{"id":283296,"date":"2024-06-10T14:23:25","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T19:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=283296"},"modified":"2024-06-10T14:23:25","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T19:23:25","slug":"twins-city-connect-unis-inspired-by-ripple-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=283296","title":{"rendered":"Twins’ City Connect Unis Inspired By ‘Ripple Effect’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Twins were the first North American professional sports franchise to name themselves after their home state, not their home city — so, it should come as no surprise that the Twins used their \u201cCity Connect\u201d jersey as more of a \u201cState Connect\u201d concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team representing the Land of 10,000 Lakes will thus pay homage to the ever-present water central to the lives of all those in the state and region with their City Connect uniforms, unveiled on Monday morning in collaboration with Nike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s clear in the visual theme around which the uniform is built, unified around an azure blue hue from head to toe, punctuated by the yellow belts and brims of the caps intended to evoke the feeling of the sun shining across a lake on a day at the cabin. They\u2019ll be worn for the first time on Friday and 10 more times through the end of the \u201824 regular season, mostly on Fridays at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s cool that they’re different,\u201d Joe Ryan said. \u201cIt’s cool to get away from what our normal uniforms look like. They did a good job with that. It will be fun to see what works and doesn’t work with cleats and have a little bit of our own personal flair in there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overall look, designed in a process that began two years ago, is meant to invoke what the Twins are calling the \u201cRipple Effect,\u201d which is the tagline around which the design is based. The hope was to go beyond the visual anchor of the lakes and to further embody the vibes and serenity that lakes bring to the lives of Minnesotans — rippling through their lives, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really feel like that\u2019s what the Twins do: We create positive action and we hope that that ripples out throughout the community,\u201d said Heather Hinkel, the Twins\u2019 vice president of brand marketing. \u201cSo that\u2019s the story we\u2019re going to be telling, along with the jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The late timing of the Twins\u2019 City Connect reveal was intentional, Hinkel said. They\u2019re the final team to debut their new look (not counting the A\u2019s and Yankees, who are not participating in the program), in large part because the organization introduced its full brand refresh ahead of the 2023 season and wanted to give that a chance to \u201cbreathe\u201d before adding another change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The caps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every element of the uniform is brand-new, from the colors to the logos, and that starts at the top, where the dark blue caps with yellow brims boast a new insignia in the shape of the state, outlined in the same yellow accent color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The logo contains the North Star motif element placed on the location of the Twin Cities, with the backdrop of the Northern Lights reflected in the water line of a lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally honing in on kind of what Minnesota stands for, where the water reflects the sky,\u201d Hinkel said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t necessarily say Twins, but it really speaks to Minnesota.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to a \u201c10,000 Lakes\u201d decal on the right side of the cap, there\u2019s also a little hidden Easter egg detail on the bottoms of the brims, where there\u2019s a topographical depth map of Lake Minnetonka — a subtle nod to Prince\u2019s line from the \u201cPurple Rain\u201d movie about purifying oneself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most striking visual element is the sublimation pattern on the jersey tops, involving several different hues of blue run through by black striations, with the overall look meant to represent the effect of ripples in the surface of a lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just like being different over just navy blue, red, white,\u201d Byron Buxton said. \u201cLet\u2019s bring in a little bit of yellow. It\u2019s different. I know it\u2019s got a little bit of pinkish in it. That\u2019s cool. Just to bring out different colors, for me, that\u2019s something fun. You can kind of make different accessories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of a wordmark across the front of the jersey, the Twins opted for a chest patch with a white \u201cMN\u201d logo once again integrating their North Star motif, in a clear effort to represent the entire state instead of leaning too heavily into Minneapolis and St. Paul. (The normal \u201cTC\u201d logo, the Twins\u2019 primary mark, which stands for \u201cTwin Cities,\u201d<\/a> is absent altogether from the design.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one sleeve is another alternate logo unique to the City Connect design: a loon flying across rippling water, with baseball stitching composing the eyes of the loon and the North Star making up its beak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current design opted for solid blue pants to unify the look from head to toe, along with the neon yellow belts. The pants also include piping along the sides in yellow, black, white and even a subtle pink, representing the varied colors of a sunset, which also appear on the piping on the sleeves and the outline of the loon logo sleeve patch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s to reflect the hues of the sun setting over the lake,\u201d Hinkel said. \u201cWhen you get that great sunset, it\u2019s not just bright yellows. There\u2019s some pink hues in there, so we\u2019ve added the piping here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s iteration of the City Connect uniforms will use the blue pants, though there\u2019s some thought that the Twins could switch to white pants with this look in future seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the Twins\u2019 launch festivities at the ballpark on Monday, the Twins will host local artists to paint 20 Adirondack chairs live on the plaza to represent the new look and the \u201cRipple Effect.\u201d Those chairs will be auctioned off, with benefits going to local nonprofits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event will mark the first opportunity for fans to buy City Connect merchandise and will feature live music and a lunch on the plaza. The Twins will also be present with a City Connect-themed presence at the Stone Arch Bridge Festival from June 15-16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Twins were the first North American professional sports franchise to name themselves after their home state, not their home city — so, it should come as no surprise that the Twins used their \u201cCity Connect\u201d jersey as more of a \u201cState Connect\u201d concept. The team representing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":283297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283298,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283296\/revisions\/283298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/283297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}