OK, so beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man's great jersey design is another man's plain, simple design with no identity.
The Toronto Star decided to throw its hat into the ring of jersey designs by holding a contest to redesign the Raptors jersey. Anything they design would surely be better than the monstrosity the Raptors debuted in 1995. The judges were Raptors forward Amir Johnson, Toronto Star columnist Doug Smith and suit designer Christopher Bates.
The winner? Take a look (h/t Chris Creamer of SportsLogos.net):
Apparently the Raptor heads look like a maple leaf. I don't know. This is not bad, but not good either. The fact this was the unanimous decision only tends to make it worse.
As Chris Creamer noted in the post linked above, it did nto seem there was a lot of thought put into judging this. Creamer hates the Toronto Huskies gradient look someone submitted that got third place, but at least that has some flare and a unique look to it.
The fourth place finisher was also pretty solid. Linked above, it featured the old Raptors font with claw marks going across the chest diagonally. It fits more with the original Raptors jerseys, but not a bad design.
Overall, the Raptors' simplistic jerseys are likely here to stay.
