The Re-Branded Wizards

If you haven’t already seen it all over the internet, the Washington Wizards have a new look, thanks to owner, Ted Leonsis. I’ve been hearing for a long time now that Mr. Leonsis has been trying to get a more unified color scheme for all of the Washington D.C. sports teams. With the success of the Capitals’ new red logo, he took the Wizards in the same direction. Leonsis was in charge of re-branding his newly acquired basketball team to update the older, retro colors and logo of the Bullets.  No, they weren’t going to change the name back to the violent ‘Bullets,’ but everything else would resemble the old team.

The first thing to change was the logo. The direction was taken from the Bullets’ old logo where the name is spelled out, and the two letter ‘l’s’ became long arms reaching out to a basketball. This old logo, combined with the Wizards’ most recent “DC” type logo made of lower case letters were combined to create this new logo:

As you can see, we are back to the creative use of letter ascenders creating the image of arms playing basketball. Honestly, I think this is kind of a cop-out way to bring the basketball imagery into a type-based logo, but it works, and is reminiscent of the retro Bullets logo we had so embraced. From this new logo (taken from the Wizards’ website) we can also deduce a few more things about the Wizards’ re-branding. We now see the return of the “American” colors of red, white, and navy. (The same colors the Capitals used in re-branding their organization.) We are also introduced to a new typeface:

Like the Caps did with their new logo, the Wizards have updated the old font in the Bullets’ logo, and modernized it for today. The new typeface, a stylized and adapted version of the lettering seen in the old Bullets’ look, can also be seen on the Wizards’ new uniforms:

As you can see, the new jerseys have been modeled after the Bullets’ jerseys and colors. White is for home games, and Red is used for away games. The typeface is used here in an all-lowercase version. I actually really like the look of the new numbers in this font, and like with the playing of letters to create images (used for the Caps’ logo creating a hockey stick out of the letter ‘t’), we see the lowercase ‘h’ in ‘washington’ become the Washington Monument. We are also introduced to the dot of the lowercase ‘i’ becoming a basketball. You can watch the press video that outlines more clever details added to the new uniforms: here. (I recommend it!) Also, if you take a look back at uniform history in Washington’s basketball franchises, you can see that the horizontal stripe across the chest (which I am actually not a fan of) harks back to older jerseys. (Check out that video here.)

I think this is all a clever move for Ted Leonsis and D.C.’s sports teams. Now, the color red can be seen throughout all of the city’s major league teams: The Nationals, The Mystics, The Capitals, D.C. United, The Freedom, The Kastles, and even The Redskins (because burgundy is still in the red family and I’m pretty sure their colors will never be changed). While I think the new uniforms look a little clown-like and campy (seriously, if they just took away that horizontal stripe, I’d like the new look a lot more!), I think it is a neat idea to have all of the sports teams sharing the same color. Obviously, Mr. Leonsis took this cue from rival sports town, Pittsburgh, whose black and gold colors can be seen on the Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates. I suppose a unifying color scheme can bring a city closer to its players and fans. I also hear that the Wizards performed their best when they last wore these colors (as the Bullets), so maybe this whole color thing, can bring back some real basketball winners to this city!

TFLW 24

Do not be intimidated. But be forewarned: this week’s Thoughts From Last Week is chock full o’ goodness! There are so many thoughts in today’s edition, I just don’t know what to do with myself! (Well, ok, that’s a lie. I know that I should post them for y’all.) There are so many posts below, you may not know how to handle it. But I assure you, they are all little bits of awesome. So sit back, relax, and don’t touch that dial -err, computer mouse? And enjoy the show!

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OMG the animated old “flip book style ad” between the Metro Center and Chinatown Metro stops is back in order. Remember the movie, Coraline? Love the end of the ad- “coming Feb. 2009.” A little late for that, no? Then again, the Metro isn’t really known for its timeliness…

Came to work at the same time as the President today. Noticed the motorcade as I left the Metro. I was wondering what was causing the unusual (yes, I know, even for DC’s morning commute) congestion of stopped traffic in front of my building.

When OV talks in English, he slurs together his words. Maybe he was taught to do that (or he learned it) to disguise him not being totally comfortable with his non-native language?

If the Wizards changed their name back to the Bullets, and the Mystics had to follow suit, what would they be called? The Derringers? That would be cool.

The Derringer was commonly a woman's gun.

Yeah! Varly’s back! And MD has snow! All is well in the winter world.

Halloween costume idea: white sweatpants, white sweatshirt -hoodie up. Apply stickers and decorate to look like an astronaut. Attach (or carry) a clear (fish)bowl as a helmet.

OMG there’s a crazy man on the Metro. Not talking to himself-crazy, just acting totally unreasonable. He is sitting in an aisle seat and there is a girl who is standing next to him. He keeps complaining to her that the paper she is reading, keeps wafting air in his direction, which he does not like. She does not understand though, since her paper isn’t actually touching him; it’s just causing his personal space to be compromised. Although for her sake, the notion of personal space isn’t something that can be had on a crowded train. After a few exchanges, she decides to fold her paper in half so as not to further disturb him… and she moves away.

After waiting on a train with problems opening its doors (for the second stop), the conductor-driver is heard yelling, “open up!” (to the doors?!) A few people chuckled. Lol.

Paula Deen = Pauly D???

Paula Deen

vs.

Pauly D

“It’s the year of the Sally.”

Someone on the Metro was holding a bag from Baby Gap, only part of the bag was obstructed. All I saw was, “Baby G.” I thought that sounded like a pretty cool store name.

The Bullets and The Deadskins

It’s been a while since I last wrote about a D.C. sports team that isn’t the Caps. However, these days, it’s hard not to think about how the Wizards and the Redskins have been making the news. Both of these Washington area sports franchises have been the top stories for a few days now, but neither team is being recognized in a good way.

The Wizards’ star player, Gilbert Arenas (who I have heard being called the “Alex Ovechkin of the Wizards”) has recently been charged with bringing multiple guns into the Wizards’ locker room. Not only did Arenas bring them into the locker room, but he proceeded to brandish them in front of the team and apparently at a fellow player.

The Redskins have recently fired coach Jim Zorn after just two years and immediately hired the new coach, Mike Shanahan. While I am not much of a football fan, I was aware that the Redskins finished their season as one of the worst teams in the league with one of the worst records. Dedicated fans were embarrassed to cheer for the team and their ever-popular history was losing steam.

So with these brief overviews of how D.C.’s sports teams’ reputations are sinking, I offer you up my opinions on these matters. Let’s start off with the Wizards’ Gilbert Arenas. I do think it’s ironically humorous that this team is having gun control issues after the team was formally known as the Bullets. When Abe Pollin decided to change their violent name, I guess everyone thought that D.C.’s gun problems would no longer exist. Wrong! Is this retro t-shirt graphic totally appropriate for what’s happening now, or what?

Granted, it has now been public, that Arenas’ “gun show” was all but a misguided and unfortunate joke between he and his teammate; but jokes are not funny when you are playing with firearms. So while bringing (unloaded) guns where you shouldn’t is a problem and has been a problem in D.C., I think it is a little silly for this to be going to a grand jury. Arenas could get some serious jail time, a fine, and a suspension from playing. I think this is very unfortunate for being due to a joke. True if this really was a joke, maybe Arenas should have brought in water or Nerf guns to make his joke actually funny; but I still don’t think he should be sent to jail. He didn’t hurt anyone and apparently if he did threat someone, it wasn’t very serious. Come on, guys!

Now onto the Redskins (or as they have so earned themselves the nickname, the Deadskins). This issue of firing their two years long coach Zorn for Shanahan, just doesn’t seem so dramatic as everyone has been claiming it to be. I just think that the firing was unnecessary. You  have to note that the Redskins were NOT in last place in the league. Plenty of other teams played much worse that Washington’s team. While I never actually watched a full Redskins game this season, I did follow up on their final scores. To me, pretty much all of the Redskins games ended with a pretty close score. I would think that a losing team that needed a new coach, would be one to have terrible final scores with a large point difference. But that didn’t seem to be the case for the Redskins. (Disclaimer: I do not know how the point system works in football, so I don’t know if a few points means a lot or a little, but numbers-wise, it still seems like a little.) Besides the Redskins’ record as not being the worst, I was also a fan of Jim Zorn. Although it is for maybe the dumbest reason, I did really like the guy’s last name. “Zorn” seems like a pretty cool name to have: solid and different. Although then again, “Shanahan” is a pretty cool name, too, so at least we found a replacement with an equally fun name to say!

Abe Pollin

C. 27  11/25/09

Yesterday, on Tuesday, November 24th, a great Jewish figure in Washington, D.C.’s recent history, passed away. Abe Pollin, who was 85 years old, was best known for bringing professional basketball and hockey to D.C. Pollin was the owner of the Washington Wizards (formerly the Bullets), the Mystics, and the Capitals.

Washington’s professional basketball and hockey teams used to play in Landover, MD at the USAir Arena, formerly the Capital Centre. Pollin was responsible for the building of the Verizon Center, formerly the MCI Center (the new home to these teams) in 1997 and the transformation of Chinatown and its surrounding neighborhoods. According to Wikipedia, “the Arena is not only a popular venue for sports and concerts, but helped to turned “Gallery Place/Chinatown” neighborhood into one of the prime sites for commercial development in Washington.”

In addition to Pollin’s involvement in DC’s sports, he also had a history of involvement in the real estate market, building his first major project, The Robert Towers near the Pentagon and named for his first son. His final project, “a 500-unit luxury [apartment] complex in Chevy Chase, was the Irene, named for his wife” (Express).

Abe Pollin will be greatly missed by his family and the Washington Jewish and sports communities. May he rest in peace.