College athletics identity changes

[tBBP]

1 hour ago, Germanshepherd said:

 

 

And for the non-X version, click here.

[DCarp1231]

Davidson has a new logo

[stumpygremlin]

That new Davidson cat feels way more generic than the previous one. Maybe it's the grey that was added in, maybe it's the three-quarter view instead of the front-facing view, maybe it's the lack of the diamond. I would look at that wildcat logo and never be able to distinguish it as uniquely Davidson.

 

I also love how the article on Davidson's website mentions "an expert design firm" but doesn't mention which one. That tells me that that firm likely isn't proud of the work.

[walkerws]

10 minutes ago, stumpygremlin said:

That new Davidson cat feels way more generic than the previous one. Maybe it's the grey that was added in, maybe it's the three-quarter view instead of the front-facing view, maybe it's the lack of the diamond. I would look at that wildcat logo and never be able to distinguish it as uniquely Davidson.

The same can be said for the old version. I wouldn't have a clue if I didn't frequent the boards. Weber States weird cat is the only one that really stands out to me. 

 

[henburg]

19 minutes ago, DCarp1231 said:

Davidson has a new logo

 

I had grown to like the (now) old Davidson look, but this new Wildcat is really awesome, such a perfect illustration. I do kind of wish that we could see it with a red diamond behind it to help give it a bit more of that local connection, but that probably wouldn't work as well with the new 3/4 perspective on head obscuring the original reference. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

Davidson has a new logo

 

It looks incomplete. The eye needs to have a red accent like this: https://imgur.com/a/ouk7cEo (I'm aware the reds don't match, limited colors on apple preview markups)

 

 

[tBBP]

I like the new illustration direction...looks more dynamic. I can see why some would've wanted the diamond to stay (it ain't like this is unique to North Carolina, but look here), but given everything else that went into it, I think it turned out pretty well.

 

Although the mitre point on that second spike of fur down from the ear is bugging me something crucial right now...

[stumpygremlin]

On 8/22/2023 at 9:41 AM, LMU said:

Am I out of touch?  No!  It's the children growing majority of our former clients who are wrong!

That list of former clients includes:

• Adelphi
• Assumption
• Brown
• College of Charleston
• Colgate
• Delaware State
• Houston
• Iona
• LSU
• Maryland-Eastern Shore
• Mass Maritime
• NYIT before they shut down their athletics
• St. Peter's
• South Dakota State never used theirs
• Southern Illinois
• Sonoma State
• Westchester Community College

[SCL]

On 8/24/2023 at 7:48 AM, DCarp1231 said:

Davidson has a new logo

New needs a diamond, that was the brand 

[dgthree]

2 hours ago, stumpygremlin said:

That list of former clients includes:

• Adelphi
• Assumption
• Brown
• College of Charleston
• Colgate
• Delaware State
• Houston
• Iona
• LSU
• Maryland-Eastern Shore
• Mass Maritime
• NYIT before they shut down their athletics
• St. Peter's
• South Dakota State never used theirs
• Southern Illinois
• Sonoma State
• Westchester Community College

I wish Bryant University would become a former client. Our entire package, especially the font, is horrible.

[eRay]

3 hours ago, stumpygremlin said:

That list of former clients includes:

• Adelphi
• Assumption
• Brown
• College of Charleston
• Colgate
• Delaware State
• Houston
• Iona
• LSU
• Maryland-Eastern Shore
• Mass Maritime
• NYIT before they shut down their athletics
• St. Peter's
• South Dakota State never used theirs
• Southern Illinois
• Sonoma State
• Westchester Community College

Has the SDSU work been scrubbed from the net? I can't find images anywhere, but I know they were out there at some point.

[jerrylawless3]

40 minutes ago, eRay said:

Has the SDSU work been scrubbed from the net? I can't find images anywhere, but I know they were out there at some point.

All the links are dead, but I found this article on the debacle.

 

I was wondering why so many schools have, or still, use PDW, and there's a nugget in there that may give an answer – $6,000 for a D1 rebrand. I'm sure they've raised their prices since then, but I imagine they still try to snag work by simply being cheaper than everybody else.

[Survival79]

3 hours ago, SCL said:

New needs a diamond, that was the brand 

 

[stumpygremlin]

2 hours ago, eRay said:

Has the SDSU work been scrubbed from the net? I can't find images anywhere, but I know they were out there at some point.

I can't find it, either. I know PDW featured them on their portfolio a while back, but the Wayback Machine doesn't have the images.
Phoenix Design Works - South Dakota State University (archive.org)

 

2 hours ago, dgthree said:

I wish Bryant University would become a former client. Our entire package, especially the font, is horrible.

I wish the same for UMass Lowell. The worst part about Lowell is that the wordmarks in the logo are in Impact, but all the uniforms use Under Armour's Premier font.

[tBBP]

On 8/24/2023 at 7:48 AM, DCarp1231 said:

Davidson has a new logo

 

On 8/25/2023 at 12:06 PM, Survival79 said:

 

 

Getting back to this...apparently students and alumni alike are not exactly happy with this new brand. While looking at that, I also ran across this:

 

 

 

That might be about the best compromise they could have made, given the current controversy going on there. More about all that here via SBNation...an opinion piece about Davidson (and Saint Joseph's) specifically, but about, in their minds, collegiate branding updates in general.

 

My own two dusty pennies about this: Davidson's new logo, at least the craftsmanship and illustration of it, as I said earlier, is far more dynamic, much cleaner, and bolder than the former. However, the new logo left behind what may as well have been Davidson's signatures element: the red diamond. Mind you, I knew nothing of Davidson (beyond Steph Curry) before all this, but if that one element was the signature emotional connection between students/alumni and their athletic brand identity, that at a minimum should have been kept...which, again, is why the revision in that linked tweet above, while losing some definition in the face due to the lack of gray (which I personally could take or leave), probably would have been the better way to go to preserve the tie between former and new...and maybe not irk so many fans/students/alumni at the same time.

[NH4]

well that didn’t last long

now it looks like an anime or pokémon design

 

[VDizzle12]

2 hours ago, NH4 said:

well that didn’t last long

now it looks like an anime or pokémon design

 

"new logo that drew several criticisms for its similarity to the Charlotte Hornets' logo." Might be one of the biggest understatements ever. That logo was a blatant ripoff of an NBA team's logo and everyone noticed it immediately. 

 

This new logo is better. But just about anything would have been. What is Delaware State's rebranding process here? Why not hire a legitimate agency/firm to create a unique identity? Seems like they desperately just wanted to create a new logo as quickly and cheaply as possible.

 

This is a Division 1 school that put less effort into a rebranding than some High Schools I've worked with. 

 

[McCall]

10 hours ago, NH4 said:

well that didn’t last long

now it looks like an anime or pokémon design

 

Genuinely looks like the Charlotte-rip off put through some anime filer on tiktok or something.

[PlayGloria]

"How do we fix this logo now that people are calling us out on it?"

 

"Straighten the wordmark, curl the hornets ass up a little, and call it a day."

[ORLMagic86]

On 9/5/2023 at 10:15 PM, VDizzle12 said:

Seems like they desperately just wanted to create a new logo as quickly and cheaply as possible.

 

This is a Division 1 school that put less effort into a rebranding than some High Schools I've worked with. 

I hate it when schools, especially D1 schools, go cheap like this. This logo probably cost them almost next to nothing. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for.