Original Dolphins logo rotation error? (Falcons too).

[Gothamite]

2 hours ago, matthew516 said:

Gothamite's question of whether this rotation was used sans the slanted MIAMI DOLPHINS text. It was.

 

I'm still skeptical - cards are a very tricky source, since they often used bad logos.

 

For example, these Topps cards show the Packers logo rotated almost 45 degrees.   

 

 

This is how that should look (the bottom of the state should be more or less horizontal):

 

 

 

Topps also had the Baltimore Colts' horse lying down.  His two hooves should be at the bottom.

 

    

 

For the LA Rams, not only did they lay the ram head down but they flipped it.

 

     

 

And I don't think anybody seriously thinks the Vikings' logo is squinting because he's staring up into the sun.

 

 

Football cards from the sixties are just about the least reliable source we have on team logos.

 

It is beyond question that Miami's Dolphin had that unusual orientation when used with the team name.  But when on its own?  That's yet to be demonstrated.

[SilverBullet1929]

2 hours ago, dont care said:

Pins...

If those are pins then apologies for what seemed like ignorance, my dad made something else that was not a pin. It was like a round metal plate that looked just like the ones above, but they were definitely not pins.

[matthew516]

Yeah, Topps may not be reliable. What about the media guides?

[BrandMooreArt]

 

like said before, i think its a safe bet that these print jobs were handled by only a couple of people so it got produced the same way over and over. im not sure if that makes this an "official" mark. 

 

FWIW, here's how the throwback media was handled in 2015

 

[Scoo8b]

Watching someone post mountains of evidence and then seeing people try to twist every piece to discredit it is the funniest thing I've seen since the way [hated media outlet] treats [favored presidential candidate]

[BrandMooreArt]

3 hours ago, Scoo8b said:

Watching someone post mountains of evidence and then seeing people try to twist every piece to discredit it is the funniest thing I've seen since the way [hated media outlet] treats [favored presidential candidate]

im not discrediting it. dont you think someone who works for the team in question might have SOME insight as to WHY this happened? it's not a matter of someone or some logo being right or wrong, but a discussion on how a logo could go through so many variations. and IF we have to call 1 variation an official one (because thats modern branding) then i suggest that version be what is on the helmet – which is how the team uses it today. welcome to the CCSLC boards. 

[cvickers17]

On 9/1/2016 at 2:56 PM, matthew516 said:

I had always thought this too, but the inclusion of text is what gives me pause. I don't think there's a single example of this original dolphin being used with the slanted "MIAMI DOLPHINS" text that is centered over a logo rotated as we assume is correct.

Couldn't it be that the official letterhead got it right, and that the orientation of the official logo changed to match the helmet application only around 1970.

 

Interesting that Atlanta had a left-facing falcon, when their official logo would have used a right-facing falcon. Only use of the left-facing version I had previously seen was on the actual jersey and helmet.

[Gothamite]

Yeah, the "F" is totally lost when they print the logo backwards. 

 

Further indication that maybe these weren't necessarily indicative of how the logos were intended to be used.  

[WavePunter]

In my mind, the dolphins' logo should essentially have the bottom of the M be horizontal.. Anything else seems somewhat awkwardly rotated, slightly or significantly... I guess that's the 90's dolphins logo kid coming out

[Gothamite]

11 hours ago, WavePunter said:

In my mind, the dolphins' logo should essentially have the bottom of the M be horizontal.. Anything else seems somewhat awkwardly rotated, slightly or significantly... I guess that's the 90's dolphins logo kid coming out

 

Yeah, there's a certain symmetry to that.

 

 

The 1997 logo has the M pitched forward just a bit.

 

 

That got me thinking about other logos that are often misapplied, and how you can instantly tell if they're straight.

 

With the Packers' 1960s "Heismann" logo, you can tell by the bottom of the state of Wisconsin.  It should be straight, which means the football should be tilted to the left a bit.

 

 

 

Mitchell and Ness has been known to get that one wrong.

 

 

Another one that has often been incorrectly aligned is the New York Cosmos.  The easy way to tell is by the star in the middle.

 

 

You don't see this mistake made as much anymore on things like merchandise, since the files are electronic.  Anything made on a computer really should be correct.  But it's definitely a thing among the fans.

 

 

And I did find this picture of one-time Director of Soccer Eric Cantona wearing a crooked badge on his suit coat.

 

 

There's another way to tell - the "M" in "COSMOS" should be at the very apex of the badge.  When the Cosmos had their old SoHo headquarters decorated, the artist got the star ball correct but not the lettering:

 

 

 

 

[BrandMooreArt]

^ and that hand painted artist rendering might be the best example of why things go wrong. back when these NFL things were being printed, they were done by hand, colors separated by hand. so even if you had some kind of standard back then, a printer might have gotten lazy, or careless, and just done something their own way

[matthew516]

On 10/24/2016 at 5:56 PM, cvickers17 said:

Interesting that Atlanta had a left-facing falcon, when their official logo would have used a right-facing falcon. Only use of the left-facing version I had previously seen was on the actual jersey and helmet.

Actually...

[matthew516]

[matthew516]

[matthew516]

And not just media guides...

[matthew516]

I think we have created a collective memory of the original Falcons using the logo faced forward. Actually, it is a very similar effect as the use of the original  dolphin-in-hoop logo. We're foisting the later orientation onto the original logo. In both cases, helmet application greatly aids our ability to misremember, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't an original orientation that we're failing to document.

[WavePunter]

Double Post

[WavePunter]

5 hours ago, matthew516 said:

I think we have created a collective memory of the original Falcons using the logo faced forward. Actually, it is a very similar effect as the use of the original  dolphin-in-hoop logo. We're foisting the later orientation onto the original logo. In both cases, helmet application greatly aids our ability to misremember, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't an original orientation that we're failing to document.

In the falcons' case, the helmet application is the same as the logo orientation - it just depends on which side of the helmet.. In the case of the dolphins, the helmet application and alternative logo orientation are very different, regardless of which side of the helmet you're referring to.. I'd argue that in those days, helmet logos that doubled as primary logos were properly oriented on the helmet as opposed to any alternatives..

But back to the falcons, I never heard of the actual falcon shape doubling as an abstract "F" until the newer falcon logo, so that could explain why it doesn't necessarily need to be right-facing in the primary

[matthew516]

Another one with the original orientation of the Falcons logo. Found it on Twitter and a commenter immediately responded saying the ATL logo was backwards. :-)

 

[bwburke94]

I think we have sufficient proof the Falcons logo was used both ways.