RE: First! A Note on Authenticity

Authenticity matters to those who are already attached to a product but for newer customers, it's pretty worthless. If a company is willing to depart from a successful look and commit to a new one then it won't matter (see: Pepsi). The problem is when they pretend their previous (and highly visible) rebranding efforts never happened.

I grew up a fan of the Buffalo Sabres, a NHL franchise from my hometown. Through a short lifetime of watching them, I've developed a confused sense of their image and what 'feels' authentic in the way they present themselves.

So have they.

The team had the same uniforms for their first 26 years (I started following them during season 25).

For season 27, they moved into a new arena with new ownership and got rid of their blue and gold for red and black (see below). They got rid of their crest for something that resembled an angry goat's face. They also switched their typeface to a very mid-90's macho pro sports look.

Eleven years later they went back to their old colors but with bolder shades, a stylish neo-modernist typeface, and an object people called 'the slug' (below).

Five years after that, they decided their image was best when presented as something bearing rich tradition. So they switched back to their original uniforms with very minor adjustments (below).

And then to overcompensate, they created a third jersey that referenced all sorts of historic elements- many of which had nothing to do with the team's history (logotype, nameplate, four gold stripes instead of 3, stitched numbers, a mini crest with '1970' on it).

My personal imagery of them is a blur since I've experienced each look for similar lengths of time. They feel interchangeable even though each phase came with different meanings (intentional or not). For the franchise though, they now commit to the original look (and have decided to scrap the fake historical uniforms). This means that red and black goats are hard to find in the arena, on merchandise, or on any printed material. A 160-page photography book to celebrate the franchise's 40th anniversary includes exactly 8 pages with photos from the red and black era despite the fact it represented a quarter of the team's history and a particularly successful one at that.

The current branding policy cements its image in the pursuit of authenticity but it ends up as wholly inauthentic. While previous decision makers can be blamed for succumbing to the wild sports design trends of the '90s, ignoring the phase means creating a false, excessively curated image in the pursuit of a historic one. The team has already set the precedent that it is a franchise open to progressive rebranding, the sudden shift to one of rigid history can't help but feel fake.