Design Identity | Football Uniforms

Wreck07

Wreck07

Varsity Lurker
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Posted this on the other site, figured I should share here too.

Most of the uniform debates that we see here and elsewhere center around the use of our colors. I do not want to discuss that in this thread; there are numerous other threads dedicated to that discussion.

I would like to discuss the idea of design identity and consistency in our football jerseys. Basically, are our uniforms recognizable as “Georgia Tech Uniforms” when logos and wordmarks are not visible? If someone from Des Moines turns on the TV on a random Thursday night, can they quickly identify that Georgia Tech is playing?

Contrary to a lot of the arguments that I hear, Georgia Tech does actually have a pretty recognizable design identity through the years. Whether we had white or gold helmets, navy or black accents, gold or mustard pants, there are a few things that stand out when you look at our uniforms throughout history.

uniforms_GT.png


What stands out to you in these images? Here’s what I see:
  • Stripes on sleeves – no matter what era, color, or style, our uniforms have stripes on the sleeve. While this isn’t exactly unique to Tech, we are one of the few teams that carried it on through the 90s and 2000s. In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color.
  • All three colors are always present – I have not found any jerseys that do not contain all three of our colors. Even if the jersey is predominately two colors, the third color is used to accent the others.
  • Piping on pants – While I didn’t include many photos of the pants, most of the pants I have found have piping along the side. Once again, the pants include all three of our colors
While I don’t love it, I would be much more inclined to appreciate the mix-and-match approach that we have taken to our weekly jerseys. If recruits really prefer our tertiary colors, fine. Use them. But I worry about losing our identity and becoming totally unrecognizable to the general public if we fail to keep some consistency across all of our jerseys.

I believe if we adopted a few of these key design elements, we could (1) preserve our identity and therefore stay recognizable to the neutral, while still (2) mixing up our jerseys every game to excite players and recruits. Heck, we could even flip between black and navy!

What do you think? Do you think this matters?
 
Wreck07 said:
Posted this on the other site, figured I should share here too.

Most of the uniform debates that we see here and elsewhere center around the use of our colors. I do not want to discuss that in this thread; there are numerous other threads dedicated to that discussion.

I would like to discuss the idea of design identity and consistency in our football jerseys. Basically, are our uniforms recognizable as “Georgia Tech Uniforms” when logos and wordmarks are not visible? If someone from Des Moines turns on the TV on a random Thursday night, can they quickly identify that Georgia Tech is playing?

Contrary to a lot of the arguments that I hear, Georgia Tech does actually have a pretty recognizable design identity through the years. Whether we had white or gold helmets, navy or black accents, gold or mustard pants, there are a few things that stand out when you look at our uniforms throughout history.

View attachment 43724

What stands out to you in these images? Here’s what I see:
  • Stripes on sleeves – no matter what era, color, or style, our uniforms have stripes on the sleeve. While this isn’t exactly unique to Tech, we are one of the few teams that carried it on through the 90s and 2000s. In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color.
  • All three colors are always present – I have not found any jerseys that do not contain all three of our colors. Even if the jersey is predominately two colors, the third color is used to accent the others.
  • Piping on pants – While I didn’t include many photos of the pants, most of the pants I have found have piping along the side. Once again, the pants include all three of our colors
While I don’t love it, I would be much more inclined to appreciate the mix-and-match approach that we have taken to our weekly jerseys. If recruits really prefer our tertiary colors, fine. Use them. But I worry about losing our identity and becoming totally unrecognizable to the general public if we fail to keep some consistency across all of our jerseys.

I believe if we adopted a few of these key design elements, we could (1) preserve our identity and therefore stay recognizable to the neutral, while still (2) mixing up our jerseys every game to excite players and recruits. Heck, we could even flip between black and navy!

What do you think? Do you think this matters?
Click to expand...
I stopped reading after this:

"In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color"

We don't have three colors. White and Gold. That is two.

Even the idiots at Google know this. Go ahead and google "Georgia Tech Colors" and see what pops up.

I knew you were an idiot at that point. Please go back to the other site with the rest of the tards.
 
1982Jacket said:
I stopped reading after this:

"In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color"

We don't have three colors. White and Gold. That is two.

Even the idiots at Google know this. Go ahead and google "Georgia Tech Colors" and see what pops up.

I knew you were an idiot at that point. Please go back to the other site with the rest of the tards.
Click to expand...

I don’t love it when we use blue as a predominant color, but I also have a hard time believing that an ostensibly grown-ass man can get this bent out of shape about it.

The athletics brand guide defines white and gold as our primary colors, but also defines blue as a color that can be used, and a lot of the branding examples use it as a predominant color. You can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, but I do wish we’d quit using it on unis except for maybe throwbacks.

For the OP, I can’t remember the details, but didn’t we have some white jerseys with gold numbers and no blue accent back in like the O’Leary or Gailey era? They were hard to read and used a weird number font. I don’t recall if they had blue stripes or anything.

JRjr
 
Wreck07 said:
But I worry about losing our identity and becoming totally unrecognizable to the general public if we fail to keep some consistency across all of our jerseys.

[...]

What do you think? Do you think this matters?
Click to expand...


I appreciate your thoughtful presentation of the subject, and to be honest our uniforms have more "consistenty" to them than I would've expected.

However, I think you significantly overestimate the general public's desire to "recognize" GT uniforms. The GT logo on the helmet is all anyone should need.

And as for the need to recognize a team by its uniform, how do you explain Oregon? They routinely wear uniforms that are in no way recognizable as being Oregon uniforms to the average member of the general public. And yet they are at the same time known to the "general public", at least the football consuming public, as the team that likes to change things up.

Our uniforms have evolved over time, and I think most people prefer that to the stagnant approach of a Penn State or Alabama.
 
1982Jacket said:
I stopped reading after this:

"In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color"

We don't have three colors. White and Gold. That is two.

Even the idiots at Google know this. Go ahead and google "Georgia Tech Colors" and see what pops up.

I knew you were an idiot at that point. Please go back to the other site with the rest of the tards.
Click to expand...

What color is the GT in your avatar?
 
vapspwi said:
I don’t love it when we use blue as a predominant color, but I also have a hard time believing that an ostensibly grown-ass man can get this bent out of shape about it.

The athletics brand guide defines white and gold as our primary colors, but also defines blue as a color that can be used, and a lot of the branding examples use it as a predominant color. You can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, but I do wish we’d quit using it on unis except for maybe throwbacks.

For the OP, I can’t remember the details, but didn’t we have some white jerseys with gold numbers and no blue accent back in like the O’Leary or Gailey era? They were hard to read and used a weird number font. I don’t recall if they had blue stripes or anything.

JRjr
Click to expand...

Yeah, that was my point re: blue debate. I don't like it, but it appears that blue is going to be used going forward.

And yeah, I remember that year. I think it was 2001ish, maybe? I think they immediately realized their mistake and added trim to the numbers. I do remember it being the talk of halftime at BDS in a home opener.
 
1982Jacket said:
I stopped reading after this:

"In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color"

We don't have three colors. White and Gold. That is two.

Even the idiots at Google know this. Go ahead and google "Georgia Tech Colors" and see what pops up.

I knew you were an idiot at that point. Please go back to the other site with the rest of the tards.
Click to expand...

I personally hate the current use of navy as a primary color. But I didn't want to get into that. I believe all of us have lost that battle. Tech will always be the White and Gold to me.

Yes, white and gold are our colors. But on uniforms, historically, there was always a third.

Take 1952. Our branding was white and gold only (see media guide). But the uniforms had blue
Screenshot 2021-10-22 131623.png
Screenshot 2021-10-22 095818.png
 
Wreck07 said:
Yeah, that was my point re: blue debate. I don't like it, but it appears that blue is going to be used going forward.

And yeah, I remember that year. I think it was 2001ish, maybe? I think they immediately realized their mistake and added trim to the numbers. I do remember it being the talk of halftime at BDS in a home opener.
Click to expand...
2001, yeah. We had gone from the Price Is Right numerals of 2000 (which I love btw) to some attempt at looking 2001-Fresh with those weird, anorexic ones. They reminded me of how the numbers on jerseys in some of the early NFL2k games were way too small on the shirt and it looked silly. But even though I liked the 2000 uniforms, if I had my way we would have left them as they were in either 1996 or 1998. I alternate between preferring the navy numerals and the gold, but either way we looked sharp and the look felt timeless to me.
 
coit said:
I appreciate your thoughtful presentation of the subject, and to be honest our uniforms have more "consistenty" to them than I would've expected.

However, I think you significantly overestimate the general public's desire to "recognize" GT uniforms. The GT logo on the helmet is all anyone should need.

And as for the need to recognize a team by its uniform, how do you explain Oregon? They routinely wear uniforms that are in no way recognizable as being Oregon uniforms to the average member of the general public. And yet they are at the same time known to the "general public", at least the football consuming public, as the team that likes to change things up.

Our uniforms have evolved over time, and I think most people prefer that to the stagnant approach of a Penn State or Alabama.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the consistency is what surprised me (and got me thinking about this).

Re: Oregon. I actually discussed this with another alumn earlier this week. I think its because there is no one else in college football that uses those colors, and until recently, no one else changed uniforms as frequently as Oregon. Part of their identity is that they change all the time. I'd point to Louisville as a counter example. They now change uni's all the time, but because that isn't part of their identity, I would never identify Louisville from uniform alone, nor would I see it in the same positive light that I do Oregon.

I think there may be a way to evolve while keeping our design cues the same. Even if we used blue and white "stinger" embellishments on our gold pants and jerseys, instead of the single navy that we currently use.

I think about our black watch jerseys from last year. They look pretty evolved to me. But I'm not the target
 
Wreck07 said:
Posted this on the other site, figured I should share here too.

Most of the uniform debates that we see here and elsewhere center around the use of our colors. I do not want to discuss that in this thread; there are numerous other threads dedicated to that discussion.

I would like to discuss the idea of design identity and consistency in our football jerseys. Basically, are our uniforms recognizable as “Georgia Tech Uniforms” when logos and wordmarks are not visible? If someone from Des Moines turns on the TV on a random Thursday night, can they quickly identify that Georgia Tech is playing?

Contrary to a lot of the arguments that I hear, Georgia Tech does actually have a pretty recognizable design identity through the years. Whether we had white or gold helmets, navy or black accents, gold or mustard pants, there are a few things that stand out when you look at our uniforms throughout history.

View attachment 43724

What stands out to you in these images? Here’s what I see:
  • Stripes on sleeves – no matter what era, color, or style, our uniforms have stripes on the sleeve. While this isn’t exactly unique to Tech, we are one of the few teams that carried it on through the 90s and 2000s. In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color.
  • All three colors are always present – I have not found any jerseys that do not contain all three of our colors. Even if the jersey is predominately two colors, the third color is used to accent the others.
  • Piping on pants – While I didn’t include many photos of the pants, most of the pants I have found have piping along the side. Once again, the pants include all three of our colors
While I don’t love it, I would be much more inclined to appreciate the mix-and-match approach that we have taken to our weekly jerseys. If recruits really prefer our tertiary colors, fine. Use them. But I worry about losing our identity and becoming totally unrecognizable to the general public if we fail to keep some consistency across all of our jerseys.

I believe if we adopted a few of these key design elements, we could (1) preserve our identity and therefore stay recognizable to the neutral, while still (2) mixing up our jerseys every game to excite players and recruits. Heck, we could even flip between black and navy!

What do you think? Do you think this matters?
Click to expand...
5E007C28-4C00-4835-98A9-A113D2F79E02.gif
 
When I was a young boy in the early 80s I thought Tech's colors were black and gold. Then one day I learned that it wasn't black, but navy blue. Then, all of a sudden all these old fogies jumped my case and we're like no you dumbass they are white and gold.

What ever, I like navy tops. The navy ones this year have been nice. Hate the white chicken wire helmets, glad they are gone.
 
Wreck07 said:
Posted this on the other site, figured I should share here too.

Most of the uniform debates that we see here and elsewhere center around the use of our colors. I do not want to discuss that in this thread; there are numerous other threads dedicated to that discussion.

I would like to discuss the idea of design identity and consistency in our football jerseys. Basically, are our uniforms recognizable as “Georgia Tech Uniforms” when logos and wordmarks are not visible? If someone from Des Moines turns on the TV on a random Thursday night, can they quickly identify that Georgia Tech is playing?

Contrary to a lot of the arguments that I hear, Georgia Tech does actually have a pretty recognizable design identity through the years. Whether we had white or gold helmets, navy or black accents, gold or mustard pants, there are a few things that stand out when you look at our uniforms throughout history.

View attachment 43724

What stands out to you in these images? Here’s what I see:
  • Stripes on sleeves – no matter what era, color, or style, our uniforms have stripes on the sleeve. While this isn’t exactly unique to Tech, we are one of the few teams that carried it on through the 90s and 2000s. In virtually every scenario, there were at least two stripes. If two stripes, they were the other two colors (out of our three) overlaid onto the jersey color.
  • All three colors are always present – I have not found any jerseys that do not contain all three of our colors. Even if the jersey is predominately two colors, the third color is used to accent the others.
  • Piping on pants – While I didn’t include many photos of the pants, most of the pants I have found have piping along the side. Once again, the pants include all three of our colors
While I don’t love it, I would be much more inclined to appreciate the mix-and-match approach that we have taken to our weekly jerseys. If recruits really prefer our tertiary colors, fine. Use them. But I worry about losing our identity and becoming totally unrecognizable to the general public if we fail to keep some consistency across all of our jerseys.

I believe if we adopted a few of these key design elements, we could (1) preserve our identity and therefore stay recognizable to the neutral, while still (2) mixing up our jerseys every game to excite players and recruits. Heck, we could even flip between black and navy!

What do you think? Do you think this matters?
Click to expand...

I don’t care that much about uniforms but it’s clear you did your homework.

Regardless you get a thumbs up simply for having the pic of Goose holding up three fingers in the picture.
 
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