Twin Cities is in. Kasota Gold is dead. And, oh boy, the Twins have a new “M” hat guaranteed to draw a strong reaction from fans.
Making their most significant uniform and marks alterations since the 1987 season, the Twins launched an updated version of their brand Friday morning at the Mall of America.
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A project more than two years in the making, team officials said the theme of the overhaul was to modernize their historic elements through a series of apparel changes. Desiring a “uniquely Minnesotan” look, the features include a first-of-its-kind Twin Cities label, pinstripes and a hat bearing the North Star. The new lettering on each of the four jerseys introduced Friday no longer includes 3D shadowing, which has led to the elimination of Kasota Gold.
Joe Pohlad, the Twins executive vice president of brand strategy and growth, and New York City-based designer Matthew Wolff, a longtime Twins fan, led the venture, which began in February 2020.
Though they know the change may not immediately resonate with every fan, the Twins are confident and excited about their new attire. Team president Dave St. Peter said part of the revamp included researching fan reaction the last time the team made big changes in late 1986.
“We have great respect for the history of our franchise,” St. Peter said. “In 1986, we took the ‘TC’ off the hat and introduced a new ‘M’ (hat). Harmon Killebrew’s cursive (Twins) became Kirby Puckett’s cursive. We’re hopeful that Kirby Puckett’s cursive is now going to become Byron Buxton’s cursive.
“We feel good about the balance between the iconic aspects of our previous marks and the history of our franchise, but also doing it in a way that pushes forward and modernizes and gives us maybe a more contemporary set of uniforms.”
Perhaps the freshest look of the four jerseys is a creme home alternate with “Twin Cities” written across the front in navy blue. Harkening to a pre-mound raising era with a modern touch, the jersey is the first by any local pro team to reference the Twin Cities. The Twins, of course, have worn a ‘TC’ logo on their hat since the club relocated to Bloomington, Minn., in 1961 but had never spelled it out.
The hat worn with the new Twins Cities jersey also features another first — the “TC” logo is one color (creme) as opposed to the original’s red and white.
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The rollout also features the team’s first alternate jersey that can be worn both at home and on the road. When the Twins wear the navy blue top at Target Field, it will be the first time a Twins team has adorned a jersey featuring “Minnesota” at home.
The venture also features an “M” hat with a twist. Instead of the classic red “M” of Twins hats past, the current version is white in a new font created solely for the Twins and sits underneath a red North Star.
“With the ‘Twin Cities,’ we’re anticipating some pushback, but there is a desire to pay out the TC,” Pohlad said. “We’ll be the first team in the state to wear Twin Cities across our chest and we felt like that was an important thing to do. And with the ‘M,’ there’s such a strong passion with the old ‘M.’ We had discussions if we should tweak the old ‘M’ or should we bring it back. Ultimately, where we landed on that was, ‘Let’s not screw up a good thing. Let’s leave that where it is and build for the future.’”
To create the team’s present, the Twins found a globally renowned designer familiar with their entire catalog. Wolff, 32, spent his formative years in Minneapolis and was raised a Twins fan.
Living only two miles away from the Metrodome, Wolff remembers pretending to be Chuck Knoblauch while his brother was Paul Molitor. He rattled off Brad Radke and Eddie Guardado as a few of his favorite players and recalled when his family took a picture on the Metrodome playing surface after his father, then-St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conductor Hugh Wolff, was invited to throw out a first pitch.
Working with the Twins marks Wolff’s first foray into baseball. But the Parsons School of Design grad has worked with multiple soccer teams, designing the new logo for the Chicago Fire and Los Angeles Football Club as well as the 2018 Nike World Cup kit collections for France and Nigeria.
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Whereas previous projects required research, Wolff felt prepared for this one.
“I know the logo marks, the jerseys, the history inside and out,” Wolff said. “I hope that brought a unique perspective. … In sports branding projects, it’s a delicate balance between not wanting to ostracize the lifetime, diehard fans who have probably, in many cases, incredibly strong emotional attachments to their team’s marks and colors and their team’s name. It was very important to be respectful.”
Wolff described the changes made as a “respectful evolution.” While the current marks, patches, logos and writing in use were a “hodgepodge” of the team’s 62-year history, the Twins tasked Wolff with updating the entirety of its visual identity all at once.
Not only did he modernize the original hand-drawn TC logo with subtle changes, but Wolff created a new alphabet and number font specifically for the Twins. When it came to the ‘M’ hat, Wolff opted for the North Star to differentiate the logo from Memphis, Miami, “or, God forbid, Milwaukee,” he said.
“It was very intentional to begin a new chapter rather than just revert back, but that being said there are elements that are a nod to the past,” Wolff said.
For instance, the team’s new home jerseys feature navy, white and red piping on the sleeves first worn by Rod Carew en route to his 1972 batting title. Those jerseys also pay homage to the original Twins script with the “T” separate from the rest of the word with an underline under “w-i-n,” dating back to the tradition created in 1987.
Per the request of the team’s current players, pinstripes are back as a primary jersey for the first time since 2014, as the team’s main road jerseys are gray with pinstripes. The creme color of the new home alternate jerseys is a nod to the club’s original home jerseys from 1961-71.
But all of it was intended to be recognizable and easily seen, from in person at Target Field to a fan watching on their phone.
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“We’re going for high readability with high contrast,” Wolff said. “It should be legible from across the stadium, across the bar, across the field, visible and legible on tiny little social media avatars and also 75 feet long on the sign on top of the scoreboard.”
Pohlad said the effort began with a group of eight to 10 club employees but expanded to hundreds throughout the process. From players in the clubhouse to alumni to front-office employees to season-ticket holders, the Twins were thorough in soliciting advice.
“I don’t think anybody questions that we have a great collection of marks prior to this refresh,” Pohlad said. “But when you look at them all on a piece of paper, they’re all coming from different eras and all falling under one roof. We should look at this all from one designer’s standpoint and that’s essentially what we did. With that in mind and the goals we laid out, we updated our marks, we updated the TC to make it more for today and fit within the collection of the Twins script.
“It’s got that more modern, crisp look.”
The Twins expect some pushback and know they won’t please everyone. There’s likely to be public outcry about the lack of power blue throwbacks the team has worn the past few seasons (they could return as part of the team’s future City Connect jerseys, which don’t have a set announcement date). St. Peter also knows there’s an element of the fan base that will point out that the players in the uniform are more important than what’s on them.
He hopes the reaction is similar to what the Twins experienced in 1987. While there was immediate pushback then, winning solved everything as the club won two World Series in the next five seasons.
“We recognize there will be aspects of this that won’t resonate with everybody,” St. Peter said. “But the goal is over time to see our brand evolve. You certainly want to maintain relevance with the younger demographic and I’m highly confident that once our team takes the field and wins games, and ultimately the goal is to win championships, that these marks will be beloved.
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“I can assure you, when the new marks came out for the 1987 Twins, it was the new ‘M,’ ‘TC’ had gone away and there was a lot of new aspects. Those marks now are iconic. They became iconic because of what happened on the field. I think the same will be said for these.”
(Top graphic: Rachel Haselhorst / Minnesota Twins)
