Good Monday morning Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a good weekend!
I’m back with UW pal/contributor/graphic designer Chris Diamond, who today brings us Part V his next project: taking the 28 “City Connect” (CC) uniforms unveiled over the past four seasons and tweaking them. But that’s not all — as a graphic designer, Chris brings his unique perspective to the CC program, and offers his thoughts on each teams’ Aesthetics, Functionality, and “Connection” as well as his prescribed tweaks. For each team listed below, you can click on the uniform graphic for a much higher resolution view of Chris’ tweaked design. I’ve once again used my rudimenatry MS Paint skills, to place Chris’ tweaked design next to the actual CC uniform, so you can see the differences.
As we’ve seen, the MLB CC uniforms are some of the most polarizing uniforms ever introduced; if you asked 10 people to rank them from best to worst, you’d likely get 10 completely different lists. But you know what they say about opinions — everyone has one. So while I may disagree with Chris’ opinions (just as he surely differs on my own rankings), he takes a look at them through the eyes of a graphic designer, and offers his thoughts and opinions from that perspective. So far, Chris has tackled the American League East, American League Central, the American League West, and the NL East.
Here’s Chris. Enjoy!
Tweaking MLB CCs – A Graphic Designer’s View of the City Connect Program: NL Central
by Chris Diamond
MLBs City Connect Program is in its fourth year now, and by the All Star break all teams bar the Yankees and Athletics will have one. As Phil’s piece covering the CCs said, I think it’s fair to say that opinion on UW has so far been quite mixed for the program. But are the unis really that bad? In particular, how do they rate from a pure design viewpoint? That is excluding anything that relates to any historical or emotional investment the reviewer might have. Almost impossible to do you say? Well yes, for anyone brought up with baseball it is very hard to be objective. And anyone in North America, even if they don’t follow baseball closely, will have been exposed to it their whole lives. But as some of you may know, I’m a British graphic designer and have lived in the UK my whole life which has almost completely insulated me from it. Unlike Football, there has never really been consistent TV coverage over here and it’s only been in the last 5 years that I’ve been able to watch games on MLBTV. So I while I know quite a lot about baseball unis now, that is all recent knowledge. Also as a Brit I have been exposed to cricket my whole life. This went through its own equivalent of the CC effect way back in the 1990s when coloured clothing was introduced (domestically) for the first time to similar polar reactions. Hopefully all these factors give me a different viewpoint to review the CC unis.
So I’m going to try and take an objective as possible look at the CC unis from these angles. I’ll rate each design (A-E) purely on aesthetic grounds, then look at functional aspects (how well does it work as a uniform?). I’ll also look at how well I think it succeeds at connecting the team and city. Finally I’ll look if there are any tweaks that could improve each design (from any angle). OK ready? Let’s go!
NL Central
Chicago Cubs
Aesthetics A
The Cubs were one of the earliest CCs when mono-looks weren’t yet the established norm. As such the design looks quite fresh and the “Wrigleyville” wordmark is especially good looking in its pleasing font with graceful vertical arching. The colourway is a semi-blend of Cubs’ colours with those of the City flag although liberties have been taken with the darker shade of blue, mainly I think to increase the contrast with the light blue. The star from the flag in the middle of the cap logo C is particularly well done.
Functionality B-
The very squared-off number font looks a bit harsh to my eyes, but it is clear. The light blue NOBs and front number do grey-out at distance so slightly marked down for that.
Connection B+
As there are two Chicago teams, the Cubs connection has been made to the local neighbourhoods around Wrigley field and the idea works quite well. The font is inspired by the Wrigley Field sign.
Tweaks
Although the design is pretty good, I feel the Cubs missed two opportunities here. Back in the 70s they had a pinstripe powder-blue alternate jersey. I think rather than go the mono-navy route they should have brought back a modern version of that. Oh and keep the darker blue as royal blue. The second missed opportunity is to have “NORTHSIDE” instead of “Wrigleyville” as the wordmark. That combined with the light colour and pinstripes would have given them the perfect counterpoint to the White Sox’s all-black “Southside” CC unis! You could then have had the game between them as Northside vs Southside.
Cincinnati Reds
Aesthetics A-
There are now a few other teams doing the full “neon-nights” look (Rays, Blue Jays) but the Reds were the first. Like with the others as graphic design it’s stunning, the stark white and red highlights blazing out from the black uniform. It’s taking a graphic and turning up contrast to the maximum so everything blocks out to two or three colours. The banded stripe C logo and the extension of that to sleeves and pants work well as integrated design elements but don’t really go with the wordmark. It’s like they were in two minds and went with both ideas.
Functionality D+
Exactly the same as the Rays and Blue Jays the beauty of the design doesn’t extend to a functional uniform. Numbers and wordmark all but invisible to anyone further away than a few metres, although the NOB (and Nike logo) still pop.
Connection C-
This feels a bit weak to me as the whole city part hangs on the font used for the CINCY wordmark which isn’t the first thing you would think of for the city. Apart from the red neon, there is also very little to connect it to the team.
Tweaks
I thought “Philly” as a wordmark was a lame idea for the Phillies and the same applies for “Cincy” for the Reds. So I’ve changed the wordmark to the full “CINCINNATI” in the same font (which is nice). I’ve also turned down the “neon-nights” effect to make it legible. To make it work better together I’ve added white to the striping pattern. Finally I’ve added one of the Red’s sleeve patches to actually connect to the team! I was tempted to go mono-red, but the Reds already have two different red alt-jerseys so I stuck with black.
Milwaukee Brewers
Aesthetics D
From the number of jerseys in the stands, the “Bnew Cnew” CC is pretty popular, so why such a low rating? Well for me the design really misses the target from a number of angles. The colour palette of powder, navy, gold and white is excellent but for some reason navy is only used on the wordmark (and Nike logo). This makes the jersey feel a bit watery and disconnected to me. The wordmark font is nice, but the choice of wordmark and how it’s used (two lines, upper case R in lower case word, non-city based name) is not so nice. The cap logo tries to merge two of the stalest design ideas – airport IATA codes and phone area codes. The resulting franken-logo car crash is best buried in an unmarked grave at midnight somewhere.
Functionality A
The uni simply uses the team’s existing NOB and number font which is a slightly-modified athletic block.
Connection D
The whole “Brew Crew” theme and imagery connects very well to the Brewers themselves, but I really can’t see anything specifically Milwaukee so that is a fail.
Tweaks
First of all “Brew Crew” should not be a professional baseball team wordmark. It’s embarrassing for a Beer-League team never mind an MLB franchise! So to try and connect to the city I’ve kept the font and changed the wordmark to “Milwaukee”. As mentioned above the colour palette is excellent and it would make for a decent set of “powder-blues” for the Brewers so that is what I’ve done.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Aesthetics A-
As previously confessed, I am a Pirates fan so this one is close to the heart. Thankfully the team went with the no-brainer choice of a “we bleed black and gold” theme. The Pirates have been in need of a gold jersey since the last one was retired a few years ago and this does the job. The sublimated pattern is actually well thought out, linking to the checks on the city flag, details of the bridges and the Y of the three rivers. The font is a bit spindly, especially the numbers, but is solid enough. It feels a bit like the regular font’s slightly boring cousin who became an accountant instead of a Pirate but still like to wave the family cutlass around when no-one is looking. The only slight miss for me is the gold-to-grey stripe on the pants.
Functionality A
Spindly yes, but block enough to be clear.
Connection A
The city and team are already strongly connected through the colours and the uni just increases that. CC playing on 11.
Tweaks
So how can you tweak such an already good set? Well the team themselves already ditched the black pants for the regular home white pants and I think it’s an improvement. I also think the sleeve and pant stripes could be tweaked to tie in better to the city flag checks. The sublimated pattern is nice but I think pure gold looks better. And bring in the city crest as a patch. There, how much more Pittsburgh can that be? None, none more Pittsburgh. 😊
St. Louis Cardinals
Aesthetics B+
The Cards were crying out for a red alt and thankfully the CC fills that need. It takes a lot of inspiration from the city flag which uses very similar colours to the team. The wavy pinstripes are particularly nice and are subtle enough not to overwhelm the design. The existing team bat-and-birds are still there, but sadly the team decided to go the knick-lame route with “The Lou” spoiling an otherwise excellent design. The cap logo leans into an old team wordmark, but non-interlinked letters never look good on a cap as it screams “no-design-attempt-made” or airport gift-shop tourist hat to me.
Functionality A
Same team-standard name and NOB so no issues at all here.
Connection B
This depends on how good “The Lou” is as a connection to the city as it’s doing all the heavy-lifting from the city side of things. The impression I get is the connection is about the same as Tampa Bay’s skate-boarding one, in that it appeals mostly to a certain demographic.
Tweaks
The main tweak is a no-brainer really – just replace “The Lou” with “St Louis”. The rest of the tweaks are leaning more into the flag for design elements. The sleeve logo was OK, but needed a colour tweak to match the flag better.
Thanks, Chris!
OK readers, time to have your say. Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!
I love when Chris does this, and most of these are upgrades! I’m not sure about the Cardinals’ cap, but his version of the rest of the uniforms is a step up!
Well done!
Thanks Dave! Yes the Cards cap is a bit radical :-)
Cards is huge upgrade minus the hat.
GTGFTS: David Wells throws a perfect game against the Twins on 5/17/98. Naturally David was hungover as any Midtown rager with Seth Meyers SNL would leave you.
Beanie Baby Day!
I was on vacation in detroit at Tiger Stadium that day, and was scoreboard watching and I SWEAR that the tigers had the score switched…so it looked like the twins beat the yankees 4-0. I left the game cursing david wells, and later found out that he tossed the perfecto. Life is weird that way.
Whoah. Those Houston “Longhorns” jerseys are pretty awesome.
The “r” in the Brew Crew jerseys isn’t an upper-case R, it’s a lower-case cursive r. I’m a little surprised Chris didn’t see that… though it does look a little weird because of the hard angles used.
If that’s what it’s meant to be then it’s an epic fail!
Great job again Chris. It’s really a testament to the most frustrating part of these looks. Most of these 60-70% of the way to being something really good and Nike just fumbled the ball at the goal line.
Chris, as usual, you took the sow’s ear of the CC program and turned it into a silk purse. My reservation, however, applies to the Cubs’ uniform adding pinstripes and a “Northside” chest logo. It creates the impression the Cubs’ uniforms were designed by the White Sox, an idea I’d be anxious to disparage.
Thanks Walter. AFAIK both the Northside and Southside names existed before CC. As such it’s not copying, but both unis would need to have been launched at the same time to avoid giving that impression.
I agree with Walter and would just keep “Wrigleyville”, but like absolutely everything else about them. I like the dark pinstripes on the light blue background, something that I don’t think MLB has ever used but which the Nippon Ham Fighters used for a few years in the ’70s or ’80s.
One more tweak you could make would be to have the lettering be white with a blue outline, harking back to their early-1940s light blue vests. And while the back of your design isn’t visible, I’d use either today’s standard Cubs font, or the earlier “Shepard” variation with rounder numbers and an un-serifed “1”. NNOB, of course.
As a fellow Bucs fan, I am a little disappointed they ditched the black pants with CC. It looks fine with white pants too but gold over black had that Stargell era look. I DID like they they repurposed the black pants and paired them with the black jersey and starred caps.
Not really sure why Chris thinks they need to look like Checker Cabs.
I like the addition of the checkerboard., although it wouldn’t really show up at distance. And my only comments would be that I *thought* that chris’s design subtly arched the bottom of the “Pittsburgh” wordmark, which would have been a nice nod to the city’s bridges.
Nice work. All are big improvements.
“Northside” isn’t a thing in Chicago like “Southside”. And there is a neighborhood called Near North Side but it isn’t where Wrigley Field is. Everybody knows what you mean when you say “Wrigleyville,” though.
If the Cubs wore these, “Northside” would become a thing. What a great look.
Love the Pirates one as well. Just wish I still loved the Pirates. Sell the team, Nutting.
Thanks Jimmer!
I have yet to hear anyone talk about the Cubs uniform having green for the ivy or having some kind of a nautical vibe due to the sailing masts in center field. Lastly, I wish that the pirates jersey played more to the pirates theme.
Never thought of the ivy, but that’d be cool to have some touch of it on the uniform.
Nice work, Chris.
I give the Pirates an A+. Love the checkerboard stripes.
Cubs: A
Reds: C+/B-. Since we started with a D-, this is a large improvement.
Brewers: C. It’s an improvement, but nothing really grabs me here to make it “special.” Getting rid of the CC cap is a huge upgrade though.
Cardinals: D. Kudos for ditching “The Lou” and the boring “ST L” cap logo, but I think the wavy stripes need to be toned down (particularly on the cap), and I prefer the Nike version of the Fluer de Lis patch. Sort of the opposite of the Brewers problem, I’d call this one FFFS (Fancy for Fancy Sake).
As a Cubs fan, I’m biased. But I’m happy they didn’t go with something like “Northside.” That would be them acknowledging there’s a Southside, and therefore, acknowledging the Sox.
Exactly….I came here to say the same thing….
Solid work as ever, Chris. No qualms.
I defer to the Chicagoans among us about the appropriateness of “NORTHSIDE”, but I find “CINCY” and “PHILLY” equally heinous for a jersey. Love the look for the Cubs in any case. Love the checkerboard for the Pirates too, and the STL flag is clever.
Thanks MJ!
“Pittsburgh” is a definite improvement over”PGH”. PGH is pretty obsolete as an abbreviation for Pittsburgh.
All of these uniforms are an improvement to a degree. Love the Cubs and Brewers, and like Pittsburgh. The Cards are an improvement without The Lou. However, I still don’t care for either cap. The Reds are a big improvement, but still black which looks hideous.
As a lifelong Cardinals fan, I too, was happy to see a red jersey. I share Chris’s disdain for “The Lou”, afterall “the loo” is another term for “toilet”. I am a bit disappointed that they didn’t combine the city’s 2 most recognizable symbols: the Birds-on-Bat and the Gateway Arch. I think “Birds-on-Arch” would jave been a perfect fit for the CC jersey.
Cardinals fan here, I was underwhelmed by “The Lou” but I don’t hate it. I disagree on putting “St Louis” on the jersey, that would make it too similar to an existing alternative jersey. The hat is TERRIBLE, zero imagination. I much prefer the hat they wore at the Rickwood Field game.
I dig the “Northside” color scheme.
Please consider getting rid of “grades” for this feature. They are merely subjective opinions, and not objective measurements of anything. Hence, they are misleading.
F- for not understanding how letter grades work.
As a proud owner of a throwback Cubs powder blue pinstripe jersey, I absolutely love that design. The Northside thing, again…it’s a touchy thing, locally. Sox fans and the team desperately try to distance themselves from anything having to do with the Cubs (which is kinda stupid as both teams wear “Chicago” across their chests on the road, but that’s an argument for a bar at a later point). It would cause angst…i.e. “Oh sure, we have ‘Southside’ and they have to steal the idea and put ‘Northside'”….I’m telling ya, it can be exhausting.