As many of you know, it’s been five long years since the end of the official Chief Illiniwek tradition at the University of Illinois. In addition to the Chief not dancing at halftime, the availability of our beloved symbol has been slowly disappearing from retail shelves as well as online stores too.
This has been frustrating for us as well and we decided to do something about it.
Over the last year, we have been intently looking at how to keep the tradition alive and tangible to alumni and fans who still want to show their support of this great tradition.
The result is the introduction of a new Chief logo, designed by the Council of Chiefs and available to you starting today… and forever.
Please keep in mind that we tried unsuccessfully to acquire the trademark rights for the round Chief logo through the university, so the next logical step was to create one ourselves.
In designing a new logo, we wanted to create a logo that still evoked the spirit and passion of the tradition, but was unique enough from the round logo that it could stand by itself. In addition, we intentionally moved away from a very realistic image to one that is more abstract and hopefully captures the energy and motion of the dance. Ultimately, we respect the round symbol too much to attempt to recreate it and hope that if it ever did come back, both logos could co-exist.
We feel that we were able to accomplish these goals and more with our new logo. I hope you do too.
Keep in mind, it would be primary desire to keep using the round logo, but since it is impossible at this time, we hope you will be able to rally around and support our new logo moving forward with us.
Merchandise with the new logo will be made available through an exclusive in-store and on-line relationship with GameDay Spirit starting Friday, April 20. While only a few items will be on sale starting this weekend, you’ll be able to buy all of the shirts by the end of next week at www.gamedayspirit.com
Here is a sample of the shirts that will be made available through GameDay Sports.
In addition, we will be releasing a specially designed Chief branded t-shirt in the near future, so please be on the lookout for an announcement real soon.
Finally, one of the great things we want to make sure everyone know is that a portion of all sales will be used for service-based events and scholarships. So know your efforts to support the tradition will also help support others who deserve the financial assistance!
Please let us know what you think about the new logo below or at our Facebook page HERE.
To get the official press release you can click HERE to download it.
Thanks for your ongoing support and Go Illini!