Tradition Meets Modern

The historic franchise that won a championship in their inaugural season in the NFL. Jim Brown and the classic orange and brown striped jersey. The orange pants of the Kardiac Kids. These historical moments of the browns pay homage to the traditional brown jerseys.

In 2015, The Cleveland Browns organization decided to transform their brand. The anticipation of the release had Browns fans excited for a new future; a fresh start. The design was untraditional and carried none of the values that built the historic franchise.

The changes gave the Browns nine different combinations with white, brown, and a new orange color tone. The facemask was changed from grey to brown. New wordmarks were added, including “CLEVELAND” on the chest and “BROWNS” on the side of the pants. The release made it clear that they were not just redesigning a jersey, but trying to implement a new culture. The Browns have been a perennial laughing stock of the NFL for decades, and this was their chance to change the narrative.

However, making changes to a brand is severe, the design thinking and process can take a long time. Multiple rounds of mockups are needed to come up with a design that is not only timeless but can also be used for years after.

The most iconic sports brands are the ones that have not changed in decades. Teams like the Yankees, Red Socks, Celtics, and Lakers all inherit the same design principles they had since the beginning. The logo and style of the design is the story of this novel, and the chapters of the story are the design process. Elements like jerseys in sports is a medium that displays this story visually.

As a designer, I would not define the Browns transition as a rebrand but more of a change to get away from the embarrassment that plagued them for years. The new colors and wordmarks had a modern look, but the change to removing the traditional orange and brown stripes from the shoulder pads and socks is what the fans and critics were questioning.

“Embarrassing."  Said renowned designer Paul Lukas of the Browns 2015 “Those big, honking ‘Browns’ wordmarks down the sides are an arena league move.”

The Browns record is 48-112 since entering this decade, so for the fans, any small victory on or off the field is big for the Dawg Pound. This transformation was not successful, and the team needed to make more changes to get back to the winning culture.  

Only five years later, in 2020, The Browns are going back to their roots with the hopes that it will bring back the winning culture that Cleveland has been longing.

Before the drop, experts such as Paul Lukas and Uniwatch mocked-up design concepts that matched what they had heard from industry sources of the Browns the plans to rebrand in October 2018.

“The Browns have been hinting for more than a year now that they’re getting back to basics, and this design is certainly in keeping with that: old-school sleeve stripes, no wordmark on the chest, simple pant striping, and even striped socks.” Lukas

This shows that the organization has been thinking about another transformation two years before the debut. But again, a lot of work and efforts go into a branding project in the National Football League. The Browns took the time to make sure to get it right this time, so this whole process would not happen again in the next five years.

A week before the Browns released images of the new jerseys, the Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts and Tampa Buccaneers also revealed a change in their identity. A couple of weeks before that, other NFL teams such as the LA Rams and LA Chargers dropped new colorways and completely new logos. Of course, critics found reasons to dislike some parts of the rebranding to these teams, but overall, these organizations pleased their respective fan bases.

The Atlanta Falcons are the only exemption, and designers alike have been particularly hard on their gradient jerseys.
Phil Hecken, the designer and creator of UniWatch, was particularly hard on the jerseys saying, "They play in a dome, so it makes sense that they look like an arena league team.” I think it is apparent that these designers are not fans of arena football...

The Falcons replicated what the Browns did in 2015 with the bold wordmarks and numbers, but as we saw with the Browns tradition is the missing piece and what makes the team's identity. We see a shift back to the old school regime of jerseys.

On April 16, the Cleveland Browns released official imagery on the new uniforms. Overall, experts and critics were right on going back to their traditional look with a couple of modern changes. They pay homage to the orange and brown stripes in the socks and shoulder pads that the fans wanted back in 2016.

The “color rush” jersey had been modified to get rid of the ‘CLEVELAND’ across the chest and changing the numbers to standard TV numbers. The numbers overall just got a more of a modern round edge on the corners.

The team uses the stripe socks in all three jersey types and even switches it to a brown top right under the knee on the white pants and brown jersey combo.

The vast 'BROWNS' on the side of the pants is removed, and the brown stripe with orange outline is back. The helmet did not have any significant changes besides the back-bumper reading "Cleveland," and the sublimated pattern in the striping has been eliminated.

The all-white uniforms are sleek and bring out the orange color they updated back in 2015. I wish we could have seen a change in the facemask to a white color again back in the early 2000s. I would have also liked to see a combination with orange pants or a new concept on the color rush jersey.

In design, less can be more, and taking elements out can lead to significant changes in a brand. The Browns, having a rich heritage and decided that it was finally time to get back to the history that made them one of the most storied teams in football.

Overall the uniforms are a successful and big upgrade to what they tried to do five years ago.

Critics are saying that the jersey reveal is just a revised version of 2014 and that they are just going backward on the design. Yes, there are similarities to 2014, but that what the organization wanted; they wanted to make the Cleveland Browns look like the Cleveland Browns again.

Design thinking is precisely that, knowing the story the establishment is trying to narrate and visually translating it into the brand. The reveal shows the inspiration of great memories like the Kardiac Kids and the memorable run in the '80s and connects this history with a bright and hopefully successful future.