BEREA, Ohio -- The Cleveland Browns have unveiled a new primary logo, as well as one for the Dawg Pound at the team's headquarters on Tuesday morning.
The primary logo will remain the Browns' helmet, but it will feature a more vibrant shade of orange and a brown facemask. Although the Browns have worn a brown facemask before, this is the first time in team history that it is part of their official logo mark.
"In redesigning our uniforms and modernizing our logos, our primary focus was honoring the Browns' cherished history and recognizing the transformation of Cleveland," Browns president Alec Scheiner said in a release from the club.
"As always, we spent significant time engaging with our fans during this process and took a very methodical approach the past two years to determine certain core characteristics symbolic of our great city. We are thrilled with how these translate in our logo and uniform and embrace the opportunity to fully share that with our fans in April."
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The Browns believe a revamped helmet logo is "reflective of today's modern Cleveland," and respects the past while evolving for the future. The brown and white stripes down the middle of the helmet remain the same, and the new-look facemask "represents the strength and toughness" of Cleveland.
The wording of "Cleveland Browns" is also a brighter orange without a brown outline and in a bolder font type.
"We think the orange brings more energy and vibrancy to the logo," Scheiner said. "It's also a hint of what's to come with the uniforms. And then, the brown face mask we think brings toughness. What we wanted to accomplish here and what our fans essentially gave us permission to do -- and you'll hear this later on with the uniforms -- is push forward, but don't lose track of our tradition.
"We had committed from the beginning that we would not change our helmet, but we did contemplate whether or not there could be a different logo. Ultimately, we came back being the only team in the NFL whose mark matched our helmet, and we thought that was really important.
"We spent a lot of time discussing it. Once again, the most important thing is that we're the only NFL team whose primary mark matches the helmet, and we thought that departing from that would be too radical a departure, but kind of evolving that logo would be a good step for us."
The new Dawg Pound logo, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Dawg Pound, goes from a plain-faced dog to a more menacing growling dog with the words "Dawg Pound" in bold brown print underneath the face.
The Dawg Pound logo is meant to show toughness and the "Play like a Brown" attributes head coach Mike Pettine and general manager Ray Farmer have sought out in the players they have added to the franchise in their first year at the helm of the organization.
"You'd be amazed at the process of these things," Scheiner said. "I've probably seen a 100 of these dog faces if you can believe it. You go back and you tweak elements and there's certain things that you want to pay homage to and then, you go back to the designers and you say, 'Okay, we care about this aspect of it, these aspects we don't care about,' and you would be amazed and shocked at just how many iterations there are with us."
Tuesday's logo unveiling is one of two set for the Browns this offseason.
On Tuesday, April 14, the Browns will unveil new uniforms at a special event at the Cleveland Convention Center. The uniform unveil will be the culmination of two years' worth work on the part of the Browns, the NFL and Nike, the league's official uniform manufacturer.
"We're always trying to strike a balance, so I feel like Nike and the NFL and people in our building have done a really good job with that," Scheiner said. "Even though it will be more radical than the mark's evolution, I think we're still keeping things that our fans care about."
By creating new uniforms and changing the logo marks, Scheiner is hoping the Browns are able to better connect with a younger fan base who has seen the team have only two winning seasons and one playoff appearance in the 16 years since returning to the NFL in 1999 after the original franchise moved to Baltimore following the 1995 season.
"We hope the combination of the evolved logos, what we're doing at the stadium and then, what we do with the uniforms will help to help us connect to our younger fan base," Scheiner said.
"That's where we rely a lot on Nike. They have so much experience. They have experience with major changes. They have experience with people that want to keep tradition but still evolve. That's where they're really helpful."
