The Montreal Alouettes have been teasing us with their new logos and uniforms for the 2019 season over the last few weeks, and now courtesy a trademark registration with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, we may have gotten a good look at what’s to come.
Via a few social media posts and the launch of a new website (Toujoursgame.ca) the Alouettes took us both down a visual journey through the Canadian Football League team’s lengthy and complicated history as well as a photo of next year’s new uniform. In that photo, we can see a navy blue jersey with simple red striping and numbers (no white trim anywhere), the helmet is similarly blue with a red facemask. The helmet shows a red design near the crown as well as several small red graphics near the bottom. A little zooming and brightening reveal that these small graphics are a series of retro Alouettes logos.
Those mini logos are easily found on the ToujoursGame.ca website via the header graphics of each decade on their team timeline feature, so that’s not much of a mystery.
But as for the main helmet logo?
Well, back in July, the Alouettes trademarked two new graphics. One looks to be a bird in flight seen from above (or below) with the wings and body forming the shape of an “M” and the tail possibly as an “A”. The second graphic is a wordmark which combines the last two letters in “Montréal” with the first two letters of the Alouettes nickname “Als” to form “Montréals”. Clever.
That first graphic seems to line up with the mystery design on the helmet while the wordmark logo matches what the team has been using as a social media avatar.
So it would certainly appear these new trademarked logos are indeed the new Als logos for 2019 and, well, I love ’em. That M/A bird looks like it’s right out of that magical era of logo design – the late ’60s/early ’70s, it can slide right up there next to the 1960s Alouettes logo as well as the old Atlanta Hawks and Flames in terms of style and quality.
According to their Twitter account header image, the Alouettes aren’t set to unveil the full new package until the beginning of February 2019 (“Montréals Launch, Feb 1-3 2019”) but if this is it then bravo, Als. C’est magnifique!