Reader Tim Powitz noted we’re in a slow period for uniform news, and indeed this week has been particularly quiet on the uni front.
He reached out to me with the following, which turned out to be gold.
Hi Phil and Uni-crew,
I saw a comment today on a post that content is a little slow this time of year, so here is my offering.
The Charlotte Knights (AAA Chi Sox) rebranded a year or 2 ago so it feels safe to expose these designs I may or may not have been allowed to copy and save.
I was a retail intern for the Knights in 2013 when they were rebranding as part of a move to a new Uptown ballpark the following season. I was able to sit in on a couple of meetings about the rebrand and am sharing the sketches I photocopied and saved. You’ll see the progression of Rounds 1-3 as logos and ideas were tweaked into what became the final product.
You’ll also see my supervisor’s opinionated notes about the designs and I’ll let you and the readership decide if she “Gets It” or not.
Here is a link to the final result.
The designers are Brandiose who have probably done the majority of MiLB at this point.
With an effort to be concise, I’ll leave it at that. I’m happy to answer questions and provide more detail if you like.
Happy to be a part of it all,
Tim Powitz
Thanks, Tim!
As I was unfortunately busy with some other things yesterday, I didn’t have a chance to delve into these until late last evening. I did follow up with Tim briefly to request .jpgs (he’d sent the originals in .pdf form, which doesn’t reproduce well on UW). When he followed up with the following in a better format, he added, “For reference, they were changing from a navy and forest green color scheme to a gold, silver, black color scheme (after some other color explorations and discussions). There was a lot of talk about ‘metallic thread’ regarding the stitching on the hats.”
With that as the setup, things will become clearer momentarily. The contest submissions were done in several rounds, both for the cap and logo. What’s amazing about these submissions though are the “supervisor’s opinionated notes” and Tim’s open question to the readership as to whether she GetsIt™. I’ll reproduce some comments where they may be hard to read.
Hats Round 1
I love the “NO” on the first cap, but she also recognized the wishbone “C” used by the Bears (and several other teams over the years).
Unfortunately, I cannot read the comment on the upper right cap above.
“Don’t understand the wing”
Maybe it’s a pegasus? Or a dragon?
Lots of commentary here. “Too scary looking” — remember this was 2013. We hadn’t yet reached maximum “angry/scary mascot” requirements I guess. Also, is she asking to make the dragon’s tail into a sword? But I definitely laughed out loud when she noted the logo in the upper right “looks like an armadillo.” The final notation is unclear. The top line reads “would pick SS or TT if had….” and I can’t make out the final word. Anyone?
She spotted the crown pommel detail on the sword. Good eye!
Logos Round 1
Another good spot! The chanfron (the piece of armor on the horse’s head) does look like it’s purposely forming the letter “C”.
“Love the sword and crown”
“Like the crown in front better”
There’s the armadillo again…
“Get rid of outline
different C”
Obviously, being in MiLB design, she’s familiar with the Columbus Clippers “C” logo. I don’t really see it, but there are similarities, for sure — but how many ways can you render a “C”?
On the second comment…isn’t the logo busy enough without adding a crown to the top of the sword? (Unless she’s referring to the crown pommel…)
“NO” “NO”
Logos Round 2
I’m assuming Tim only had access to a black and white copier.
Interestingly, her “Favorite” ended up being the least like the final logo.
“Concern with stitch count”
Logos & Caps Round 3
“To (sic) much with both”
“Don’t like crown behind text”
Again, interesting the cap she liked was the least like any they ended up going with.
“Prefer the ‘K’ in G Round 2”
“Concern with the stitch count on hat?”
“Like the diamond in crown. Adds dimension”
Does she GetIt™?
Readers? I’m sure you’ll have some questions for Tim. Let him know what you think down in the comments below.
“I think the dragon needs a big beef arm…sticking out of his neck.”
and consummate Vs
The Charlotte Burninators – I think you’re on to something.
Loving the inside look at the process. I am not a fan of what the actual rebrand was, surprisingly I don’t think any of the alternatives were much better either. I’ve seen fan concepts for a hypothetical expansion MLB Knights that are miles better than any of this. I guess much of this was the style of the times 10+ years ago.
Tim the contributor here. To clear up some of the handwriting that Phil couldn’t make out they say:
On hats Round 1, design, JJ it says “?Stitching/ shading”
and hats Round 1, designs SS and TT says “Would pick SS or TT if had to choose”
You can see in a fair amount of her comments about stitching, stitch counts, shading, that she was concerned with pricing.
And I can’t remember if I only had access to a color copier or not, but I’m 99% sure that all of these sketches were black and white. I don’t have copies but I do remember seeing some mock ups in navy & yellow and navy & bright green (like the seahawks).
I live in Charlotte, and I have lived through several rebrands of this team. This rebrand was my least favorite. The insight is absolutely amazing. From her comments, I definitely think she knows her stuff. I always questioned the black, gold, and silver for the colors though. If you live in Charlotte, then you know that Bank of America Stadium (Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC) is a couple blocks from Truist Field (the Knights). The current iteration of colors adds a congruence with the Panthers and Charlotte FC.
Oh she GetsIt™ all right. She’s dead on about the similarity to the Clippers logo. She’s got taste!
fascinating. I live in Charlotte and thought this redesign was bad. It didn’t make any sense, and now that I see the design sketches, I’m even more confused. Why center the design around an armored horse? Why not use the C with a sword horizontally cutting it? The final product still looked half baked.
I love “F” in round 2 of the C logos. I think it’s infinitely better than what they went with, and works way better with the helmet/head design.
vegas gold has always looked horrible to me.
Old Gold— the kind you find on the 49ers’ helmet— is every designer ‘s least favorite color. It’s the most difficult to match.
A lot of great concepts but they really missed with the final choices imo. The latest version is maybe even wore, even with the blue.
The purple aand teal knights and even the navy/green horse head era was much better IMO
I like the armadillo
I know documents like this are hard to come by, but I absolutely love seeing behind the scenes content like this.
Would love to see more on the site!
I get that they were trying to tie in the “Queen City” (Charlotte) by adding two crowns on the logo but knights don’t wear crowns. And that crown in the H looks stupid, ruins a perfectly good wordmark.
Anyway, I loved this behind the scenes sort of reporting. And Tim’s supervisor definitely Gets It! I just wish more people were so invested as she was.
I really enjoy the behind the scenes look, and I agree with a lot of her points, but Knights don’t wear crowns. If they did they’d be the Kings.
Fascinating read! Will have to go back through this one slowly at lunch.
I enjoyed looking at these, because with every new design I see, I’m always wondering about what other things they considered.
A “Knights” identity seems kind of difficult to pull off well in sports. When I was 9 years old, it seemed like the ultimate coolest thing ever, but as an adult they always just look cheesy to me. That goes for just about anything with swords, too.
A recurring complaint I have about logos/uniforms from that era, and from Brandiose in general, is that many of them look “overdesigned” to me. As an analogy, when you watch a really good actor, they make you forget that you’re watching an actor, and you see the character only. Sometimes with too-clever logos, I become too aware that the designers are trying to impress me (or each other) by forcing in too many elements or ideas.
With baseball cap logos I really appreciate a nice interlocking monogram. For this I would have liked a variation of the QC or maybe a CK. I’m a little torn on the sword-slashing-C logo. I see why she liked it though, it’s very dynamic.
Graphically, I think the helmet (I guess it’s an armet or bascinet) “reads” best, in terms of communicating the identity simply without confusion. Other commenters mentioned the issues with blending the Queen City crown, and a dragon-and-C design has similar issues. For Knights-branded sports teams, I think the horse head chess piece approach works best, but more recently that’s been attached to some unsavory non-sports things.