Which would have been up last night, except I was exhausted (I do not recommend taking a break from working for 3 months… it will just make you forget that apparently there is a portion of the world that works all year round, and then when you have to go back to work, you’re all indignant, like, “WHAT! I have to get up? They want me to work? This is preposterous! This is a gross injustice!”) Anyway. Let’s talk about horns n stripes.

Logo #1: What can I say? I love the Fleur de Bee. I was a huge fan of it last year, and I could not have approved more when they started using it on mail and playoff gear toward the end of the season. It’s actually meaner-looking than the Hugo logo, and I’ve never really been a fan of the cartoon-animal theory of logo design. If I was a player, I’d be embarrassed to have something on my jersey that my 3-year-old kid would wear.

One note, and that’s about the colors: For all the people who are complaining about the team going more turquoise than teal and more blue-ish purple than Mardi Gras purple, I’m not sure why you’re surprised. This version of the FDB was used at the end of last season. The playoff giveaway tees were turquoise rather than teal. In fact, I’m glad they finally settled on ONE SHADE of blue, since they’ve obviously been fiddling with the shade for the past year. (Believe me, I know. I’ve got tons of Hornet gear, mail, souvenirs, merchandise, giveaways, etc. at home in a big stack, and the blue isn’t consistent. But the newer stuff is definitely this bluer version of teal.) I think this is a good call, because the two shades look better together than the greeny teal and darker purple. Plus I can wear the gear and get the creepy pleasure of hearing the old “Heeeeyyyy… your eyes match your shirt” pickup line all evening…

Logo #2: Meh. I don’t like this logo, but I do think keeping it around is important to the team’s history. A lot of old Charlotte fans are still huge Hornets fans. The kids like Hugo. Whatev. As for the changes, they’re really, really minuscule.  What, they made his arms purple? They changed some itty bitty details? His smile is more of a smirk now? He doesn’t have treads on the bottoms of his shoes? I’m not sure why they changed him, since they didn’t do much anyway. I think I liked old Hugo better, but it’s hard to tell because I don’t have him in front of me right now. Oh! He does have “NOLA” on his chest now. That’s cool, I approve of that.

Logo #3: The HORN(et). This is a pretty sweet new logo. It reminds me of the font they used for the All Star Game. Very New Orleans. When you consider that, essentially, what it replaces is that big stupid H (I’m not saying it’s going to be used in a similar way, but it’s a 3rd logo replacing a crappier 3rd logo). That H reminded everyone of the Oklahoma City fiasco, which the franchise barely survived this year, mostly thanks to the likability of the players and the success of the team in the standings. N-O-L-A, on the other hand, might even have the added bonus of putting fear in the Lakers. Hehehe. So, NOLA horn? I love.

Home Jersey: A+ I love this one. I thought the stripes were going to look stupid, but this is a nicely retro jersey. I’m loving the Fleur de Bee on the shorts instead of Mr. Hornet. It’s also on the back of the neck. This is better than having the H in the v-neck and the FDB patch on the chest. That was looking kind of busy last year. I wasn’t sure what was going on with the purple stripe, but I think I like it, if the players, you know, remember to keep it tucked in nicely. NOLA horn is below the waistband on the back. Now, I do like a good waistband adornment– the C’s shamrock is so sassy… haha– and I’m glad it’s there, but I do think it should have maybe gone on the front. There are two things in the center on the back (FDB on top, horn on bottom), and nothing in that location on the front. I don’t know, maybe that’s just my nitpick. And then my only other issue is… do I detect the sheen of {gasp!} shiny fabric in the blue leg inset? I kind of detest shiny fabric on jerseys. Again, maybe just my personal thing, but as long as it’s just on the trim, it won’t bother me too much. I’m going to buy me a nice #30 of this.

Away Jersey: Yeeeaaaahhhhh…. no. I think this one’s a slight miss. It’s really just the color of the letters. I think if the lettering was purple and the side stripe yellow, I’d like it better. LOL at JuJu’s knee socks and headband that don’t match. (LOL at Mo Pete’s summer hair, but that’s neither here nor there.) I’m not sure I talked about the new font earlier, but it also gets my approval. Mostly because the old one was all, “Hello, I am Generic Varsity Sports Lettering, what up guys?” This has a bit more of a zing to it. I hope in a couple of years they’ll give us another 3rd jersey, and I hope it’s purple. I will miss the eye-searing change-up-our-luck yellow ones, though. (Now that I think about it, the teal-yellow lettering combo was what looked ew on those too…)

New Hornets Site: Hot, hot, hot! Oh my god, this may be the best thing out of the lot. LOVE the skyline. Love the FDB. Love the new purple background with FDBs and real fleurs together in groups of four. This is definitely the best the Official has ever looked. (But don’t navigate off the front page. They haven’t seemed to make it consistent across the entire site yet. Like, don’t you have a stylesheet, Hornets site?)

Response to Criticism: There are 3 things I’m seeing.

1. We’ll call the first complaint “Waaaahhh it looks like they went back to Charlotte!” Let’s face it, the team has a history. I don’t really care. They took off the thing that reminded people of Katrina/OKC, the thing that was a betrayal of the city of New Orleans, and that was what was important here. And the pinstripes? Back in the day they were trendy. But now they’ve become old school. And fewer teams have them. So we got this cool throwback thing going on. On the flipside of this are the people who are like, “Why is the teal GONE!???” Someone must be color blind here, either you people or me, but it’s not that different a color. It’s definitely not powder blue or Carolina blue as I’ve seen some people complaining. It’s turquoise. Which is teal’s slightly cuter next-door neighbor.

2. “They had the opportunity to make the WORLD’S MOST AMAZING JERSEY EVER MADE THAT’S ATTRACTIVE AND EVOCATIVE OF NEW ORLEANS AND PERFECT AND THIS ONE IS ONLY OKAY!” Really there is only one thing to be said to this, and that is, “Does it look worse than what we had?” I do not believe it does. I mean, did you LOOK at the old jerseys? They were kinda high school. I never thought about them either way, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing if you’re designing a uniform with the goal of being memorable or distinctive. Traditional letters, teal on gold, cartoon animal logo, stupid H? Yeah, I like these better. So I guess I’ll say to these critics: fans rarely get the world’s most amazing life-changing jersey, so suck it up. Or maybe I’ll tell you a story, you could even call it a love story, about a team called the Buffalo Sabres, who one year decided to turn the Buffalo into a slug. The slug sweater was the #1 selling jersey in the NHL and the team took the Eastern Conference. We should be that lucky.

3. “WTF! They took the green out of the teal! Why didn’t they take the blue out of the teal and then we could have had Mardi Gras colors?” I hate to break it to y’all, but… Mardi Gras colors would look Butt. Ass. Ugly on a jersey. Yeah, the Jazz had them, but guess what. The Hornets decided to make a move toward clashing less, instead of clashing more. I don’t really understand the clinging to the dream of Mardi Gras colors. I live here. I am proud of living here. But the Hornets are one of two (I read this somewhere, what’s the other one?) teams that wear their city on both jerseys instead of the team name. That’s enough for me– people are seeing “New Orleans” on their TV screen. The team doesn’t have to be renamed the New Orleans Gumbo (ooh… actually, that would be sorta rockin’… is it weird that I think that?). The Hornets just had their best year ever. People wouldn’t be a little bit sad if their stuff all got changed, after this year?

I don’t need a yellow, purple, and green jersey with, like, a crown, a jester, a shotgun house, a crescent, a crawfish, balcony trim, and a fleur de lis. I just don’t. The Hornets don’t either.

Final Note: Cute ticktock-sized new Hornets gear! Actual cute ticktock-sized Hornets gear! I must have it. Immediately. All of it. Plus I get to redesign my banner again. Whoo.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 5:42 pm and is filed under Around Town, Hornets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.