During the 1976-1980 football seasons coach Doug Barfield featured an eagle design as incentive stickers that would be used on the backs of the football helmets. It was also featured on the front of the football programs, Auburn Football Illustrated.
The eagle would be the first official stylized logo of War Eagle featured by the school.
The emblem is a simplistic design featuring another eagle head using the negative space of the mark.
Auburn is officially the Tigers, and although they aren't the eagles, War Eagle will forever be a part of Auburn as will this timeless symbol of the spirit that War Eagle carries with it.
It's War Eagle just like you remembered it.
Retro War Eagle
The 'New' War Eagle
By BUDDY DAVIDSON
© Randy Brown-1976
Happenstance? Chance? Randy Brown says it was, "just blind luck."
Who is Randy Brown? He's a just graduated visual design major who decided to redesign the Auburn football uniform as his thesis.
Where do you start when you are going to take on such a project?
"The basic concept was to come up with an eagle to go on the helmet. I wanted some element in the eagle that didn't look like just another eagle. I wanted a surprise or eye-catcher.
"I worked for over 40 hours on the eagle design alone. I had cut out and worked on about 10 or 12 different designs when it just hit me," Randy says.
What hit him was a reverse eagle head as part of the wing. (If you look closely at the eagle on this page and follow the arrow, you should see a duplicate eagle head.)
“When you first look at this eagle, you don't usually see the other eagle in the back. But when you know that other eagle is there, you see it every time you look at it,” Brown adds.
Satisfied he had a different eagle to work with, Randy moved on to other phases of his thesis. He designed three different jersys, using the same Auburn orange and blue colors. He did a complete package, right down to stationery, envelopes, calling cards, schedule cards, posters, and car tags.
His final idea was to do a dye drawing of a football program cover. “I felt like Coach Jordan is Auburn football Coach Barfield is the new man and they should both be it because this is Coach Barfield's first home game," Randy says.
Of course, the front cover of the Baylor program was Randy's drawing.
While working on the uniforms, Randy used several players as models for photographs of the uniform. As he progressed the players suggested he show his work to Barfield.
“When I started this thesis I didn't have any idea that of it would be used by the athletic department or anyone else. When the players suggested I show it to Coach Barfield I was a little hesitant, but I decided to do it anyway.
By coincidence, Barfield was looking for a small decal to go on the back of the players' helmets for outstanding plays in each game.
“We think it is a good idea to set some achievement goals for each game for the players and then to reward them in some way for meeting these standards. It is an earned honor to receive a helmet decal. The staff set up the criteria for earning a decal and it just happened that the eagle Randy designed was perfect for what we were looking for."
“We were trying to find an original Tiger head or something along those lines. Since this is the first time we've done this and Randy's eagle is certainly original, we thought it would be appropriate to use it," Barfield says.
Randy has a copyright on his eagle design and plans to call it the “War Eagle.” Already he has offers to produce it in decal and car tag form to sell.
While Coach Barfield liked the eagle and the total concept, all of Randy's professors weren't exactly in agreement, The decision had already been made to use the eagle as the achievement award for the helmet and the dye drawing for the cover before Randy submitted his thesis for his grade, and hopefully, graduation.
Feeling good about presenting his thesis to his professors, Randy wasn't sure he would graduate on schedule when one of his advisors told him the eagle looked like a bat.
(Editor's Note: While the newly designed War Eagle by Randy Brown is being used as the achievement award on the helmets, it in no way is supposed to be considered as the Auburn team symbol. Auburn's athletic teams are known as Tigers.)
