Tampa Bay may have just become the worst team to win a Stanley Cup. Sure they played well, and tried hard, but have you seen their logo? Today we start off the Just Wide NHL Logo tournament, to determine who should win the Cup based solely on logo design.
The contest will use the same divisions as the NHL. Only the most recent, primary team logos will be considered. Once we have a winner from each division, there will be wildcard team logos picked from the best remaining Eastern and Western Division teams. Then, the playoffs will begin, matching up the winning teams until we have one final Just Wide NHL Logo Winner.
This week we're looking at the Eastern Conference, Atlantic Division rivals:
5th place: NY Islanders
The Islanders logo problems are largely due to the mass of crammed in ideas, organized poorly. The Y forming the hockey stick is a clever design idea, and a nice way to make clear what sport this logo is for. The blue, white and orange colors in the logo are solid, readable, and complementary. However, that's where the good design ends.
The map of the island is far too detailed for a logo, and stinks of a desperate need to explain both the team name and its location.
For some reason the word Islanders is not perfectly centered (possibly due to their registered mark), causing them to have to invert the top half of the I in Islanders. Maybe they thought this would add some dynamism, but obscuring the first letter of your team name is just a bad idea.
It's generally a mark of mediocre design when your logo can't stand on its own. The circle holding in the whole design speaks to the primary problem of this logo being 3 unrelated elements thrown together.
Advice: Ditch everything but the NY/hockey stick and try to subtly suggest the puck is an island.
4th place: Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh Penguin is a great mascot, alluding to dexterity in freezing temperatures while still allowing for cute stuffed animal sales. This, however, is not a mascot contest, it's a logo contest.
Had we had this contest in 2000, the Penguin would have had quite a run, with their
previous logo's bold lines, art deco sensibilities (reminding us of the origins of the NHL), and color balance. However, they've returned to their pre-1990s logo, and we're forced to consider this new one for the tournament.
Going to the gold color away from the pure yellow seems like a '90s expansion team move, and not something a 35-year-old team should stoop to. The triangle behind the skating penguin is from their original logo, but the complete separation from the penguin loses the useful tying together aspects of the 90s version. We've got a range of brush strokes, extra detailed areas (gloves, skates) and very broad areas (head, body), and the whole thing tends towards sketches middle schoolers would do in an art assignment.
Advice: Go back to your '93-2002 logo.
3rd place: NY Rangers
The Rangers apparently got their name from Garden president G.L. "Tex" Rickard and sportswriters terming the team "Tex's Rangers". That gives some amount of legitimacy to their badge-like logo. Unfortunately, they didn't jump on using the Rangers starred badge, and now baseball's Texas Rangers have it. So the logo designer is left with the challenge of creating a new Rangers-ish logo without stepping on Texan's toes. Given that, it's an adequate job.
From a design standpoint, the logo is easily recognizable and fairly easy to read at varying sizes. It's hard to criticize. Ultimately, though, it's also hard to praise. Nothing stands out as inventive or creative. Hence, the middle of the pack finish.
Advice:
The Rangers' secondary logo is great, making use of iconic statue while possibly alluding to the pointed star of the Texas badge. Adopt it as your primary logo.
2nd place: New Jersey
The Devils logo makes very clever use and efficient integration of the NJ letters and the devil iconography. A lot of credit is deserved for not using a cartoonish depiction of a hockey playing imp. And you can't go wrong with red, black and white color scheme (just ask the Nazis!).
The only slight criticism, and the reason for Jersey's second place finish, is a lack of any allusion to hockey or ice. It would take a finer mind than mine to come up with a way to incorporate something without messing up the simplicity and clarity of their current logo, but that's what it will take to overcome the first place finisher.
Advice: Play with blacking out the circle to allude to a puck, or hire someone good to try to work some other subtle hockey reference in. Don't mess it up.
1st Place: Philadelphia
The Flyers logo is the Atlantic Division's big winner. Seamlessly combining a large, clearly readable P with geometrically interesting but not overdetailed flying wingtips helps them advance to the next round. The slight edge over the Devils comes because of the puck-like full circle attached to the wings, subtly tying the sharp logo into the sport.
Advice: Don't change a thing with the logo. Start giving away promotional pucks with the orange dot on white dot, to further push the allusion.
Congratulations Philadelphia, and good luck in the later rounds.
What are your rankings for the Atlantic Division?