Washington Post article on Nike's version of Michigan maize
The Washington Post has a brief article today on the version of maize that Nike will bring (or bring back) to Michigan.
Title: "Farewell, maize: Nike introduces a brand-new shade of yellow to Michigan."
Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/07/20/farewell-m…
EDIT: The first commenter (not me, I swear) to the WaPo article: "It's not maize."
So the debate continues...
Was anybody doing Under Armour before they sponsored Arizona State (or whichever school was first)? Weren't they a "test case"? Does that mean Under Armour was basically "corporate sponsorship" at that time? How is that any different?
A company is paying Michigan to display their logo on Michigan athletic apparel. This is not new. There is nothing unique about this.
"A company is paying Michigan to display their logo on Michigan athletic apparel." If there isn't a better definition of corporate sponsorship, I'm not sure what it is. Jumpman isn't making the apparel, that's Nike.
You can either go with the corporate sponsorship route, or you can go a specific 'line' of clothing. Both are close, Jumpman is nothing more than a logo. If all the recruits were into Bentleys, you can bet people would look into finding a way to get that logo on the shirt too. Just like Bentley, the Jumpman has nothing whatsoever to do with the shirt or the apparel itself.
But Nike owns Jumpman, so they are the same entity. It is basically Nike putting an alternate logo of their own on the uniforms. As far as I know, there is no difference to "Jumpman making the uniform" or Nike making the uniform. Same company, same factories, different logo.
It's a lot different than the Bentley example.
Nike isn't making the apparel, Peoples' Liberation Army Political Re-education Factory # 1107 is making the apparel.
Not the same, since the sponsors are of the bowls and the teams agree to put the patch on as a part of their participation in the game, but very similar.
even think that is really "true" maize. If I am being honest, I don't think real, actual maize is all that pleasant of a color and am glad that it has become more of a plain yellow. The blinding highlighter yellow was ridiculous but I like the Nike version of the colors.
...that IS the true maize. It is not as dark or 'orangy' as 2015 'maize.' And it is sort of 'faded' and, therefore, not like some the 'highlighter' hues Adidas used pre-2015.
Google the word maize and look at the ears of corn. They are a 'faded' and not very darkl hue of yellow.
The very dark blue on Harbaugh's jersey in the photo also seems correct to my eye.
Both yesterday and today posters suggest that the Univerrsity of Michigan style guide indicates pantone 7406c as the 'official' maize.
However, that does not resolve the debate becasue if you Google pantone 7406c you can see how different web sites render pantone 7406c in slighlty different shares on the same screen.
So there is probably no definitive way to resolve the 'true maize' debate.
Maybe the best thing to do is hand one of Woodson's old jerseys and pants to Nike and say "give us exactly this version of maize and exactly this versions of blue.' Done.
No one would object to just adopting Woodson's uniform as the forever official versions of maize and blue, right?
I would object actually. I was born in '85 so that skews my opinion and perspective, but I much prefer the more saturated tone, specifically PMS7406 from the University Style Guide (Nike calls this exact tone "Amarillo").
That is "true maize" according to the University and that's good enough for me.
...the university style guide color (pantone 7406c) does not settle it becasue this color renders in differing shades depending on the source.
As I said, there is no definitive way to determine which is the true Michigan maize.
Better to just hand them an old Woodson uniform and ask Nike to replicate the colors exactly.
That's actually what PMS is designed for:
"The idea behind the PMS is to allow designers to "color match" specific colors when a design enters production stage, regardless of the equipment used to produce the color."
– Wikipedia
As for color-matching fabric, Nike would know that a spectrometer won't yield perfectly consistant results so they would probably refer to (drumroll please) a Pantone Guide.
Pantone is just a color match system created by a private company in New Jersey. Use of their system will not always result in exact color matches on actual surfaces and fabrics manufactured in the real world as observed by the human eye under varying lighing conditions.
A Pantone 7406c cotton t-shirt will look different to the human eye on an arid Los Angeles sunny July day than in humid Houston on the same day.
If the Pantone 7406c listed on the style page does not look to the eyes people in the stadium on an October Saturday like sort of maize hues that they had seen for many decades (before Adidas) , then who cares what the style page shows?
Perhps we've both put too much time into this conversation already, but away we go:
I think I see your point and I agree that there a million variables that can affect perception (shadows, sheen, ambient light, age fading, etc.), but PMS is the industry standard for getting as consistent a color as possible and more importantly, it's the one Michigan has chosen to identify the correct shade of Maize.
Why would the Athletics Dept or Nike not aim for PMS7406?
Forgive the straw man, but should they create seperate uniforms for high-humidity, night games, afternoon games on the East coast, and games at Indiana where the red graphics on the inner stadium walls will affect the perception of Maize on the sidelines?
All I am saying is that listing Pantone 7406c on the style page does not really resolve the 'correct maize' debate.
There is no correct maize. The fact that a few people inside the University bureaucracy at some point decided to post Pantone 7406c on the style page does not matter much.
What matters is what people have seen with their eyes for many decades at Michigan Stadium. It was never EXACTLY the same from year to year (different fabrics, manufacturing variances, etc.).
Certain yellow hues are really not what people say at Michigan Stadium (at least before Adidas). Michigan never had an Iowa sort of yellow, for example.
Rather than point to some Pantone chip, just try to replicate the very closely associated maize hues that people saw with their own eyes for many decades at Michigan Stadium before Adidas came to town.
And using the Woodson uniform as a template is a very good place to start.
To my eyes, whoever decided to post 7406c on the style page picked a hue that really is different from the closely associated maize hues that people saw on Saturdays at Michigan Stadium for many decades before Adidas arrived.
Private company or not, the pantone sytem is the industry standard for defining color and the best tool we have to do so. Naming a pantone is far and away the best way to standardize the color. The colors are created and evaluated in a standardized way (i.e. standard lighting and environment) and then used on apparel.
You made a lot of good points about how lighting, time of day, humidity, etc can affect how we see colors, and then turned around and said we should go off of what our eyes saw over the years. Seems contradictory. Our eyes, and especially photos, can be very deceptive when it comes to color.
But it is beside the point.
Just becasue someone posted pantone 7406c on the University style page does not mean that 7406c (at least as it renders on a computer screen) really ever was the color used on actual Michigan uniforms.
If the web page 7406c varies from what people saw with their own eyes for 50+ years (and yes it does), then the style guide web page needs to be fixed, not the uniforms for the last 50+ years.
You say that "naming a pantone is far ans away the best way to standardize color." I am sure that is correct. But you have to name the correct color in the first place. And 7406c is not the correct color. It is darker and more orangy than anything seen on Michigan uniforms since really before WWII, except 2015.
For the 90% here that are pulling 1980s stock photos off of Google images, it sounds like that's exactly what they want the team to do, markp. You'd have to develop materials to reflect the same color in any possible setting. You'd probably also have to post pre-game brand-specific color settings for your TV or computer monitor before viewing the game in order for each viewer to reach optimal maize.
That is obviously ridiculous. Instead of that nonsense, they create a specific target based on a universal industry standard - PMS7406. Is every material going to reflect 7406 in exactly the same way? Nope. But they'll be close. And that's about the best we can do.
Who cares? It's Michigan's iconic color that has been used for 80+ years.
The blue is not accurate either. The original Michigan blue was the color of UCLA's blue.
I picked it apart in MS Paint and put them side-by-side. Harbaugh's helmet doesn't match his jersey numbers which don't match his pants. You're actually looking at three different shades of yellow and considering them all the definitive "maize".
possible to get the helment, jersey, number colors to exactly match with today's manufacturing technologies. Fabrics and the consistency of manufacturing technologies have changed a lot since the time of the Harbaugh photo.
But even with the best current technologies, under certain light conditions they may appear slighlty different to the eye becasue of the way light reflects off of a hard curved surface (helmet) versus the fabric of a jersey or pants, etc.
IOW, what looks to the eye as consistent under one lighting condition might look slightly different in a different lighting condition.
Which is why I find this whole topic fascinating. You will never be able to pin down one absolute shade of yellow. Too many factors involved as you mentioned, but including cameras and monitors. Two different photographers can take the same picture of the same guy at the same time in the same game and we can end up with two different yellows in the end.
It's a spectacular exercise in futility and I admittedly can't stop watching the cars pile up.
It's just yellow, guys.
there there is no one, single, unvarying, now and forever correct version of Michigan maize.
The best we can do is say that certain yellow hues are really different from the maize hues used on Michigan uniforms over the decases. So Iowa's yellow definately is not at all like Michigan maize.
So the best solution: Just give Nike a few old Woodson uniforms and ask them to reproduce the maize and blue as closely as possible.
Dave Brandon and move on.
just pick a fucking permanent version of Maize? The color should not keep changing. The version in the Woodson photo above is perfect. Go with that and don't ever change it again.
they switch colors to sell more shirts, jackets and hats. i really do not know why in the hell they can not leave itr alone.
They "fixed" a problem that was not broken.
DMill2427 is right, just hand Nike one of Woodson's jerseys and say "Make it look like this."
I like it.
If only there were a definitive authority on the matter ;)
https://vpcomm.umich.edu/brand/style-guide/design-principles/colors
Holy Toledo.
Pretty similar - http://wxut.pbworks.com/f/UT+Style+Guide.pdf.
Agreed, WVU in particular has very similar colors to Michigan, yet they have a history of ugly uniforms (IMO) and we have the best in college football (fact).
has two shades of blue and two shades of yellow as official colors on their style page.
Even weirder, they Cal uniforms in recent years use blue and yellow hues that vary from both blues and both yellows on their style pages.
Two schools that can never really decide what their uniform colors are: UCLA and Notre Dame.
So true. On that note, Notre Dame's Shamrock Series 2016 uniforms are being unveiled tonight at 6:30pm EDT so we can see what tradition-murdering nonsense they've cooked up this time.
Why in the world would we want to give up our distinctive, iconic, historical colors that are unique in all of sports to just look like Cal / Navy / WVU?
that page was designed by someone hired by Dave Brandon.
Absolutely every school worth a crap has a Googleable style guide.
seems odd to me. Then again, I don't really have any intellectual property to protect. My anal and cocaine jokes are in the public domain. For the benefit of humanity. And the children.
A little background on the Athletic Department's stance (from 2010... yes done under Dave Brandon):
But also, since UM is bigger than just the AD, the 2013 announcement was done by communications and our UM brand manager (not tied to the AD) in 2013:
...Just grab some of the best Woodson photos and post them to the style page.
FTA: "The new Nike apparel, much of which features Michigan’s black-letter “M” logo alongside Nike’s Jumpman logo, will hit shelves at midnight on Aug. 1."
We have a "black letter M logo" now! ;)
The shade of maize used in MGoBlog is a little off the now official Nike maize.
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7406 & 282!
Go 282!
Technically...yes...yes you are right! Just Win Baby!
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What color was it?