Miami Marlins 2019 Rebrand

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

2 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

3 hours ago, BellaSpurs said:

I disagree, most times I would agree, but something about Florida Marlins just sounds better than Miami Marlins

Only because you’re used to it.

Miami is way too unique and culturally important to have its name discarded in favour of a bland state-wide nickname.

 

Right. The name "Miami Marlins" existed long before the creation of the major league team, having been the name of minor league teams dating back to the 1950s. I would be willing to speculate that the nickname "Marlins" was chosen in the first place mainly on account of the alliteration with name "Miami".

 

Putting a team in a major city and then not using that city's name is a highly questionable strategy. All of the other state-named teams have some form of extenuating circumstances explaining the state locality name.

 

The Minnesota Twins were so named in order to avoid taking sides between Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Texas Rangers adopted an existing well-known name, at the same time skirting their own potential twin-city related controversy between Dallas and Fort Worth.

 

Another existing name was adopted by the Marlins' expansion mates, the Colorado Rockies. And the Los Angeles Angels switched to the "California" name when they left Los Angeles (though of course we know that they now claim that city once again).

 

None of these excuses apply to the Marlins, who should have used the name "Miami" from the very beginning.

[Marlins93]

The team probably should have been called the Miami Marlins from the beginning, yes. From what I recall, most people in South Florida community wanted them to use the city name. There was some pressure to do so, but Huizenga was the one who opted to use Florida after also considering South Florida, allegedly because he was seeking broader marketability across the entire state. One has to wonder if the politics involving the Rays expansion bid also played into this.

 

I don't think that calling them the Florida Marlins would have been a major mistake or anything if they were quite certain that Tampa would not get a team anytime soon. Orlando and Tampa/St. Pete really are separate markets, of course, but there could have been a bridge to build there if the team was a regular contender.

[kmccarthy27]

7 hours ago, Marlins93 said:

The team probably should have been called the Miami Marlins from the beginning, yes. From what I recall, most people in South Florida community wanted them to use the city name. There was some pressure to do so, but Huizenga was the one who opted to use Florida after also considering South Florida, allegedly because he was seeking broader marketability across the entire state. One has to wonder if the politics involving the Rays expansion bid also played into this.

 

I don't think that calling them the Florida Marlins would have been a major mistake or anything if they were quite certain that Tampa would not get a team anytime soon. Orlando and Tampa/St. Pete really are separate markets, of course, but there could have been a bridge to build there if the team was a regular contender.

Its also why the Florida Panthers are named the same way too as they were owned by Huizenga too

[TBGKon]

29 minutes ago, kmccarthy27 said:

Its also why the Florida Panthers are named the same way too as they were owned by Huizenga too

Posibly, but the Florida Panther is an actual animal so it also works too...

[THRILLHO]

Being the Florida ——— was a Huizenga thing.  He was a Broward County guy and was thinking of his communities when branding his expansion teams.  I don’t have links handy but I believe South Florida Flamingoes was high on his list.  The Florida Panthers was actually a trademark he purchased from Frank Morsani after his expansion bid failed (one of two competing bids that would have put a team in the Suncoast Dome). Huizenga bought the rights to the name but used it for hockey instead  

[Marlins93]

The logo actually looks pretty ok here in this video as a neon sign (well, maybe not neon gas per se), but noticeably inferior when the camera pans over to the logo painted on the wall. So I do think that the neon concept works well when it's actually displayed in that context. Otherwise not so much. I will never warm up to that rightward lean, regardless.

 

 

[SFGiants58]

15 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

None of these excuses apply to the Marlins, who should have used the name "Miami" from the very beginning.

 

Let's get some quotes from Wayne "Captain Video" Huizenga on that!

 

Quote

''Baseball needs that regional approach today. You need to draw from that bigger area,'' Huizenga said. ''There's over 100 cities in South Florida. Well, now 100 cities can call us their own -- for that matter, every city in the state of Florida can.''
 

''We just want to reach out and try to be all of Florida's team,'' Huizenga said on Friday. Sure, a second team is likely to arrive in Florida someday, maybe even soon.

''Now when the next team comes in, now they have to take those fans away from us,'' Huizenga said.

 

These bits are from this wonderful article I discovered while researching. It offers opinions on why "Miami Marlins" should have been the team name from day one (with former Mayor Xavier Suarez saying that the name Miami: "instant recognition throughout Latin America that 'Florida' may not have") and the legitimate reasons why Huizenga went with the regional name (bolded emphasis is mine):

 

Quote

The name probably will make it easier for Broward and Palm Beach counties -- not only Miami -- to reap some of the benefits of having a team.

 

...Huizenga already is talking about organizing package tours, so baseball fans from, say, Jacksonville, can make trips to JRS to see their Florida Marlins.

 

There's both a definite "usurping Tampa Bay's long-standing plans for a team" angle and a "we want to attract people who might be too scared of the 'dangerousness' of Miami and it's people." I think @the admiral got to the heart of the reasoning right here:

 

On 10/11/2015 at 12:40 PM, the admiral said:

The Marlins were named for Florida because Wayne Huizenga is one of those Broward County snobs who thinks Miami is just a cesspool of drugs and ethnics.

 

Miami Marlins has a classy sound to it, while also being appropriate for when Tampa Bay sued their way into the majors (following some spectacular blue-balling by MLB). Of course, Huizenga wanted a regional name that played into the "white flight" sectors of the fandom. I apologize if I'm getting political, but these are important factors behind the branding decisions of the team. 

 

5 hours ago, THRILLHO said:

Being the Florida ——— was a Huizenga thing.  He was a Broward County guy and was thinking of his communities when branding his expansion teams.  I don’t have links handy but I believe South Florida Flamingoes was high on his list.  The Florida Panthers was actually a trademark he purchased from Frank Morsani after his expansion bid failed (one of two competing bids that would have put a team in the Suncoast Dome). Huizenga bought the rights to the name but used it for hockey instead  

 

That's correct, Florida Panthers was the name that Frank Morsani had for his expansion bid in 1991 (he lost out to the Porter/Schur group, who wanted to use the name Florida Whitecaps or Tampa Bay Whitecaps for their team - depending on the status of the Miami bid).

 

 

Stadium for Rent fantastically condenses this whole saga of the 1993 expansion, while also describe the near-relocation fallout of Porter/Schur's group falling apart when the Kohl brothers pulled their cash.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

4 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

15 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

None of these excuses apply to the Marlins, who should have used the name "Miami" from the very beginning.

 

Let's get some quotes from Wayne "Captain Video" Huizenga on that!

 

Quote

''Baseball needs that regional approach today. You need to draw from that bigger area,'' Huizenga said. ''There's over 100 cities in South Florida. Well, now 100 cities can call us their own -- for that matter, every city in the state of Florida can.''
 

''We just want to reach out and try to be all of Florida's team,'' Huizenga said on Friday. Sure, a second team is likely to arrive in Florida someday, maybe even soon.

''Now when the next team comes in, now they have to take those fans away from us,'' Huizenga said.

 

This is a great find.

Huizinga's logic fails on its own terms because none of the 100 cities in South Florida have ever had any problem supporting the Miami Dolphins.

[THRILLHO]

22 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

 

Stadium for Rent fantastically condenses this whole saga of the 1993 expansion, while also describe the near-relocation fallout of Porter/Schur's group falling apart when the Kohl brothers pulled their cash.

 

You have done a lot of posting on Stadium for Rent.  You’re the only other person I’ve ever come across besides myself that has read that.  It is an excellent piece of writing. Having lived through that period of time in Florida it really captures everything.   It dives deep into the details and it’s an education that a lot of people sorely lack when they opine on the state of things in the Tampa Bay Area 

[IceCap]

Everyone has pretty much nailed why Huizenga named the team “Florida Marlins.” 

It was political in many respects. 

 

To everyone who says “Florida Marlins” sounds better than “Miami Marlins”? I honestly don’t see how. “Florida Marlins” isn’t a tongue twister or anything but I don’t see how it “rolls off the tongue” better than “Miami Marlins.” They’re both equal in that respect. 

 

So with that being said...why do some people insist “Florida Marlins” sounds better/is easier to say? It’s because they’re used to it. The team went by “Florida” for a long time. People got used to the name. The “Miami” name is relatively recent in comparison. 

Basically? The idea that “Miami Marlins” sounds worse/is harder to say than “Florida Marlins” is a bit of mental tricky you can convince yourself of if you’re just used to the “Florida” option. 

 

Each name works well in a vacuum so which one should be used? I’d say the one that represents one of the most famous cities in the world. 

[Marlins93]

16 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Everyone has pretty much nailed why Huizenga named the team “Florida Marlins.” 

It was political in many respects. 

 

To everyone who says “Florida Marlins” sounds better than “Miami Marlins”? I honestly don’t see how. “Florida Marlins” isn’t a tongue twister or anything but I don’t see how it “rolls off the tongue” better than “Miami Marlins.” They’re both equal in that respect. 

 

So with that being said...why do some people insist “Florida Marlins” sounds better/is easier to say? It’s because they’re used to it. The team went by “Florida” for a long time. People got used to the name. The “Miami” name is relatively recent in comparison. 

Basically? The idea that “Miami Marlins” sounds worse/is harder to say than “Florida Marlins” is a bit of mental tricky you can convince yourself of if you’re just used to the “Florida” option. 

 

Each name works well in a vacuum so which one should be used? I’d say the one that represents one of the most famous cities in the world. 

I'm not convinced that's the reason at all. If anything my brain is fully conditioned now to hear "Miami Marlins" because it's been normalized for the last 7-8 years. I know nothing about phonetics and linguistics, but there is likely a different explanation out there.

[GDAWG]

Did the Heat outdraw the Marlins during the LeBron years?

[The_Admiral]

 

Again, lovely shade of green here, might have even satiated the people who needed to keep teal in their lives.

[Marlins93]

8 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Again, lovely shade of green here, might have even satiated the people who needed to keep teal in their lives.

It's not even close to teal though. I'd much rather have the blue they are using now instead of that. A primary shade of green would not work for them. They need teal or some kind of ocean blue.

[coco1997]

On 6/1/2019 at 5:08 PM, the admiral said:

We should do an "In Praise of Vaporwave" thread in General Design. I love it.

 

Said it once and I'll say it again, the 2012 Marlins redesign needed green and pastel orange. That, matching numbers, and a Marlins script at home would have gone a long way. A team that transcends team colors as we usually conceive of them.

 

Hey admiral, trying to send you a PM but am being told you cannot receive messages. 

[The_Admiral]

try it now or just say it out in the open; it can't be that private

[rmc523]

On 6/2/2019 at 10:51 PM, Marlins93 said:

 

This is purely personal preference, but I think they need a fish represented somehow on the cap logo. A plain M just wouldn't sit right for the team's identity, especially not the existing (most recent rebranding) M they're wearing. The curious thing about the new set is that the BP cap (fish only) looks 1000x better than the in-game cap. I'm not sure what the solution here is. I'd like to see a slightly more simplified version of the original Marlin.

 

I am really envious of the Diamondbacks insignia. It's neither too complex nor too simple. It perfectly encapsulates both the team's animal mascot and Southwestern aesthetic within a single letter, I wish the Marlins had been able to come up with something as perfect as this from the very beginning.

 

Prior to the Jeter rebranding, I had done this to explore something that kept the art deco M, but added an updated Marlin wrapped around the M.  Obviously, you can ignore the M/font and the upper ones with the Loria colors, but what do you think of the update of the marlin itself in the lower row (ignore the skew/stretch of the fish/F logo, which I didn't notice at the time).

[Marlins93]

3 hours ago, rmc523 said:

 

Prior to the Jeter rebranding, I had done this to explore something that kept the art deco M, but added an updated Marlin wrapped around the M.  Obviously, you can ignore the M/font and the upper ones with the Loria colors, but what do you think of the update of the marlin itself in the lower row (ignore the skew/stretch of the fish/F logo, which I didn't notice at the time).

 

There's some stretching/distortion going on here (as you point out), but that aside, #6 is quite decent. In fact, it's better than most of the concept designs I've seen posted here.

 

The M shouldn't have any teal in it whatsoever, because it blends in too much with the fish. That contrast is really important which is why the current cap logo is a horrific blobby mess. Obviously the new version is black heavy, but there's just not enough to optically separate the fish from the M. That's why I much prefer the BP cap over the regular game version. There's just not enough to visually separate the two elements with the black heavy color scheme. I still wish the BP cap had more color though.

 

So for #6, I'd make the outline of the M entirely silver. Don't feel chained to alternating the colors in the way the Loria Marlins logo did.

 

Anyway #5 suffers because the fish is looks awkward without the (pectoral/side?) fin. Unfortunately in #6 the spacing between the tops of the M puts the fin front and center, which is less than ideal; makes it look a little cluttered. The great thing about the F (Florida Marlins) cap is that it covers that part of the fish where the fin should be.

[rmc523]

On 6/17/2019 at 7:14 PM, Marlins93 said:

 

There's some stretching/distortion going on here (as you point out), but that aside, #6 is quite decent. In fact, it's better than most of the concept designs I've seen posted here.

 

The M shouldn't have any teal in it whatsoever, because it blends in too much with the fish. That contrast is really important which is why the current cap logo is a horrific blobby mess. Obviously the new version is black heavy, but there's just not enough to optically separate the fish from the M. That's why I much prefer the BP cap over the regular game version. There's just not enough to visually separate the two elements with the black heavy color scheme. I still wish the BP cap had more color though.

 

So for #6, I'd make the outline of the M entirely silver. Don't feel chained to alternating the colors in the way the Loria Marlins logo did.

 

Anyway #5 suffers because the fish is looks awkward without the (pectoral/side?) fin. Unfortunately in #6 the spacing between the tops of the M puts the fin front and center, which is less than ideal; makes it look a little cluttered. The great thing about the F (Florida Marlins) cap is that it covers that part of the fish where the fin should be.

 

I'll have to work on updating it some with some of your thoughts.

I'm open to any suggestions others may have as well.

[BC985]

While not a perfect representation, the Father’s Day cap gave us an idea of what a blue cap would look like. Needs to happen.