All Forked Up: Part I

Recently Arizona State and Nike unveiled new uniforms, logos and even some new colors. As was the case for Michigan State and Washington State, this was a comprehensive rebranding effort. The goal was to establish a distinct, aggressive look for all of ASU athletics. In this two-part series, we'll look at the Sun Devils' new duds and try to determine if Nike was able to deliver a positive change in the Valley of the Sun. 

Before we examine any of the uniform or logo changes, the first question to be addressed is, why rebrand? A simple answer would be money–merchandise sales. A new look means being able to supply your fanbase with new jerseys, shirts, hats, etc. Beyond simply financial reasons, what are the other reasons to rebrand? In the case of Michigan State, the Spartans desired a consistent identity across their sports programs as this, this, this, and this, had all been used in recent years. Sometimes when schools have a high-profile rival, they feel as though they need to establish a strong brand presence to compete. I don't know it's ever been explicitly stated as such, but you can definitely feel some of that with WSU's rebranding; they wanted to put themselves on the map. One of the more underrated reasons to rebrand is that it can be a recruiting tool; kids seem to love it. While many schools like Notre Dame and Texas lean on heralded traditions and history to snag top-flight recruits, Oregon has taken a distinctly converse attitude to reeling in talent. Oregon has used their wildly unconventional uniforms to plant themselves firmly on college football landscape, and establish the Ducks as one of the "cool" programs in the country. 

Now that've we looked at just a few of the reasons one might rebrand, we can take a look at the rebranding itself. At the forefront of the changes are a new wordmark and logo which will bring some consistency to ASU. Like MSU before rebranding, the Sun Devils had been using several different logos. The wordmark is clean and distinct, combining bold-formed lettering familiar to athletics with curved "Sun Devil horns" almost as serifs. While I like how Nike was able to create something unique while maintaining a clean look, I'm not sure the subtleties of the wordmark will be noticeable from any sort of distance. As for the logo, they're clearly looking to establish an identity around the unique "Sun Devil pitchfork." The logo draws some aggressive lines–which is what they're going for–but I'm not sure how well it will hold up over time. As much as I love many of the modern designs Nike has created, I also tend to be a sucker for the traditional college aesthetic: block letters, with big, bold colors and stripes. And when you put the pitchfork next to Cal's script logo or Arizona's "A" logo, it definitely stands out, but I'm not sold on it's longevity–I just don't see this logo holding up over time. On the other hand, it might just be me. The logo does indeed do what it was created to do: it updates and simplifies ASU's primary "Sparky" logo, and gives their program a visual "edge." The pitchfork also means that Arizona State will continue to be counted among the NCAA schools not using a letter-based primary logo. 

While Nike's partnership with ASU brought change to all the Sun Devils' uniforms, I'll be focusing on just football. We'll see just how well the new logo and color(s) fit in with the uniforms–and how ASU's new look stacks up as a whole.