Magnolia Design+Communications

Jan

21

On Football and Logo Design

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nfl-logo.jpg

We may be Washingtonians here at Magnolia Design, but we’re New Yorkers at heart. So we were very happy to watch Eli Manning and the New York Giants make their way from Wild Card to Super Bowl.

The title game against the Green Bay Packers was a terrific show and evenly matched having to go into overtime. (Only the second time a title game has gone into OT in NFC history!)

But to be fair, the Packers might have won with plays like Drivers’ 90 yard touchdown, had they only played a cleaner game. Time after time, GB were penalized giving NY the advantage arguably less on merit than on egalitarianism. However Manning, to his credit, hasn’t turned over the football in the entire post-season which is particularly amazing since turnovers seemed like a their strategy in the regular season!

And even though the Patriots are 18-0, the Giants have won the last 10 games straight all on the road and came very close to toppling the Patriots’ perfect record in week 17 where better teams prior had failed. So good luck to them.

At any rate, with Super Bowl 42 in two weeks, matching experience vs. determination, it is a good time to mention that in the spring this year, the National Football League will be unveiling their new logo. (Talk about a segue.)

The new NFL logo, more of an update than a redesign, features small but important changes that aren’t likely to upset its fans but will help make a stronger brand.

In short, the logo remains basically the same shape, albeit slightly thinner and taller, the colors darker and richer. The type reflects a more modern taste and resembles the slab-serif font used in the Conference logos, uniting the brands closer together.

The most noticeable change is the reduction of the number of stars on the shield. Merchandisers have surely found it difficult to reproduce all those stars in small formats and the first rule of logo design is scalability. Apparently, according to USA Today, some vendors, without permission, have used fewer stars where applicable on t-shirts and hats.

The stars have been reduced from 25 to 8, representing the eight AFC and NFC divisions. The funny thing is that, after researching, the reason why there were 25 stars in the original logo remains a mystery. Designers could find no reason for 25 stars, says Jaime Weston, director of brand and creative operations. The shield logo was first used around 1940, two decades after the NFL’s founding in 1920.* I think the stars, even the 8 remaining ones are a bit awkward, but its an improvement.

Finally, the placement of the football on the shield is set an an angle and said to more closely mimic that of the Vince Lombardi Trophy which is a positive and logical brand decision.

For a bit of fun, you can see ESPN’s “rejected” logo collection.

* Source: USA Today

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