FIRST Brand Refresh

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by logank013

Random thought but what if the banners next year were red banners?

Then we could make a whole set of banner bumpers.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Most importantly Frclinks.com is now slightly broken . Team pages don't link but the events still work, which is how I will be getting around till FIRST realizes how poor there new search list is. Also with this brand new website they still didn't give us an easy url system. Clearly something like firstinspires.org/frc/team/3847 should take me to the information page about our team.

Also I don't like that they added a map on the team information page. Since you can't add more then just your city in TIMS it's just silly and useless information. The map portion it shows for Houston for our team is unbelievably small and to my knowledge may contain zero high schools that actually have an FRC team. To make it worse it's not even a picture of our zip code which is listed right next to the map.

I like the move to FLL Jr. and the mobile website but otherwise I don't think this really improves anything all that much.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by dodar

I wish they didnt nix the "old" event list. The new filter thing that lists literally every event scheduled through all programs is annoying to have to go through.

+1, i found the old event system better, even if it was far from perfect. This new event lookup will have some getting used to (but I feel like this one makes it easier for most purposes). API wise, what does the new website change?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Most importantly Frclinks.com is now slightly broken . Team pages don't link but the events still work, which is how I will be getting around till FIRST realizes how poor there new search list is. Also with this brand new website they still didn't give us an easy url system. Clearly something like firstinspires.org/frc/team/3847 should take me to the information page about our team.

Also I don't like that they added a map on the team information page. Since you can't add more then just your city in TIMS it's just silly and useless information. The map portion it shows for Houston for our team is unbelievably small and to my knowledge may contain zero high schools that actually have an FRC team. To make it worse it's not even a picture of our zip code which is listed right next to the map.

I like the move to FLL Jr. and the mobile website but otherwise I don't think this really improves anything all that much.

It is sort of bizarre that an opportunity was missed to potentially create a tree of useful urls for use

http://firstinspires.org/programs/frc/about would take you to a basics page for FRC
http://firstinspires.org/programs/frc/game would take you to a page about the game and manual links
http://firstinspires.org/programs/frc/blog self explanatory
http://firstinspires.org/programs/frc/events would take you to the events page.

Eh, it's alright. I'm curious to see when the switch is going to get pulled to push all of the STIMS/TIMS/VIMs information into the new dashboard. You can log into it (at least with my TIMS account) but you effectively get nothing for it.

[DCA Fan]

Yeah it's great that we have a flashy new site, but if FIRST could make frclinks' features built in, that would be so much more useful.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by MattRain

"AND HERE IS THE NEW BABY BLUE BANNER!"

I still don't like the fact that FRC has banners for Chairmans, Winning, Rookie All star, And much more... While FTC only gets an Inspire banner. It would be nice to receive a banner when you WIN at WORLDS....

Weren't the old ones actually baby blue? For some reason my brain is telling me that our 01 Champ banner is a significant bit lighter than the more recent event banners.

[logank013]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Weren't the old ones actually baby blue? For some reason my brain is telling me that our 01 Champ banner is a significant bit lighter than the more recent event banners.

It would be cool if this year's banners were a dark purple. Stick with the mid evil theme. Dark purple of violet was considered royalty. That'd be cool.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Weren't the old ones actually baby blue? For some reason my brain is telling me that our 01 Champ banner is a significant bit lighter than the more recent event banners.

I believe the older ones were a lighter shade of blue. I really don't know how to call it because it's been a while since I've been in art class, but the new blue is brighter than the current blue (a more vivid hue) while the old blue what lighter (a lighter shade of the current or similar hue)

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

+1, i found the old event system better, even if it was far from perfect. This new event lookup will have some getting used to (but I feel like this one makes it easier for most purposes). API wise, what does the new website change?

It would be useful for the events to be listed chronologically.

Even after applying filters for FRC (I'm not going to stop using the acronym!), USA and CA, a list of 16 events appear (regionals and kickoff events) in seemingly random order.

[dag0620]

So here is the thing: we can squabble about the details to death, but this change IS for the good of FIRST and the movement. From what I hear, the core of this campaign is to make FIRST more understandable and palatable to those on the outside. FIRST has been struggling with that in the past. I welcome efforts to change that.

Yes, it means change, work to update materials and tools, and trying new things. However rebranding is just something that happens in the life of an organization from time to time. Let us put our energy into planning for the needed adjustments. Plus remember, there is a transition period. I'm sure FIRST doesn't expect us all to be in compliance over night.

---

On another note: thumbs up to the standardized region nomenclature and logos. It'll save districts time and effort in developing brands, and makes FIRST look much more united.

[Jalerre]

This should be the new logo:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B70...ew?usp=sharing

[jaredhk]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

Well, they are (still?) officially incorporated as The United States Foundation for the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (USFIRST).

I got a response from FIRST on Facebook. Basically, they are officially the one with foundation but they would like to be called just the "short version."

Good question! The legal name of FIRST is “United States Foundation for the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.” However, the organization does business as, and should be referred to as, “FIRST.” FIRST is an acronym standing for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”

From Facebook

[Rick]

Good thing we just got a banner printed and 100 sponsorship packets made with the old logos.

I feel like this would have been better received if done in a summer month but at the same time understand the issues with rebranding.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Rick

Good thing we just got a banner printed and 100 sponsorship packets made with the old logos.

I feel like this would have been better received if done in a summer month but at the same time understand the issues with rebranding.

It was teased during the Stronghold teaser next month, and the rebrand itself probably won't be really present until Champs.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Rick

Good thing we just got a banner printed and 100 sponsorship packets made with the old logos.

I feel like this would have been better received if done in a summer month but at the same time understand the issues with rebranding.

I wouldn't worry about it so much, up until last year there were still sponsors using the old old logo on their websites. I presume there will be a year or so of overlap for printed materials, even within FIRST as it would be really wasteful just to throw them out.


The thing that is really bugging me about the new website right now is that they have quite literally broken every single link to any FIRST page everywhere online. Google anything about FIRST and click the link, it will be broken. They could have done a much better job when phasing out the old url and done a full sitemap re-direct instead of a full url redirect, so that all of the content still shows up.

While FIRST doesn't really care about SEO because they have some help in that regards, it will be frustrating for quite some time.

Thankfully this link still works, which is the one I use 99% of the time. https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index....mber&year=2016