BY Armin

A New Pair of Sox for the Red Sox

I vividly remember the day I stopped watching baseball: It was the day I never started watching it. In part this makes me completely inappropriate to judge anything related to a team with one of the most ardent set of fans, but just as well, this objective detachment from the history of the Boston Red Sox or any nostalgia towards their iconography may be the best suited to pass graphic judgement. This week, the Red Sox unveiled new primary and alternate home and road uniforms plus a new(ish) logo. (Plenty more images and news if you search online for “New Red Sox Logo.”)

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BY Armin

In Brief: Columbus’s New Crew?

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BY Armin

A Football Star is Born

The United Football League (UFL) is a new professional league that is set to begin its first season in August of 2009 with eight teams in markets where that other professional football league isn’t and if it doesn’t get crushed by lack of ratings or attendance it will probably serve as sort of a minor league for the NFL. This week the UFL unveiled a new shiny logo. I really like the color choice, I think U.S. professional leagues get too enthralled with the red-white-and-blue combo that they forget other colors exist; I like that it’s the green field and the open skies above, although I’m sure they’ll play at night or in closed stadiums. The type is, well, whatever, it’s footballish. The ball and star icon are a little awkward, and I’ll leave it up to everyone else to say what it looks like. The overall shape is interesting — it reminds of the New Jersey Nets logo — as it avoids pure symmetry, which can sometimes make a logo hard to work with, but it also makes it stand out. I would have loved to see this without the shading and gradients and just the shadow of the ball and star, would have been pretty strong. While play begins for the UFL you can play Name Consultant and suggest team names.

Thanks to John Quijano for the tip.

BY Armin

Thunder? What Thunder?

Earlier this year, the city of Seattle and the Seattle SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett came to a $75 million-agreement where Bennett would be able to get out prematurely from his lease at Key Arena and take the team to Oklahoma City, while Seattle retains the SuperSonics name, rights and history so that one day it can have its team back. Introduced officially yesterday — although apparently leaking out slowly over the past few months — is the name and identity for the NBA’s “newest” team: The Oklahoma City Thunder. If the name doesn’t make you shake in your seat out of electrifying excitement neither will the logo, not even with lukewarm blurb about it: “With a nickname denoting energy and power, a classic-look logo, and the colors of an Oklahoma sunset […]”. Perhaps the most misguided, dispassionate and lackluster professional sports logo produced in recent time. There is nothing unique, memorable or thunderous about it and the cornucopia of elements thrown in there never make a cohesive whole. Quite dispiriting to see a blank-slate opportunity missed so harshly.

BY Armin

Hockey, Glow-in-the-Dark Edition

This coming October will be the inaugural season of a new venture from the International Ice Hockey Federation: The Champions Hockey League, that will see the best Hockey teams from Europe battle it out. The simple, yet elegant press release offers the following explanation on the logo: “The most prominent part of the trade mark has the shape of a hockey puck, where two hockey stick blades meet. In the middle of the puck, the rink’s centre ice area is shown — with the centre circle and the centre line — depicted.” If they’ve already put so many things in the logo what stopped them from throwing in a Zamboni, goals, and referee? IIHF President added “It’s simple, it gives you an immediate association to what you want to communicate and it conveys a touch of class.” You heard it here first people… gradients, bevels and glows are the new class. Sarcasm aside, the new logo feels oddly non-European and maybe a tad too American, or a tad too Second Life, there is no sense of restraint or focus, and the typography is downright clunky. Feels like being hit in the teeth with a puck.

Thanks to Andras Sudy and Ivan Philipov for the tip.

BY Armin

An Eagle Soars Indoors

If 100 yards feels like too many or being subjected to the whims of nature is not your thing, then indoor football might just be what you need, and there is a new league waiting to fulfill your full-field-length passes: The Indoor Football League (IFL). Created from a merger of two existing leagues, United Indoor Football and (the awesomely named) Intense Football League, IFL will bring together the teams from each league for next year’s season.

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BY Armin

The 20-Year-Old Hornet

The New Orleans Hornets — celebrating its 20 years in the NBA, shared with the recently nip-tucked Timberwolves — have updated the logo that has basically remained the same since 1989. It even survived the move from Charlotte to New Orleans for the 2002–2003 season. Could we be experiencing a new trend? Of designers, marketers and team owners recognizing equity where there is some? Instead of swatting away known icons for the sake of change? Anyway, there is really not much information about this logo, other than this post, so like the Timberwolves logo, it’s nice to just look at a before and after and dig on the evolution. The old hornet was rather campy with its Mickey Mouse gloves, perplexed expression and funky shows, while the new one is smirkily confident, has better kicks and lost the gloves. The drawing of the basketball is much better too. The typography remains as funky as the old one, it’s neither good nor bad, it just seems to revel in oddity and awkwardness. A nice update all around.

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BY Armin

Howling at the Ball

While it was the LA Lakers that lost to the Boston Celtics in this year’s NBA Finals, perhaps the most devastated losers were the Minnesota Timberwolves that traded their 10-time All-Star for a handful of younger players: It was like watching your ex boyfriend or girlfriend break up with you, then seeing him or her marry the greatest catch, have kids, and live in a white picket fence house with a golden labrador retriever. So, maybe unrelated, a little facelift was in order for the Timberwolves, who unveiled a refreshed primary logo during last week’s NBA Draft. It’s a fun game of spot the differences, and there are some nice tweaks like the highlight in the wolf’s face, and the lettering is less fangy.

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BY JonSel

Nice Beaver

White socks. Trolley dodgers. Expos. Metropolitans. Frightening, right? It’s one of the many things I love about the game of baseball. Non-threatening mascots. Bears can be scary, but a cub? That’s just cute. Oh sure, you can hate a Yankee (just ask anyone down south or from New England), but they don’t really make you quake unless you’re still living in the 1860’s or the one facing Joba Chamberlain’s 98-mph fastball. Minor League does it even better, with its vast array of gentle souls. Mud hens and Zephyrs. Express trains and Isotopes. Awesome. So I welcome our feisty but not angry wood chewers from the northwest, The Portland “Lucky” Beavers, back to the club with their updated, old-school and, most importantly, friendlier identity.

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BY Armin

Two Shields are Better than One

The Major League Soccer (MLS), currently in the process of expanding from 13 to 16 teams by 2010, recently announced its 14th team, the Seattle Sounders FC as an expansion team. The Seattle Sounders FC were named after a public poll that included the names Seattle Alliance, Seattle FC and Seattle Republic (you can read the rationalizations for these names here) as well as providing a “write-in” option for the fans to propose something they liked. With 14,500 registered fans, 50% of the votes were write-in options and, from those, 49% offered a variation on the name of Sounders. Now, I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the history of Seattle soccer — I certainly wasn’t — but the Sounders is a name associated with Seattle soccer since the 1970s, first with the Seattle Sounders that played in the North American Soccer League from ‘74 to ‘83, and currently as the Seattle Sounders — four-time champions! — of the United Soccer Leagues (USL) First Division since ‘94. The MLS’ Seattle Sounders will use “FC” (Football Club) to differentiate themselves from the USL Seattle Sounders… although I’m not clear if the USL Sounders are going away. At first I couldn’t understand who would call themselves the “sounders” but, I’m guessing, it’s in honor of Seattle’s Puget Sound, the body of water that’s their pride and joy.

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