Logos and uniforms of the New York Giants
Encyclopedia
The New York Giants
have had numerous uniforms and logos
since their founding in 1925.
. The "ny", "NY", and GIANTS logos have been featured on the team's uniforms over the past 46 years, though currently the original or current "GIANTS" script logo does not appear on the team's uniforms, although it appeared on their helmets throughout the 80's and 90's.
in New Jersey
.
In the 2000 season, an updated blue and red "ny" returned as the primary logo (depicted as white when placed on the team's helmets), relegating GIANTS to a secondary role as the team's script logo. Controversy surrounded the change because the team remained in New Jersey. Owner Wellington Mara remarked "We are not attempting to make a political statement. Many people have remarked over the years that the "ny" logo is the greatest logo not being used. We happen to agree. We represent, and always have, the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. We did when we played at the Polo Grounds
, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium
and the Yale Bowl
, and we have since we moved to New Jersey. We are proud to represent this region, and we're proud of our heritage."
In 2005 a new script was introduced, "GIANTS" in block letters above a graphic containing the "ny" logo in a circle. This script logo contains all four team colors: blue, red, white and gray. While it was used prominently on team merchandise, the underlined script remained in the Giants' end zones. In 2007, the newer script was demoted to secondary logotype, with the underlined script again taking precedence.
The "giant quarterback
" logo is illustrative of the evolution of both the Giants and the sport that they play. Initially, the giant quarterback towers above the New York City skyline, then Yankee Stadium (the team's home from 1956–1973), and finally Giants Stadium (their home from 1976-2009). Previous to his current incarnation, the logo-bound giant quarterbacks executed a "stiff-arm" as part of his pass wind-up and wore a helmet with no facemask. The current giant quarterback prepares to throw without a stiff-arm and wears current NFL gear, including a helmet with a facemask.
or red
home jerseys, and white road jerseys accented by blue, red, or a combination of both. Their uniform pants (with the exception of a blue road version in the late '70s) have alternated between white or gray with various combinations of blue and red striping. Currently, the team wears uniforms that are based on Giants designs of the late '50s and early '60s: blue helmets and jerseys with gray pants and blue socks at home, and blue helmets, white jerseys with gray pants and red socks on the road.
http://billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/nfl_giants_lions_redskins3.gif
, named after the college that is believed to have originated it, is composed of three parallel horizontal stripes, with the central stripe approximately double the thickness of the other two), white pants with red socks, and black cleats.
The 1954 season saw two major changes: blue as the standard home jersey and new road pants. Due to a push by the NFL for franchises to settle on a single color for jerseys, the Giants replaced red with blue as the sole jersey color for home games. Red would not be featured as a primary home jersey color until the design was resurrected in the 2004 season as the Giants' official "alternate" jersey. Second, the road uniform switched white pants for gray ones.
In 1955, the red socks were replaced by blue ones for home games.
In 1956, the team's first year in Yankee Stadium, the Giants wore white jerseys for most home games. These white jerseys, with their red numerals and "Northwestern-style" stripes, featured new red "TV numbers" above the stripes. These white jerseys were worn on the day of the team's 47-7 victory over the Chicago Bears
in the NFL Championship game at "The Stadium."
Appearing on the Giants' helmets for the first time in 1958 were the players' uniform numbers. The two digits, in a small white Futura
font, were placed to the left and right of the red center stripe, at both the front and base of the helmet. (The first Giant player of contemporary times to be assigned a single-digit number, placekicker Pete Gogolak
[1966], wore a helmet with his number "3" placed over the red center stripe). This style and placement of helmet number was adopted in 1963 by the Pittsburgh Steelers
, who kept the design into the 1990s.
The Giants' basic uniform template survived until 1957 or '58, when a non-contiguous blue-red-blue tri-stripe design on the sides of the legs for both home and road pants appeared. In 1960, an integrated khaki
belt was introduced to the pants, but the belt lasted a single season.
It is important to note that uniforms in the NFL at this time were nowhere nearly as standardized as they are today, so the "template" for Giants uniforms during this period was subject to variations that would be considered major today, such as the aforementioned switching of red and blue jerseys at home. Most notably, players from this period were photographed
wearing either leather
helmets dye
d blue without a central red stripe, or with blue plastic helmets featuring the signature red stripe and tethered to the players' heads with a leather chin strap.
s, as the club debuted its now-familiar white lower-case "ny" logo on the sides of the previously solid blue helmet
. Certain photographs from the early and middle 1960s show the "n" and the "y" out of line on some helmets, which may indicate that the two letters were applied to the helmet with separate decals. The helmet retained its single front-to-back red stripe and white player numbers, and the gray facemask became standard. For home games, the Giants wore their solid royal blue jersey with solid white block numbers without trim, but the "TV numbers" were made slightly smaller and higher on the arm. gray pants
with a black belt
and thin red/blue/red triple stripes on the sides, solid blue socks and black cleats. For away games, they retained the solid white jersey with red block numbers without trim and triple "Northwestern" red stripe just above the hem of the sleeves. The pants were grey with solid red socks.
The basic template for the home and away uniforms would undergo some changes in the years to come:
Further illustrating the lack of league uniform standards, the 1961 pants featured two different striping patterns: the previous thin blue-red-blue non-contiguous tri-stripe and also a thin, wide-spaced double red stripe.
In 1962, the pants striping was again changed, for some time to come, to a thicker contiguous blue-red-blue tri-stripe.
In 1964 and 1965 the road jersey lost its Northwestern-style sleeve stripes, but these stripes were restored in 1966.
1967 brought a major change for the Giants' road uniform; the white jersey featured new royal-blue numerals with a thin blue-red-blue contiguous sleeve stripe and blue "TV numbers." Road-uniform socks changed from red to blue/red/blue striped. The Giants wore this new road uniform for their last five Yankee Stadium games in 1967.
The helmets featured new players' numerals in 1967 as well; some helmets carried a smaller and more squared style of number, others a larger and thinner number in a Helvetica
font. Still other helmets, including that of Fran Tarkenton
, who came to the Giants that season in a trade with the Minnesota Vikings, bore the older 1958-style numbers.
In 1968, pants for both home and road uniforms were changed from the long-established gray to white (with the same striping); the blue-red-blue-striped away socks became solid blue, matching the home versions.
In 1969, the Giants along with the other teams in the NFL wore a special commemorative patch
to honor the league's 50th regular season.
. Almost everything in both home and road uniforms changed, from the helmet down to the cleats.
The helmet's red stripe was now flanked by two thin white stripes, and a white facemask replaced the traditional gray one. The home blue jersey gained red trim around its block numbers, and red/white/red/white/red stripes on its sleeves. The white pants introduced a blue belt and a new side stripe pattern (thin red/thick blue/thin red). The socks, while still blue at the edges, mirrored the sleeve stripe pattern down the center portion of the sock.
The away uniform had the same template as the home version with most colors swapped: the jersey was white with blue numbers trimmed in red, the sleeves had red/blue/red/blue/red stripes, the pants were blue (with a blue belt) with a thin red/thick white/thin red side stripe. White socks with the away jersey shoulder stripe pattern were used. Finally, amidst the wide-reaching changes, the team's cleats became white.
Perhaps even more radical than the uniform redesign was the team's switch from the classic lowercase "ny" logo to an uppercase "NY" as its primary logo. Echoing the 1975 uniform's affinity for stripes, the logo pattern itself is composed of stripes.
One year later, a new logo was introduced and the uppercase "NY" disappeared: an italicized and underlined GIANTS became the team's primary logo and took up residence on the sides of the helmet. The abrupt change was prompted by the franchise's move from New York to East Rutherford, New Jersey
.
The blue away pants would survive four seasons, lasting until the end of the 1978 season. In 1979, the away uniforms used the same white pants as the home uniforms while keeping the same blue belt and away socks.
The design experimentation begun in 1975 did not last into the new decade. The 1980 season witnessed a serious re-design of the uniforms and a general abandonment of the excess of striping: the new uniforms combined elements of several past uniforms from the 60's and mid-70's and would be the uniforms worn by the team in their victories in Super Bowls XXI
and XXV
.
The white stripes on the helmet disappeared, and the sleeve stripes were replaced with a more conservative red-white-red thin striped pattern for the home jerseys and a blue-red-blue version for the white away jerseys last worn in 1974. A similar matching thin-striped pattern was added around the collar for both jerseys. The pants lost the blue belts (replaced with white ones) and the side stripes returned to the blue-red-blue contiguous stripes of equal thickness seen from 1967-74. The socks also returned to their 1968-74 solid-blue standard for home and away versions.
Not all the 1975 elements were discarded: the redesign did retain the 1975 trim around the block numbers, and the facemask and cleats remained white.
This template would be largely untouched over the next 19 seasons. In 1982, the collar striping became "pointed" at the base of the neck to form a "V", and in 1985 the block number font was altered to have a slightly more robust appearance. In 1991, the Giants and all other franchises added the NFL shield below the "V" on the jersey collar and to the upper left thigh of the pants.
The Giants wore white at home throughout the 1980 season. Later in the 1980s the Giants occasionally wore white jerseys at home, primarily against the Dallas Cowboys due to an alleged curse on the Cowboys' blue jerseys.
uniforms. The Giants chose their 1961 home and away templates for the basis of their throwback designs. The resulting uniforms closely matched the '61 designs, with some minor inconsistencies: both home and road uniforms featured white cleats and white belts instead of the black cleats and no belts (the pants were held together with drawstrings) worn during that season. Additionally, the gray road pants had a slight metallic look to them (similar in appearance to the Cowboys'
silver pants), contrasting with the flat gray of the past, while the home uniforms featured white pants with the 1962 contiguous red-blue-red striping down the sides.
Furthermore, the white "ny" logo was placed on the helmets for the first time since 1974. The throwbacks first appeared in a contest at home against the Redskins
and in a road game against the New Orleans Saints, and appeared again during the last six weeks of that season after the Giants began wearing them in a Week 12 Monday night game against Houston. The Giants won every one of those last six games while wearing the throwbacks.
The home design had several subtle differences over its early '60s forerunners:
The white road jersey had less to do with the 60's variants and more with the 80's and 90's designs, but had the number switched from blue to red, accented with blue trim, and player names appeared in blue.
The home and design featured gray pants with gray belts, with the pant legs adorned with a single thick red stripe directly bordered by two blue stripes of equal thickness.
The road pants, gray as well, featured a different design: three thinner, non-contiguous stripes of red/blue/red, similar to the style worn from the late 1950s through 1961. The team's current road uniform closely resembles the 1961 version. These road pants are on rare occasions worn with the home blue jersey, most recently for the team's October 25, 2010 game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Finally, blue socks
accompanied the home uniforms and red socks returned for the away uniforms. For the 2002 season, the away socks again became blue and would remain that way until the end of the 2004 season.
In 2002, the Giants and all other NFL franchises replaced the NFL shield with the "NFL Equipment" logo.
. This variant simply swapped the blue of the regular home jersey for red and retained the same design; home pants and red socks were worn with the jersey. This uniform is similar to which was worn in the 1994 sports comedy Little Giants
starring Rick Moranis
and Ed O'Neill
. This alternate jersey has since been retired before the start of the 2009 season.
A subtle alteration in 2005 affected both the home and away uniforms: the GIANTS logo below the neck of the jersey was replaced with the "ny" logo (white on the home and home alternate jersey and red one for away). As previously noted, this ended a 29-year run of the GIANTS script logo appearing on the team's uniforms in some capacity.
2005 also marked the switch from white to black cleats (a change not reflected in the official uniform templates pictured below), ending 30 seasons of white footgear for the team.
rivals the Dallas Cowboys
. Contrasting with the official template (right), the Giants wore their away pants with the red jerseys despite being at home. This appearance marks only the second time the Giants have worn the red alternate jersey, and the first time the alternate jersey has been paired with their current away pants and red socks.
Also for the 2006 campaign, Giants equipment manager Joe Skiba introduced a raised, rubberized solid blue "ny" on the nose bumper plate of Giants non-Riddell helmets. For the red alternate jersey, the logo also switched to red.
2007 saw the first change to the previous year's rubberized "ny" on the helmet bumper: for normal home/away jerseys, the "ny" is blue with red trim.
In Week 10 of the 2007 season, the red alternate jersey (with the same "away pants" template seen in 2006) reappeared, at home, against the Dallas Cowboys. The helmet bumper logo was reversed from the regular home/away version, with a red "ny" with blue trim. In addition to the red-accented black cleats, the alternate uniform was augmented by certain players with all-red long sleeved shirts and predominantly red gloves.
, the Buccaneers chose their road uniform, forcing the Giants to play in their home uniform. In the next round versus the 1st seeded Dallas Cowboys, Dallas wore their white home uniform, meaning the Giants once again had to wear their blue home uniform on the road. In the subsequent NFC Championship round in Green Bay
, the Giants finally had to wear their road uniform, as the Packers went with their home greens.
The Giants reached the Super Bowl, and since the AFC and NFC alternate home field advantage in the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots wore their home blues, forcing the Giants to wear their road uniforms. The Giants ultimately won the game, marking their first Super Bowl victory in their road uniform.
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
have had numerous uniforms and logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
since their founding in 1925.
Logos
Giants logos have revolved around three distinct concepts: a "giant" football player poised to throw a pass, the word "Giants" and variations on the initials for New YorkNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The "ny", "NY", and GIANTS logos have been featured on the team's uniforms over the past 46 years, though currently the original or current "GIANTS" script logo does not appear on the team's uniforms, although it appeared on their helmets throughout the 80's and 90's.
"ny" and "GIANTS" script
Prior to the 1961 campaign, the Giants official logo was the "giant quarterback" logo. Starting in 1961, a stylized white lowercase "ny" was added to both sides of the team's helmet. This logo survived until 1975, when a stylized white and blue uppercase "NY" replaced it. The uppercase NY was itself replaced a season later by the team nickname written out in bold italicized white capital letters (GIANTS). This change was sparked by the team moving its operations to the MeadowlandsGiants Stadium
Giants Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The building itself was 230.5 m long, 180.5 m wide and 44 m high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 54 m high to...
in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
.
Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...
, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...
and the Yale Bowl
Yale Bowl
The Yale Bowl is a football stadium in New Haven, Connecticut on the border of West Haven, about 1½ miles west of Yale's main campus. Completed in 1914, the stadium seats 61,446, reduced by renovations from the original capacity of 70,869...
, and we have since we moved to New Jersey. We are proud to represent this region, and we're proud of our heritage."
The Giant quarterback
Quarterback
Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...
" logo is illustrative of the evolution of both the Giants and the sport that they play. Initially, the giant quarterback towers above the New York City skyline, then Yankee Stadium (the team's home from 1956–1973), and finally Giants Stadium (their home from 1976-2009). Previous to his current incarnation, the logo-bound giant quarterbacks executed a "stiff-arm" as part of his pass wind-up and wore a helmet with no facemask. The current giant quarterback prepares to throw without a stiff-arm and wears current NFL gear, including a helmet with a facemask.
Uniforms
Since at least the early 1950s, the Giants have worn predominantly blue helmets, royal blueRoyal blue
Royal blue describes both a bright shade and a dark shade of azure blue. It is said to have been invented by millers in Rode, Somerset, a consortium of which won a competition to make a dress for the British queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz....
or red
Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
home jerseys, and white road jerseys accented by blue, red, or a combination of both. Their uniform pants (with the exception of a blue road version in the late '70s) have alternated between white or gray with various combinations of blue and red striping. Currently, the team wears uniforms that are based on Giants designs of the late '50s and early '60s: blue helmets and jerseys with gray pants and blue socks at home, and blue helmets, white jerseys with gray pants and red socks on the road.
http://billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/nfl_giants_lions_redskins3.gif
1950-60
Current Giants fans might be surprised to learn that prior to 1953, "Big Blue" wore red jerseys for some home games. Through 1953, the typical Giants home uniform consisted of solid red or blue jerseys with white block numbers, blue helmets, white pants with red socks, and black cleats. The standard road uniform used the same helmet, a white jersey with red block numbers and no sleeve trim; later the jersey acquired red Northwestern stripes on the sleeves (the Northwestern stripe patternNorthwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, named after the college that is believed to have originated it, is composed of three parallel horizontal stripes, with the central stripe approximately double the thickness of the other two), white pants with red socks, and black cleats.
The 1954 season saw two major changes: blue as the standard home jersey and new road pants. Due to a push by the NFL for franchises to settle on a single color for jerseys, the Giants replaced red with blue as the sole jersey color for home games. Red would not be featured as a primary home jersey color until the design was resurrected in the 2004 season as the Giants' official "alternate" jersey. Second, the road uniform switched white pants for gray ones.
In 1955, the red socks were replaced by blue ones for home games.
In 1956, the team's first year in Yankee Stadium, the Giants wore white jerseys for most home games. These white jerseys, with their red numerals and "Northwestern-style" stripes, featured new red "TV numbers" above the stripes. These white jerseys were worn on the day of the team's 47-7 victory over the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
in the NFL Championship game at "The Stadium."
Appearing on the Giants' helmets for the first time in 1958 were the players' uniform numbers. The two digits, in a small white Futura
Futura
Futura may refer to:* Futura International Airways* Futura * Futura * Aprilia Futura, a motorcycle* Lincoln Futura, a Ford concept car* Futura a product of Hawkins Cookers Limited* Futura 2000, a graffiti artist...
font, were placed to the left and right of the red center stripe, at both the front and base of the helmet. (The first Giant player of contemporary times to be assigned a single-digit number, placekicker Pete Gogolak
Pete Gogolak
Peter Kornel Gogolak is a retired American football placekicker in the National Football League for the New York Giants and in the American Football League for the Buffalo Bills. He is widely considered the chief figure behind the game's adoption of soccer style placekicking...
[1966], wore a helmet with his number "3" placed over the red center stripe). This style and placement of helmet number was adopted in 1963 by the Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
, who kept the design into the 1990s.
The Giants' basic uniform template survived until 1957 or '58, when a non-contiguous blue-red-blue tri-stripe design on the sides of the legs for both home and road pants appeared. In 1960, an integrated khaki
Khaki
This article is about the fabric. For the color, see Khaki . Kaki, another name for the persimmon, is often misspelled "Khaki".Khaki is a type of fabric or the color of such fabric...
belt was introduced to the pants, but the belt lasted a single season.
It is important to note that uniforms in the NFL at this time were nowhere nearly as standardized as they are today, so the "template" for Giants uniforms during this period was subject to variations that would be considered major today, such as the aforementioned switching of red and blue jerseys at home. Most notably, players from this period were photographed
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
wearing either leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
helmets dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
d blue without a central red stripe, or with blue plastic helmets featuring the signature red stripe and tethered to the players' heads with a leather chin strap.
1961-74
1961 heralded a new era for the team's uniformUniform
A uniform is a set of standard clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, security guards, in some workplaces and schools and by inmates...
s, as the club debuted its now-familiar white lower-case "ny" logo on the sides of the previously solid blue helmet
Football helmet
A football helmet is a protective device used primarily in American football and Canadian football. It consists of a hard plastic top with thick padding on the inside, a face mask made of one or more plastic bars, and a chinstrap. Some players add polycarbonate visors to their helmets, which are...
. Certain photographs from the early and middle 1960s show the "n" and the "y" out of line on some helmets, which may indicate that the two letters were applied to the helmet with separate decals. The helmet retained its single front-to-back red stripe and white player numbers, and the gray facemask became standard. For home games, the Giants wore their solid royal blue jersey with solid white block numbers without trim, but the "TV numbers" were made slightly smaller and higher on the arm. gray pants
Trousers
Trousers are an item of clothing worn on the lower part of the body from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately...
with a black belt
Belt (clothing)
A belt is a flexible band or strap, typically made of leather or heavy cloth, and worn around the waist. A belt supports trousers or other articles of clothing.-History:...
and thin red/blue/red triple stripes on the sides, solid blue socks and black cleats. For away games, they retained the solid white jersey with red block numbers without trim and triple "Northwestern" red stripe just above the hem of the sleeves. The pants were grey with solid red socks.
The basic template for the home and away uniforms would undergo some changes in the years to come:
Further illustrating the lack of league uniform standards, the 1961 pants featured two different striping patterns: the previous thin blue-red-blue non-contiguous tri-stripe and also a thin, wide-spaced double red stripe.
In 1962, the pants striping was again changed, for some time to come, to a thicker contiguous blue-red-blue tri-stripe.
In 1964 and 1965 the road jersey lost its Northwestern-style sleeve stripes, but these stripes were restored in 1966.
1967 brought a major change for the Giants' road uniform; the white jersey featured new royal-blue numerals with a thin blue-red-blue contiguous sleeve stripe and blue "TV numbers." Road-uniform socks changed from red to blue/red/blue striped. The Giants wore this new road uniform for their last five Yankee Stadium games in 1967.
The helmets featured new players' numerals in 1967 as well; some helmets carried a smaller and more squared style of number, others a larger and thinner number in a Helvetica
Helvetica
Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.-Visual distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:lower case:square dot over the letter i....
font. Still other helmets, including that of Fran Tarkenton
Fran Tarkenton
Francis Asbury "Fran" Tarkenton is a former professional football player, TV personality, and computer software executive....
, who came to the Giants that season in a trade with the Minnesota Vikings, bore the older 1958-style numbers.
In 1968, pants for both home and road uniforms were changed from the long-established gray to white (with the same striping); the blue-red-blue-striped away socks became solid blue, matching the home versions.
In 1969, the Giants along with the other teams in the NFL wore a special commemorative patch
Insignia
Insignia or insigne pl -nia or -nias : a symbol or token of personal power, status or office, or of an official body of government or jurisdiction...
to honor the league's 50th regular season.
1975-79
1975 would see unquestionably the most radical re-design of a Giants uniform in the second half of the 20th century. The 1974 descendant of the 1967 uniform was shelved in favor of a design that emphasized striping and the accent color whiteWhite
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
. Almost everything in both home and road uniforms changed, from the helmet down to the cleats.
The helmet's red stripe was now flanked by two thin white stripes, and a white facemask replaced the traditional gray one. The home blue jersey gained red trim around its block numbers, and red/white/red/white/red stripes on its sleeves. The white pants introduced a blue belt and a new side stripe pattern (thin red/thick blue/thin red). The socks, while still blue at the edges, mirrored the sleeve stripe pattern down the center portion of the sock.
The away uniform had the same template as the home version with most colors swapped: the jersey was white with blue numbers trimmed in red, the sleeves had red/blue/red/blue/red stripes, the pants were blue (with a blue belt) with a thin red/thick white/thin red side stripe. White socks with the away jersey shoulder stripe pattern were used. Finally, amidst the wide-reaching changes, the team's cleats became white.
Perhaps even more radical than the uniform redesign was the team's switch from the classic lowercase "ny" logo to an uppercase "NY" as its primary logo. Echoing the 1975 uniform's affinity for stripes, the logo pattern itself is composed of stripes.
One year later, a new logo was introduced and the uppercase "NY" disappeared: an italicized and underlined GIANTS became the team's primary logo and took up residence on the sides of the helmet. The abrupt change was prompted by the franchise's move from New York to East Rutherford, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
.
The blue away pants would survive four seasons, lasting until the end of the 1978 season. In 1979, the away uniforms used the same white pants as the home uniforms while keeping the same blue belt and away socks.
1980-99
Super Bowl XXI
Super Bowl XXI was an American football game played on January 25, 1987 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California to decide the National Football League champion following the 1986 regular season. The National Football Conference champion New York Giants won their first Super Bowl by defeating...
and XXV
Super Bowl XXV
Super Bowl XXV was an American football game played on January 27, 1991 at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida to decide the National Football League champion following the 1990 regular season. The National Football Conference Champion New York Giants defeated the American Football Conference ...
.
The white stripes on the helmet disappeared, and the sleeve stripes were replaced with a more conservative red-white-red thin striped pattern for the home jerseys and a blue-red-blue version for the white away jerseys last worn in 1974. A similar matching thin-striped pattern was added around the collar for both jerseys. The pants lost the blue belts (replaced with white ones) and the side stripes returned to the blue-red-blue contiguous stripes of equal thickness seen from 1967-74. The socks also returned to their 1968-74 solid-blue standard for home and away versions.
Not all the 1975 elements were discarded: the redesign did retain the 1975 trim around the block numbers, and the facemask and cleats remained white.
This template would be largely untouched over the next 19 seasons. In 1982, the collar striping became "pointed" at the base of the neck to form a "V", and in 1985 the block number font was altered to have a slightly more robust appearance. In 1991, the Giants and all other franchises added the NFL shield below the "V" on the jersey collar and to the upper left thigh of the pants.
The Giants wore white at home throughout the 1980 season. Later in the 1980s the Giants occasionally wore white jerseys at home, primarily against the Dallas Cowboys due to an alleged curse on the Cowboys' blue jerseys.
1994: NFL's 75th anniversary throwbacks
In order to celebrate 75 years of the NFL, during the 1994 season NFL teams were allowed to play a number of games in throwbackThrowback
The Throwback, a 1978 satirical novel written by Tom SharpeChicago Throwbacks, a member of the basketball teamThrowback may also refer to:* Evolutionary throwback, a reversion to ancestral type* Throwback, Vol...
uniforms. The Giants chose their 1961 home and away templates for the basis of their throwback designs. The resulting uniforms closely matched the '61 designs, with some minor inconsistencies: both home and road uniforms featured white cleats and white belts instead of the black cleats and no belts (the pants were held together with drawstrings) worn during that season. Additionally, the gray road pants had a slight metallic look to them (similar in appearance to the Cowboys'
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
silver pants), contrasting with the flat gray of the past, while the home uniforms featured white pants with the 1962 contiguous red-blue-red striping down the sides.
Furthermore, the white "ny" logo was placed on the helmets for the first time since 1974. The throwbacks first appeared in a contest at home against the Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
and in a road game against the New Orleans Saints, and appeared again during the last six weeks of that season after the Giants began wearing them in a Week 12 Monday night game against Houston. The Giants won every one of those last six games while wearing the throwbacks.
2000-04
For the 2000 season, the team introduced new designs for both home and away uniforms. While the home version was modeled on its predecessor from the early '60s, the away design combined elements of the previous four decades of Giants away uniforms.The home design had several subtle differences over its early '60s forerunners:
- The royal blue in the home jersey was darkened slightly to a shade known as dark royal blue
- The helmet closely matched its precursor (down to the front-mounted player block numbers on either side of the central red stripe), but added a metallic appearance. Furthermore, the "ny" on the helmets was more rounded and vertically elongated
- The "TV numbers" featured on the sides of the jersey's sleeves migrated to the top of the shoulders
- As with the 1994 throwbacks, the black belts and cleats did not return, replaced instead by a gray belt and white cleats
- A red triangle containing the NFL shield was placed at the tip of the collar's "V".
The white road jersey had less to do with the 60's variants and more with the 80's and 90's designs, but had the number switched from blue to red, accented with blue trim, and player names appeared in blue.
The home and design featured gray pants with gray belts, with the pant legs adorned with a single thick red stripe directly bordered by two blue stripes of equal thickness.
The road pants, gray as well, featured a different design: three thinner, non-contiguous stripes of red/blue/red, similar to the style worn from the late 1950s through 1961. The team's current road uniform closely resembles the 1961 version. These road pants are on rare occasions worn with the home blue jersey, most recently for the team's October 25, 2010 game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Finally, blue socks
SOCKS
SOCKS is an Internet protocol that routes network packets between a client and server through a proxy server. SOCKS5 additionally provides authentication so only authorized users may access a server...
accompanied the home uniforms and red socks returned for the away uniforms. For the 2002 season, the away socks again became blue and would remain that way until the end of the 2004 season.
In 2002, the Giants and all other NFL franchises replaced the NFL shield with the "NFL Equipment" logo.
The alternate home jersey
In Week 12 of the 2004 season, the team introduced an alternate solid red jersey in a game against the Philadelphia EaglesPhiladelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
. This variant simply swapped the blue of the regular home jersey for red and retained the same design; home pants and red socks were worn with the jersey. This uniform is similar to which was worn in the 1994 sports comedy Little Giants
Little Giants
Little Giants is a 1994 family comedy film, starring Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neill as brothers in a small Ohio town, coaching rival Pee-Wee Football teams.-Synopsis:...
starring Rick Moranis
Rick Moranis
Frederick Allan "Rick" Moranis is a Canadian comedian, actor, musician, and a magician. Moranis came to prominence in the late 1970s on the sketch comedy show Second City Television, and later appeared in several Hollywood films including Strange Brew; Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of...
and Ed O'Neill
Ed O'Neill
Edward Phillip "Ed" O'Neill, Jr. is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the main character, Al Bundy, on the Fox Network sitcom Married... with Children, for which he was nominated for two Golden Globes...
. This alternate jersey has since been retired before the start of the 2009 season.
2005-present
In 2005, the Giants unveiled road uniforms that are close replicas of the ones worn by the 1956 Giants Championship team, save for small details such as the helmet's metallic look, the addition of belts and different block number locations.A subtle alteration in 2005 affected both the home and away uniforms: the GIANTS logo below the neck of the jersey was replaced with the "ny" logo (white on the home and home alternate jersey and red one for away). As previously noted, this ended a 29-year run of the GIANTS script logo appearing on the team's uniforms in some capacity.
2005 also marked the switch from white to black cleats (a change not reflected in the official uniform templates pictured below), ending 30 seasons of white footgear for the team.
2006: The alternate jersey returns
In 2005 and 2006, the Giants wore their alternate jersey during a home game versus their NFC EastNFC East
The NFC East is a division of the National Football League's National Football Conference. It currently has four members: the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Giants, the Dallas Cowboys, and Washington Redskins....
rivals the Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
. Contrasting with the official template (right), the Giants wore their away pants with the red jerseys despite being at home. This appearance marks only the second time the Giants have worn the red alternate jersey, and the first time the alternate jersey has been paired with their current away pants and red socks.
Also for the 2006 campaign, Giants equipment manager Joe Skiba introduced a raised, rubberized solid blue "ny" on the nose bumper plate of Giants non-Riddell helmets. For the red alternate jersey, the logo also switched to red.
2007: Fixed footgear and the third appearance of the alternate jersey
Before the 2007 season, NFL regulations stipulated that a team's footgear (whether white or black) could be trimmed in primary team colors. The regulation changed for 2007, dictating each team could choose a single color; the Giants selected red (previously, both blue and red were used).2007 saw the first change to the previous year's rubberized "ny" on the helmet bumper: for normal home/away jerseys, the "ny" is blue with red trim.
In Week 10 of the 2007 season, the red alternate jersey (with the same "away pants" template seen in 2006) reappeared, at home, against the Dallas Cowboys. The helmet bumper logo was reversed from the regular home/away version, with a red "ny" with blue trim. In addition to the red-accented black cleats, the alternate uniform was augmented by certain players with all-red long sleeved shirts and predominantly red gloves.
2007 Playoffs and Super Bowl XLII
The Giants entered the NFL playoffs as a 5th seed (a wild card position) ensuring they would likely never play on their home turf throughout the playoffs. In their opening round contest against the Tampa Bay BuccaneersTampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football franchise based in Tampa, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League – they are the only team in the division not to come from the old NFC West...
, the Buccaneers chose their road uniform, forcing the Giants to play in their home uniform. In the next round versus the 1st seeded Dallas Cowboys, Dallas wore their white home uniform, meaning the Giants once again had to wear their blue home uniform on the road. In the subsequent NFC Championship round in Green Bay
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
, the Giants finally had to wear their road uniform, as the Packers went with their home greens.
The Giants reached the Super Bowl, and since the AFC and NFC alternate home field advantage in the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots wore their home blues, forcing the Giants to wear their road uniforms. The Giants ultimately won the game, marking their first Super Bowl victory in their road uniform.