Nice logo at center court, nice orange lanes complementing the center logo.
2006-2008
A negligible downgrade. The lanes switch from orange to blue. Not aesthetically negative, but not as warm, not as "paint the hall orange." And now that the orange is along the outside, it's not as strong, not as good of a divider. But still, not that bad.
2008-2010
Umm..gone is all the color from the lanes. Even the BigTen logo. The logo at center isn't that bad, though I preferred the basketball specific logo--this one feels a little more generic and suited for football, but still not that bad. But 80% of the time, the camera is positioned in a half-court set and there is no color, no design, nothing Illini or even BigTen. Just generic two-tone parquet.
2011-present
What the fuck. The fonts around the outside look terrible--cheap and generic. The center logo has lost even more character. The orange top of the key is an attempt, but a poor one. The worst is the two-tone treatment has the area outside the lane looking washed out. When I loaded up some highlights, I seriously thought they must have been in some shitty Chicago arena, not Assembly hall.
Using the state shape at center is a good idea in theory (see second picture) but it shows up quite poorly (see third picture). At first I thought it was a mistake, a washed out section in progress.
At this rate, by 2015 the Illini will be playing on a solid pale court with an orange square in the middle.
thanks for making me aware. agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. why mess with a good thing? do you think the big 10 made them change stuff?
ReplyDeleteThe 2000-2005 look was very classic. The modern look I feel is better than the one preceding it, considering that the slanted text being gone is always a positive and so is the addition of the state outline, but the keys need much more color and I agree about the text. Looks unauthentic.
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