College athletics identity changes

[stumpygremlin]

On 4/29/2022 at 4:20 PM, CDCLT said:

the bulldog isn't centered within the state in the logo.

I can give them a pass on that. If you notice, there's a star on the left side where the bulldog meets the state border. That corresponds to Boiling Springs, the town where G-WU is located.

[WideRight]

On 4/29/2022 at 6:32 AM, stumpygremlin said:

This rebrand is fantastic. I've got a couple of TINY nitpicks.

• They should've designed left-facing marks as well. That way you could have the bulldog face forward on both sides of the football helmet. As it stands, I have a sinking feeling that they'll go asymmetrical (probably numbers on the left), and asymmetrical helmets need to die.
• The territorial mark is not centered on the football field. Notice it goes from the 22 on the left to the 28 on the right. They should've centered it on the 25's.

Other than that, they really took the ball and... ran home with it.

That may the most ridiculously huge midfield logo I have ever seen.  From the 22 to the other 30?  What the what?  Why not just cover all the grass?  

[stumpygremlin]

2 hours ago, WideRight said:

That may the most ridiculously huge midfield logo I have ever seen.  From the 22 to the other 30?  What the what?  Why not just cover all the grass?  

I want to see some wacko team do it. I mean, Arizona has "BEAR DOWN" sublimated on the field spanning from the 15 on one side to the 10 on the other.

[VDizzle12]

I had low expectations for this and still came away pretty disappointed. 

 

New Akron Logo...

 

 

They tried to force a "Z" in there. But it's not working. 

 

I think the font bothers me more than anything. So embarrassingly generic. 

 

At least it's better than the garbage they have been using the past few years.

[stumpygremlin]

Why the heck is Akron running away from the kangaroo? That makes them pretty unique. This new logo looks like a logo you'd find for a really old bank or accounting firm or some other such business that's been around for like 100 years.

[walkerws]

1 hour ago, VDizzle12 said:

At least it's better than the garbage they have been using the past few years.

That's debatable. They are both awful though. 

[VDizzle12]

23 minutes ago, walkerws said:

That's debatable. They are both awful though. 

 

I'm not sure I've ever seen a logo unveiling this universally disliked. I can understand fans being divisive, but every single reaction is negative. The problem is that the people in charge don't care enough to make it right. 

[walkerws]

When you look at all of the logos that Akron had before, nothing was so bland as this. The only way it would be more bland is if it was the Arial A. 

[Germanshepherd]

Yeah that is awful. Only slightly better than the “Z” logo and way worse than the Knagaroo-A, Akron script and vintage A. 
 

The Zips’ branding has kinda been a mess for years now and this does nothing to remedy it. 

[Dilbert]

The script Akron was bad but this new lifeless identity is somehow worse. The Zips have had an idenity crisis over the past few years slowly bouncing away from the kangaroo but they are moving in the wrong direction.

[walkerws]

14 minutes ago, Germanshepherd said:

Yeah that is awful. Only slightly better than the “Z” logo and way worse than the Kangaroo-A, Akron script and vintage A. 
 

The Zips’ branding has kinda been a mess for years now and this does nothing to remedy it. 

I personally like the old Akron and Zips custom logos they had in the early 2000s. 1) It was unique nad unique can sometimes get over bad. 2) It was really good branding for a really interesting mascot. 

[VDizzle12]

The script Akron was bad for many reasons. Mainly the fact that it was a stock Nike font taken directly out of a catalog, slapped on the basketball jerseys and someone liked it so much they made it the primary logo. It seems like the President and AD both like generic/boring logos, because they were involved in the UW Green Bay rebrand a few years ago. 

 

Obviously I like the Z logo above all. But, based on the past few years I'd assume the people in charge only want to be know as Akron and ignore the nickname/mascot. 

[walkerws]

9 minutes ago, VDizzle12 said:

The script Akron was bad for many reasons. Mainly the fact that it was a stock Nike font taken directly out of a catalog, slapped on the basketball jerseys and someone liked it so much they made it the primary logo. It seems like the President and AD both like generic/boring logos, because they were involved in the UW Green Bay rebrand a few years ago. 

 

Obviously I like the Z logo above all. But, based on the past few years I'd assume the people in charge only want to be know as Akron and ignore the nickname/mascot. 

That may make sense, given all of the infrastructure and capital  improvements they have been making. Are they going the current route of making the athletics and university brands the same?

[VDizzle12]

1 hour ago, walkerws said:

That may make sense, given all of the infrastructure and capital  improvements they have been making. Are they going the current route of making the athletics and university brands the same?

 

This is what most people believe and I get it. Along with rumors that the kangaroo and Z logos are sticking around as secondary marks. But the official announcement made it seem like this was only the athletic mark and the only one to be used moving forward. 

 

The more I look at it, the A really isn't that terrible by itself.  But I'd expect that 99% of the time it will be used with a stroke and/or the super generic wordmark underneath. 

 

 

A mediocre logo can be saved with good applications. We'll see how it goes.

 

EDIT: The new basketball court isn't terrible. 

 

[PrimalCookie]

6 hours ago, VDizzle12 said:

They tried to force a "Z" in there. But it's not working. 

Wait, where? I'm looking for one and I can't find it.

[TBGKon]

25 minutes ago, Magic Dynasty said:

Wait, where? I'm looking for one and I can't find it.

 

[Lights Out]

Totally agree that Akron's new look is dull, dull, dull. They've had one of the worst brands in college sports ever since they made the Z logo their primary in 2015, and this isn't helping.

[panthers_2012]

Dull. I liked the kangaroo logo and I wish they would use that more.

[-Akronite-]

Not nearly as down on this new logo as others.

 

The current script was mediocre and felt like a placeholder. The era of using the stylized Z was pointless to me. Going back to a monogram A makes sense, especially for unifying with the academic logo. It's not as if there is a well of great design in the school's past to draw from, so they made something simple which is... fine. I think a little more effort could've made the subtle Z work, which may have improved its reception.

 

You need the kangaroo around for the branding and I think they should've included an updated Zippy in this unveiling. If the school/program has any interest in expanding its reach (which I don't think this is meant to), they would need to triple down on the kangaroo since it's the only interesting part of the brand.

 

And while I wasn't in love with the previous zoomy font, it really makes more sense for the wordmark to be italicized or show some form of motion. But I guess when you were zipping you gotta zap before you can zip again. 

 

Anyway, FEAR THE ROO.

[VDizzle12]

19 minutes ago, -Akronite- said:

Not nearly as down on this new logo as others.

 

The current script was mediocre and felt like a placeholder. The era of using the stylized Z was pointless to me. Going back to a monogram A makes sense, especially for unifying with the academic logo. It's not as if there is a well of great design in the school's past to draw from, so they made something simple which is... fine. I think a little more effort could've made the subtle Z work, which may have improved its reception.

 

You need the kangaroo around for the branding and I think they should've included an updated Zippy in this unveiling. If the school/program has any interest in expanding its reach (which I don't think this is meant to), they would need to triple down on the kangaroo since it's the only interesting part of the brand.

 

And while I wasn't in love with the previous zoomy font, it really makes more sense for the wordmark to be italicized or show some form of motion. But I guess when you were zipping you gotta zap before you can zip again. 

 

Anyway, FEAR THE ROO.

 

I absolutely hated the logo at first, but it's definitely growing on me. Seeing the basketball court, football field,  helmets and other applications helped. I was afraid that at first the "primary" logo would always have Akron below. That seemed amateurish and cluttered. The "A" by itself is much cleaner. It's a simple lettermark, but I can see subtle references to past logos. The serifs from the motion and oval A logos, the angled lines and Z from the 2000s logos. Maybe it's a stretch and I'm just talking myself into it. But it could have been a lot worse. I'm actually going to miss the previous custom font. I'm glad they had Bosack come up with a new font for brand consistency. It's just that nothing about it seems custom to me. Like they just downloaded a free sci-fi font from Dafont. 

 

Guess the people in charge wanted a clean logo and nothing "gimmicky." I get it to some extent. If done poorly a kangaroo could feel like something out of minor league baseball. The Zips need some sort of secondary logo though. Hopefully one of the older kangaroo logos can stick around in a lesser role. Like how Alabama uses the elephant. 

 

Fear the Roo.