Designer of UND's 'Fighting Sioux' logo unveils his own 'Fighting Hawks' logo, apparel

[gosioux76]

Bennett Brien, the local designer behind the Fighting Sioux logo adopted by the University of North Dakota in the mid-2000s, has now come up with his own interpretation of a Fighting Hawks logo. He's also produced an apparel line to go with it though, as this story notes, he claims it isn't meant as a snub to the university's current Hawks mark.

 

Here's the story from the Grand Forks Herald: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/4626593-Artist-behind-the-Fighting-Sioux-logo-has-a-hawk-design-of-his-own

 

Personally, I don't care for the logo. Too much detail. His Fighting Sioux logo was also really detailed, but it managed to work without being too busy. This one, however, doesn't. 

[mjd77]

I think it's way better than the clip art garbage hawk logo they are using.

[MDGP]

If I were in charge anyone who referred to a logo as “clip-art” or a “Madden create-a-Team logo” would be immediately banned for life.

 

On topic, both the Fighting Sioux logo and his new Hawks logo are awful. 

[MilSox]

The conspiracy theorist in me says a lot of these schools keep choosing bland, generic nicknames as a backdoor way to keep controversies going.

 

North Dakota could have been the Roughriders or the Flickertails. Both are unique and evoke a sense of state pride. Yet they seriously thought Fighting Hawks was a better route to go?

[RichO]

57 minutes ago, NicDB said:

The conspiracy theorist in me says a lot of these schools keep choosing bland, generic nicknames as a backdoor way to keep controversies going.

 

North Dakota could have been the Roughriders or the Flickertails. Both are unique and evoke a sense of state pride. Yet they seriously thought Fighting Hawks was a better route to go?

I think it's more that they don't recognize that people who are deadenders about the old name are going to be that, no matter what. But they want to appease them and please as many other people as possible so they keep choosing something bland in hopes that it works. In UND's case a much more explicitly North Dakota option would have have done a better job.

[MDGP]

I don't think they were trying to go bland, I think they were trying to stay as close as possible to the previous name. Hawks already has a known link to Native American iconography in hockey with the Blackhawks. It seems to me like this was meant to hint at that connection while not being in violation of NCAA rules.

[MilSox]

@RichO Definitely not denying that.  My issue is how do so many schools STILL not understand it?  Stanford was the first school to drop a NA themed name back in 1970(?), and we're past that entire wave of schools which followed suit in the 1990s and 2000s.  Yet the same mistakes keep being made.  I don't want to say "conspiracy" per se, but I'm not sure how to shake the feeling that this is somewhat intentional.

North Dakota is a particularly frustrating case for me because at first they seemed to have learned from everyone else's mistakes by going without a nickname for a few years.  They also had their choice of uniquely North Dakota names to choose from that would have made for an absolutely great brand.  I had high hopes that we were finally gonna see the school who shows all the others how to do it right. .......and then we got the f#%$ing Fighting Hawks.

[gosioux76]

This is a case of university that overcorrected.

 

UND and its leaders were basically traumatized by years of having a nickname controversy be its defining narrative. They chose the least offensive option of the bunch. That nickname is a lukewarm glass of water. It's vanilla ice cream. It's pasta without sauce. Inoffensive to everyone but those of us with a thirst for originality. 

 

My pick was NoDaks. I thought the state could own it like Indiana owns Hoosiers. No need for a logo; keep the ND ligature as the primary mark. Own who you are and where you're from. It's an evolution from just being "North Dakota." 

 

Nobody listens to me, though.

[Sodboy13]

On 8/28/2019 at 9:32 AM, gosioux76 said:

Bennett Brien, the local designer behind the Fighting Sioux logo adopted by the University of North Dakota in the mid-2000s, has now come up with his own interpretation of a Fighting Hawks logo. He's also produced an apparel line to go with it though, as this story notes, he claims it isn't meant as a snub to the university's current Hawks mark.

 

Sounds to me like someone wants to get Siouxed.

[Gothamite]

9 hours ago, NicDB said:

@RichO Definitely not denying that.  My issue is how do so many schools STILL not understand it?  Stanford was the first school to drop a NA themed name back in 1970(?), and we're past that entire wave of schools which followed suit in the 1990s and 2000s.  Yet the same mistakes keep being made.  I don't want to say "conspiracy" per se, but I'm not sure how to shake the feeling that this is somewhat intentional.

 

Professional teams keep following the herd; one team does something goofy and then others spend the next couple decades repeating variations of it.  Why should schools be any different?

[Gothamite]

What exactly is the point of his whole exercise, exactly, except sour grapes that his terrible logo wasn’t chosen?

[MDGP]

8 hours ago, Gothamite said:

What exactly is the point of his whole exercise, exactly, except sour grapes that his terrible logo wasn’t chosen?

 

I think the worst part is that it just looks like a worse version of that old Blackhawks concept that was everywhere during the late 2000s

[gosioux76]

8 hours ago, Gothamite said:

What exactly is the point of his whole exercise, exactly, except sour grapes that his terrible logo wasn’t chosen?

My guess is this guy perceived a certain level of demand for his interpretation of a Fighting Hawk. His Fighting Sioux logo is still revered up there and there was no shortage of people suggesting he be given the chance to create the logo for the new name. 

 

I'm sure he's harboring some fantasy that this is the start of some geurilla logo insurgence, that enough people will buy his apparel that its eventual ubiquitousness makes it the legitimate alternative to the actual logo and the university will come to its senses and adopt it.

 

Nothing wrong with fantasies. 

[Gothamite]

So in other words, I was right.  Sour grapes.   

[MDGP]

20 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

So in other words, I was right.  Sour grapes.   

 

We here at the CCSLC like to refer to it as “the concepts section”

[Gothamite]

Yeah, but we don’t usually try to hijack somebody else’s intellectual property by selling them.

[SFGiants58]

15 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Yeah, but we don’t usually try to hijack somebody else’s intellectual property by selling them.

 

Hmm...

 

 

My mind leapt here for some reason. An inverted P.I.L.L., if you will.

[Gothamite]

This is probably a subject for another thread, but...

 

What the hell is that?!

[Brian in Boston]

1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

What the hell is that?!

The person who claimed responsibility for designing the logos flanking the actual Washington Capitals mark up-thread, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the team's ownership.

Said suit alleged that, over the course of several years, he'd created and made available to the Washington Capitals various designs for a team logo (including the two designs pictured above). Because he felt that the logo prototypes that he'd submitted, unsolicited, to the NHL franchise contained "several protectable elements" from a design standpoint, and because the  Washington Capitals' Eagle-and-Capitol logo was a "substantially similar work" to his designs, he filed suit for copyright infringement.

[BrandMooreArt]

its an interesting logo that looks like it was drawn with markers with those long, solid strokes of color. its rough around the edges, but the by-hand nature and rainbow of meaningful color makes it at least likable. 

 

Designers are Artists, at least the really good one are, and like any Artist, those really good Designers need to create things they want to see in the world. in a profession where so much of your work is dictated and directed by others, every decent Designer has something they do for themselves so they can truly be themselves. and even better if you can make a profit from that. that's the real satisfying part of walking into your studio and sitting at your desk, when you're doing something the way you want to do it and having it become something other people are willing to be part of and purchase. 

 

i'd love to see the apparel be more than logo drops or maybe he can get a hook up with someone like Homage (or whatever the ND equivalent of Homage might be) and do a partnership piece. then do some pins, prints, stickers, etc that build on the narrative of the logo. he has the beginnings of something that could be a nice side business to his business.