After a history defined by a confusion of bagpipers, lions and shields, a whirl of block P’s, script P’s and winged P’s, Piedmont athletics will finally consolidate under a single “brand identity” plan by Gridiron Labs.

“It’s been all over the place. We’ve never had a unified, custom look to our athletic programs, and now we do,” said Steven Humphries, sports brand designer for Gridiron Labs, as well as a former athlete and coach for Piedmont football.

Gridiron Labs has worked on several higher-profile projects, including cover art for ESPN magazine and rebranding concepts for the Minnesota Vikings and the Cleveland Browns. Humphries and his partner Dane Storrusten decided that they would work on their respective high schools, which is why Humphries spent so much time toying with the project from September 2014 through January 2015.

Athletic Director Craig Best, who spearheaded the initiative after talking to Humphries, said this is a long-due change.

“It brings with it newness and a fresh look,” Best said. “It also makes it more gender neutral by eliminating the male bagpiper as our mascot.”

Best said the implementation will be a slow process because many of the sports teams recently purchased new sets of uniforms.

“We will roll out the change as new uniforms are designed and purchased, when the field turf is replaced and- when the Binks gym floor is replaced,” Best said.

Piedmont’s attention to the brand of its sports teams picked up in 2000, when Piedmont began making the transition from navy and silver to the familiar purple and white. Humphries sees the new changes a part of a continuous trend.

“This will kind of close the loop on the whole process,” Humphries said.

The new package includes minimal changes to the colors, including a darker “victory purple” and the new “sterling silver” in addition to the white. It also includes the complete elimination of black elements.

“We wanted to get back to the core colors of purple and white,” Humphries said. “Black was hot in 2005, but it doesn’t make much sense now.”

As for the logos, his concept includes three “marks,” maintaining the block P and script P. The addition: a “lion rampant,” which he found after sifting through every yearbook from 1921 to present. The lion was a student sketch in the 1938 edition, and he made sure to show it to the then newly-hired football coach Scott Coats. Coats was very supportive of the idea, and Humphries claims it was “well-received” by the fan base.

“The whole point of the lion was to create a new mascot,” Humphries said. “A bagpiper’s not very inspiring. It just kept on coming back to the lion I found in that yearbook. It really caught my eye.”

Humphries insisted on tying it in to Piedmont’s history to “make it seem like it’s been there forever.” All of the elements of his design were rooted in something — an event, a picture, a sign — from the past.

“We wanted it to be rooted in history but also be forward thinking,” Humphries said. “The idea is to create something epic to be able to move forward with and that the school can rally around.”

The rampant lion is particularly grounded in Scottish roots, and is found on the Scottish royal coat of arms.

“It’s basically as Scottish as you can get,” Humphries said. “It’s a good representation for the Highlander theme.”

His new lion is crisp, beefed up, and aggressive to make it more appealing from a distance—and it is a great example of how the new logo package is custom designed for Piedmont, Humphries said..

“That’s one of the great things about this package, it’s all hand-made for Piedmont. It’s one of a kind,” he said.

The ultimate goal is to turn the lion into a rallying symbol for the school, not something exclusive to Piedmont football.

“We didn’t want to create a package that was just the football team’s brand,” Humphries said. “It’s the school’s mascot that represents the Highlander.”