On Thursday afternoon, the Washington NFL team (previously known as the Redskins) announced that the team will be referred to as the “Washington Football Team” pending adoption of their new name after the team announce that they will be retiring the Redskins name.
As the team began the process of changing the name, it became clear that it was basically impossible to pick a new name, design a quality logo and get everything properly trademarked before the season started. The temporary name allows the team to undertake an in-depth branding process with their fans, players, community, alumni and more which usually takes anywhere from 12 to 24 months.Â
In a phone interview with the Washington Post, Terry Bateman, Washington’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said, “A rebrand like this is a 12 to 18-month process if you want to do it right.”
“I don’t know if you know anything about trademark law and copyright stuff and all the hoops you got to jump through to pull something like that off in the time frame,” Bateman said. “That’s one part of it. The other part is we didn’t want to rush it. We wanted to go slow. We wanted to do this right. Whatever we come up with is going to be the name for the next 80, 90, 100 years, I hope.”
In the meantime, Washington will continue to use the burgundy and gold color scheme. The Redskins logo on the helmet will be replaced by the player’s number in a gold block font. The gold and white helmet stripes have also been removed. On the jersey, the Redskins wordmark will be replaced with a Washington wordmark. The team shared some concept images of what to expect with the uniforms.
The Washington Football Team stated that the Redskins name and logo will be officially retired by the beginning of the 2020 season and the team hopes to have all Redskins branding from team properties removed/replaced by the team’s home opener against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept 13.
Fans and graphic designers can submit their name and logo ideas to the team here.
8/5/2020 Update:
All angles. All 🔥 pic.twitter.com/9G8SQMprsX
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) August 5, 2020
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