go back to these with the current helmet