The Detroit Lions are in just such a position. During the 2008 season, the team became the first NFL franchise to lose all 16 regular season games (the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14 during the 1976 regular season). They also hold the esteemed honor of not winning a championship since 1957, which is the second longest drought behind the Arizona Cardinals, who at least made it to the Super Bowl last year.

How do you save the profile of a franchise that is mired in mediocrity?

The obvious first answer is winning. But, before the team can take the field, you have to demonstrate to your fan base that this is a different Detroit Lions football team. And, when the team unveiled their new logo on April 20, 2009, they took a conscious step towards that goal.

The new logo and type treatment is a subtle, yet effective upgrade of a logo that has been relatively unchanged since 1970. The mark, or emblem in this case, has been updated to give the mascot a fiercer look and feel while the type treatment has been modernized. And, though steeped in tradition, this new logo subtly reinforces that the 2009 Detroit Lions should be viewed as a new team with a new attitude and culture.

Is there precedent here?

I thought it would be interesting to look at another team who has successfully rebranded themselves over the past decade or so. I, by no means, believe that the Lions can expect the same outcome as this team, but did find the end result interesting.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Buccaneers entered the NFL as a franchise expansion team in 1976, which historically doesn’t bode well for any team. Their inaugural season, the team posted a win less 0-14 regular season record.

Granted, the team lacked depth of talent at all the positions, which is typical of an expansion team. But to make matters worse for the fans, you have to question the branding decisions made by the organization from the onset. The original logo, designed by Lamar Sparkman, is a picture of a pirate, who resembles Errol Flynn more than Captain Jack Sparrow, with a dagger between his teeth. Combined with the colors of orange and white, the team resembled a creamsicle more than a professional football team with a pirate macsot. The team would only post one winning season, out of 19, from 1976-1995 and was widely regarded as a team to not fear when on your schedule.

Sound familiar? At the end of the 1995 season, the Bucs would hire a new Head Coach, Tony Dungy, and ditch the old brand identity in an effort to reinvigorate the team, the franchise and its fan base. The redesigned logo, crafted by Eric Rickabaugh, features a tattered pirates flag with a skull and football mounted on a sword. The color palette was changed from orange and white (muted and passive) to red, black, orange, white and pewter (bright and aggressive). You have to agree that both the updated logo and color palette are befitting of an NFL franchise.

The season following the rebranding, the team’s record did not improve from the previous season’s 7-9. But the team would slowly improve until the 2001-2 season where they ultimately won the Super Bowl. Of course, this feat should be credited solely to the team’s play on the field and the coaches behind them. But, as a football fan, I didn’t begin to remotely take them seriously until the season they introduced the rebranded identity. As far as I was concerned, the team, and the brand, was a joke.

Will rebranding a team identity = winning season

… and what can this teach us about rebranding?

There is no way to say whether changing the brand of the Detroit Lions will change the culture of the team, or the attitude the fans have about the team, until they start winning games. And the formula for a winning team is comprised of great players and coaches,  not stylish uniforms and logos. But, the Lions have made a statement, whether you believe it is emphatic or not, that they are moving the organization in a new direction. Hopefully that new direction will be a successful one.

A brand is a set of differentiating promises that link a product to its customers.

This is such an appropriate quote from Stuart Agres. When your brand is suffering from poor public perception, it is imperative that you use every tool at your disposal to turn this around. A great way to inject new confidence from the inside out is to “reinvent” yourselves through a new brand identity. A properly redesigned brand can start you on the path of recovery, but know that it won’t fix your problems.

And, then it hit me. The tear sheets for the Fox Television serial, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” used a poster that was much the same to promote their 2008 season. The Terminator poster, depicting the  lead “artificial” character’s head and torso hanging from wires with her innards falling to the ground, looks to be eerily akin to the new “Surrogates” campaign. And I began to wonder… when should inspiration be called plagiarism?

Where is the line drawn between inspiration and plagiarism?

Daily, we all try create a piece of original art, whether for ourselves or a client. But, let’s face it. As designers, we are probably not going to reinvent the wheel. The real possibilities of creating something nobody has ever seen are very slim.

And, we’ve all had those days when our brains are mush and we just cannot conjure one single original thought. When this affliction, I like to affectionately call “designer’s block”, strikes, it leads us to look for external inspiration to kick start out process. That inspiration can come from books, magazines, television or just walking around your neighborhood. Plus, when you toss the internet into the equation, we have 24 hour access to endless visual inspiration, especially within the countless design galleries that seem to manifest on a daily basis. So, it is natural that we will turn to one of these outlets to to cull a little stimulation.

But, I would argue that there is an inherent danger to our own organic creativity when we do this. Subconsciously, we all copy to some degree when we use other designers’ work as inspiration. Let’s take website design, for example. How many sites have we seen with paper airplanes flying around or cartoon characters as mascots? These are all pretty prevalent today. But someone had to have been the first to have spawned so many “copies” of the element. Thus an original/copy paradigm is created.

Does that mean that the designer who uses paper airplanes as a flourish is guilty of copying? Yes, if we are to go by the strict definition of the word. But, is this plagiarism? This is where I think the line becomes blurred. I believe if a designer is “inspired” by one of these elements, and uses it in their work in a fashion that is not a direct carbon copy, then it isn’t plagiarism.

Splitting hairs

Of course, you can argue that I am splitting hairs here and this is simply a matter of subjective opinion. But, let’s go back to what started this train of thought. The two posters are very similar in theme, layout and typography hence my feeling of déjà vu. This, to me, is a classic example of designer plagiarism. So many elements of the “Terminator” poster were copied for the “Surrogates” poster that I have a very difficult time finding the differences between the two, aside from the model.

As a designer, it is our responsibility to police ourselves to avoid committing this type of plagiarism. It is perfectly fine to be inspired by the multitude of great artist around us. I definitely have been and I hope it shows in my work. But, we cannot take the easy way out and simply copy other artists’ work. As artists in our own right, we must constantly strive to find our “voice” and carve out our small place in the designer universe. We won’t be able to do that if we simply plagiarize what came before us.

So, the next time you see something that inspires you, make sure you make it your own and not a xerox copy.