What, the World Champion Lakers? Yeah, yeah, yeah: Kobe’s got his fifth, Phil his eleventh– whatever. That’s not big NBA news to anyone in our business…
The real big news is that in this past week, three different NBA teams changed their logos. On Monday, the Orlando Magic basically cleaned up their logo’s typeface, opting for a less twinkly sort of magic, with dramatically-lessened Magic Kingdom™ overtones. Smart, if not earth shaking…
The next day, the Utah Jazz decided to go retro, resurrecting their ‘note’ logo with a little cleaning up and updating of the colors. This won’t be their primary logo, but it will be on new t-shirts and jerseys. All of which are currently available for purchase in their retail store…
And yesterday, Golden State went retro as well, but in this instance, their inspiration goes back decades. The new bridge look comes from a jersey design of the 60’s and what it’s bold graphic strength lacks in anthropomorphic association, it more than makes up for in instant recognizability.
So why this rash of updated logos? Why spend all the time and effort rebranding known franchises?
If you saw the Blackhawks jerseys flying off the shelves in this city, you probably wouldn’t be asking that question. Besides, they simply look nice and that’s a worthy goal in itself.
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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79
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