This is the logo rundown, your monthly snapshot into what’s going on in branding out there in the big world.
Havoc
Possibly the most important logo on the list – my kid’s ice hockey team needed a logo, so this is what I produced one evening. The full team name is pretty campy, so we’re going with camp here. The design would exist solely in a 1 inch circle they wear on their helmets. The concept here is a hockey rink breaking apart incorporated into a sort of pirate skull, just havoc all around. Considerations I had were that it: A) Not be generic B) Be visible and discernable from a few feet away C) Kid friendly. If you need something, I can inexpensively get you going – logo, ad design, etc…just message. – Shameless plug
Kanye and Wal-mart
I won’t lie, this makes absolutely no sense. Wal-mart is suing for trademark infringement (or some variation of that thing I just said) against Kanye West for his new proposed “Yeesey” logo. Wal-mart claims it’s so close to their logo that people will get them confused and it will “hurt” Wal-mart’s image. Uhh, wut?? Look at them side by side…both are INCREDIBLY generic. Kanye is the one with 8 spokes of dots while Wal-mart has the 6 solid spokes. There has been some serious hating on Ye over the past few years by…entities. This Kanye logo, I guarantee on your phone right now there’s at least one app with a variation of this generic logo. I just got my phone for reference – the Go To Meeting app (its basically Zoom) has a logo closer to Wal-Mart than Kanye’s…this is just a quick glance at my phone – I’m sure there’s thousands of companies and entities with this totally vanilla, plain, insipid, run of the mill design….Just a side note here – I just had vanilla ice cream and plain M&m”s…I don’t know why “vanilla” is synonymous with boring and no frills – I love vanilla, especially a good French Vanilla or vanilla bean…I digress.
Mahomes Addidas
Celebrity athlete gets deal with clothing brand, has a line within said clothing brand…Steph Curry has one, Tiger Woods…I know there’s more I just can’t think of any…I mean, Jordan, that’s obvious, but I’m thinking more with the player’s initials interlocking…I feel like there’s an actual word for that but I can’t seem to find it. So…I mean, it is what it is. You’ve always got to be aware of what the ultra bored, feign offended crowd will see – perhaps they see sex happening down the middle of the design…idk, I just work here. I don’t think this will exactly go down in history aside the “NY” for Yankees or “NC” for Tarheels…but, slap this on some t’s, some footballs, probably some shoes or cleats and there you go.
PlayerzPot
India fantasy sports hub PlayerzPot changed up their logo, streamlining it down to a single color. The site deals with cricket and futbol, baseball…etc…Honestly, I only wish this was in the US just so next month we could have a follow up about how raging woke twitter forced PlayerzPot to change their obviously “WP-ist” dogwhistle. I thought their previous logo was a bit more interesting, but they’re restructuring and looking for a fresh face – so, yeah…sort of generic, techie type logo here. It actually reminds me of Ubisoft.
Manchester City
Manchester City will (might) be featuring a new sort of tandem logo with the Puma logo on their uniform…or “kit” if you’re from over there. In the US, I don’t know if this would fly…but then again, you take an NFL team like the Packers – they don’t have the “G” logo on the jersey at all…the only logo is the NFL logo and 2…TWO Nike logos of the same size. Football’s a different case because the jersey is mainly a space to feature the player’s number – but take like ice hockey or basketball jerseys and have a company’s logo the same size featured on the front of the jersey and suddenly I don’t think people enjoy it as much. When I buy a hockey jersey or something, I want to be supporting the team, not be a walking UPS ad or something.
Apple
I can vaguely remember when the old Apple computers in the school – that discolored white that looked like they’d been sitting in a room surrounded by chain-smokers for a decade, and they featured the multi-color apple. This is back in Oregon Trail, Paperboy days…when those floppy discs that had the hole in them were still in use. Anyway – as we saw from PlayerzPot, logos get streamlined, colors reduced to the minimum, such as what happened with Apple. The multi-color apple might not be making a sustained return, but Apple did include it in the new M1 ad – but the machines do still feature just the solid apple. I honestly don’t know where this came from, but I like it – neon, subtle yet direct.
Wasilla High
Generally logos are changed to mark a pivot point or growing point – some landmark change in a company’s vision…other times…eh…So up in Alaska a little high school in Wasilla (I think that’s where the singer Jewel is from) had people down here in the lower 48 with petitions being signed for them to change their Warrior mascot. I’ve blogged about this phenomenon prior, but guarantee this petition is organized by white people…and/or/who are DEEP in some university Humanities department. So, the principal decided to go to the local Knick tribe for a partnership in developing a new logo true and honoring local Native representation. The tribe chose Chief Wasilla – also the town’s namesake…to the tribe’s point, this is major in keeping the chief’s legacy alive…Above are the two finalist designs and they went with the one on the right…they made the right choice.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this post, this is what the blog is, just little glances into art related stuff. There’s a lot of posts on here now you can probably binge on…I don’t really know if people binge on reading…I can barely read…I can paint though and you can catch some of my work on my home page as well as through MAY 25th, my Etsy shop has 15% OFF ALL ORIGINAL PIECES so grab those while you can. I hope you have a great week and I’ll be right back with another post. Tschuss
hill art + graphics 