Excerpts from a nut email chain in 09:
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To: [nut]
Date: Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 6:32 PM
Subject: [nut] Re: Jersey, Shorts, and Sweatshirt Designs
Yo dudes,
My rationale is that you put so much time towards ultimate, I don't mind spending money to have some nice gear to remember it by. I don't mind paying a little more for high quality gear I can play in for the rest of my ultimate career. And I (and almost everyone else from that year) wear my gray NUT hoodie from 2 years ago constantly because it's a nice, comfy sweatshirt. Obviously it has to be high quality and preferably sweet-looking. So keep that in mind.
EPH
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From: JK
To: [nut]
Date: Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 9:38 AM
Subject: [nut] Re: Jersey, Shorts, and Sweatshirt Designs
guys,
the more you change your logo, the more stupid explaining you have to do.
Also, to address pauls points: CUT is so good it doesn't matter what their logo is. If you are paying attention, ego's (this is oregon, new guys) logo spells ego (don't worry paul, it took me 4 years of playing ultimate and two years of my brother being on the team to figure this out). Michigan's logo includes the letters M and U as its primary components (you're all smart enough not to need this explained). I honestly don't remember what Stanford's logo is and their webpage is down (I think it might actually be their team name spelled out), but this brings me to my next point: I bet their logo hasn't changed 8 times in the past 10 years.
All of these teams pick a logo and stick to it. This is like your brand guys, and for some reason Northwestern tries to reinvent themselves every damn year. To make a pop culture reference, we change our minds like a girl changes clothes. Now, I understand that while I was around our jerseys were ugly as shit (purple) and the logo was lame (the oval), but at least we had the same logo for 3 years running (hey, hindsight is 20/20). People on campus knew what the nut in the oval meant, and so did other players in our region. Now, we're reentering the period where we try to come up with a cooler, more badass, more devastatingly sexy logo every year. For the love of god, try to resist the urge. I have a pair of last years jerseys with the simple nut logo, and I have to say they are not only the best jerseys I think NU has ever had and some of the best that I own (and I own lots of jerseys), but great jerseys on an absolute basis. They are simple, classy, and relate in a relatively simple way to our team name and origin. Aside: two tone is both expensive and terrible.
In conclusion, keep it simple and try to avoid changing logos unless absolutely necessary. A suggestion: when you get the urge to send a suggestion for new jerseys to the listserv, instead to to the gym and do some squats. This will serve to both make you a better ultimate player and also make you all seem less like preening fashion-queens.
Put more simply:
your old jerseys = good
changing logos all the time = terrible
hexagons = terrible terrible
two tone = uber terrible
rainbows = refracted light
superheros = not real
capes = idea worth considering
squats = awesome
Happy new years, now get off your fat ass and go for a run,
Stack
-------------------------------
Designing jerseys takes a lot of work. Not every idea is a winner. A lot of concepts never pan out for one reason or another, and sometimes even good ideas get left behind.
A few concepts that never saw the light of day:
Yo dudes,
My rationale is that you put so much time towards ultimate, I don't mind spending money to have some nice gear to remember it by. I don't mind paying a little more for high quality gear I can play in for the rest of my ultimate career. And I (and almost everyone else from that year) wear my gray NUT hoodie from 2 years ago constantly because it's a nice, comfy sweatshirt. Obviously it has to be high quality and preferably sweet-looking. So keep that in mind.
EPH
---
From: JK
To: [nut]
Date: Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 9:38 AM
Subject: [nut] Re: Jersey, Shorts, and Sweatshirt Designs
guys,
the more you change your logo, the more stupid explaining you have to do.
Also, to address pauls points: CUT is so good it doesn't matter what their logo is. If you are paying attention, ego's (this is oregon, new guys) logo spells ego (don't worry paul, it took me 4 years of playing ultimate and two years of my brother being on the team to figure this out). Michigan's logo includes the letters M and U as its primary components (you're all smart enough not to need this explained). I honestly don't remember what Stanford's logo is and their webpage is down (I think it might actually be their team name spelled out), but this brings me to my next point: I bet their logo hasn't changed 8 times in the past 10 years.
All of these teams pick a logo and stick to it. This is like your brand guys, and for some reason Northwestern tries to reinvent themselves every damn year. To make a pop culture reference, we change our minds like a girl changes clothes. Now, I understand that while I was around our jerseys were ugly as shit (purple) and the logo was lame (the oval), but at least we had the same logo for 3 years running (hey, hindsight is 20/20). People on campus knew what the nut in the oval meant, and so did other players in our region. Now, we're reentering the period where we try to come up with a cooler, more badass, more devastatingly sexy logo every year. For the love of god, try to resist the urge. I have a pair of last years jerseys with the simple nut logo, and I have to say they are not only the best jerseys I think NU has ever had and some of the best that I own (and I own lots of jerseys), but great jerseys on an absolute basis. They are simple, classy, and relate in a relatively simple way to our team name and origin. Aside: two tone is both expensive and terrible.
In conclusion, keep it simple and try to avoid changing logos unless absolutely necessary. A suggestion: when you get the urge to send a suggestion for new jerseys to the listserv, instead to to the gym and do some squats. This will serve to both make you a better ultimate player and also make you all seem less like preening fashion-queens.
Put more simply:
your old jerseys = good
changing logos all the time = terrible
hexagons = terrible terrible
two tone = uber terrible
rainbows = refracted light
superheros = not real
capes = idea worth considering
squats = awesome
Happy new years, now get off your fat ass and go for a run,
Stack
-------------------------------
Designing jerseys takes a lot of work. Not every idea is a winner. A lot of concepts never pan out for one reason or another, and sometimes even good ideas get left behind.
A few concepts that never saw the light of day:
 |
| Snake |
 |
| Pat |
 |
| Paul |
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