NHL’s New Seattle Kraken Announce Name & Logos

[Bayne]

I mean, the tentacle and the eye are in the negative space, so inverting it like that doesn't make sense. The tentacle does become the top middle stroke because it's darker, so in a way that actually doesn't matter, but they eye is kind of problematic, not to mention the fact that yes the whole thing loses a lot of weight and becomes very flimsy on a white background. I wish it could be inverted because I don't love how it looks on a white background on the white jersey concepts, but simply re-colouring it doesn't work.

[flyersfan]

6 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

Yeah it doesn't work very well.

 

Another comparison is the Flyers.

 

Their logo on the white jerseys - much like the S-eye on the navy - doesn't look like it has a keyline.  I love how clean both look, and I love the illusion of the fabric filling in the gaps.  OTOH, the Flyers orange and black jerseys require a keyline, which gives the logo what I call the "patch effect".  It's not bad, it's just not as nice as the look sans keyline.

to be fair, and although my name is evidence of me being a flyers fan, the flyers use the same logo on all their jerseys. They all have the white outline, but the logo looks way worse on the black uniforms because the logo being primarily black. (pictures all in the spoilers, didn't want to clog the screen)

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

So when I look at Seattle, the logo looks great on the Navy and White uniforms, because the main focus of the logo is that seafoam green color. When placed on the green background it loses its luster. So if they introduce a seafoam uniform, itll look off.

 

this is just my opinion, but logos look the best when they complement the background. The flyers logo on the home orange looks great, even with orange inside it. It stands out, and we aren't hampered to an outline showing the logo. 

 

[TenaciousG]

I’m getting very excited about the prospect of a light blue alternate with the space needle anchor logo on the front and the S-Kraken on the shoulders.
 

Perhaps that could be the Stadium Series uniform....

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

10 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

You do realize that without the name that jersey

 

10 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

I don't think the logo could exist with any other name, and I doubt they would have gone with just a blackletter S under other circumstances.

 

This does not follow. This S logo (without the eye) would go with any nickname, and would be particularly suited for a dignified nickname such as Emeralds.

 

Likewise, the Detroit Tigers' D logo(s) would have come about in the same form even if the team had been called the Detroit Eagles or the Detroit Bears. Also, the NY logo of the New York baseball Giants transitioned seamlessly to the Mets.

 

I agree that the excellent S logo offsets the bad name, and redeems the team's whole identity package. But there is no support for the assumption that this beautiful letter logo could have been created only alongside that one nickname, and could not have been paired with a better one.

[BBTV]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

 

This does not follow. This S logo (without the eye) would go with any nickname, and would be particularly suited for a dignified nickname such as Emeralds.

 

Likewise, the Detroit Tigers' D logo(s) would have come about in the same form even if the team had been called the Detroit Eagles or the Detroit Bears. Also, the NY logo of the New York baseball Giants transitioned seamlessly to the Mets.

 

I agree that the excellent S logo offsets the bad name, and redeems the team's whole identity package. But there is no support for the assumption that this beautiful letter logo could have been created only alongside that one nickname, and could not have been paired with a better one.

 

The tentacle in the S wouldn't go with any other name.

[waltere]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

This S logo (without the eye) would go with any nickname

 

The eye (and the tentacle) are there though, and the logo would be much lesser without them.

 

7 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Likewise, the Detroit Tigers' D logo(s) would have come about in the same form even if the team had been called the Detroit Eagles or the Detroit Bears. Also, the NY logo of the New York baseball Giants transitioned seamlessly to the Mets.

 

 

Trying to compare the process behind the creation of a hockey logo in 2020 with that of baseball monograms from a century earlier is not so much "apples and oranges" as it is something like "apples and flying fish"

[oldschoolvikings]

12 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

 

This does not follow. This S logo (without the eye) would go with any nickname, and would be particularly suited for a dignified nickname such as Emeralds.

 

 

 

Not unless I somehow missed that "Emeralds" is a common name for Octopi. Did you miss the tentacle? 

[SFGiants58]

Seattle Hentais sounds risky.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, BringBackTheVet said:

The tentacle in the S wouldn't go with any other name.

 

1 hour ago, oldschoolvikings said:

Did you miss the tentacle? 

 

Even without the tentacle and the eye that tie the logo to the nickname Kraken, it would still be a strong blackletter S, and would be compatible with a very broad range of nicknames. 

[Chromatic]

14 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

And what?

That's what I'm asking 

[Bayne]

7 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

 

Even without the tentacle and the eye that tie the logo to the nickname Kraken, it would still be a strong blackletter S, and would be compatible with a very broad range of nicknames. 

 

Without the added accoutrements the logo would have been more negatively received, guaranteed. The reception would have been more along the lines of "that's it?" than majority approval. People love to find the hidden elements; it's almost hard-wired into most of us by now. As sports logo design afficionados I'm sure some of us would have seen the merits of keeping it as a simple and traditional blackletter style letter S, but even then I'm sure there would have been many forum members on here who would have disliked it for not being creative enough. Personally I think it absolutely needed to have something extra, especially given that they ultimately went with Kraken. We're in the arena of myth, stories, entertainment where marketing rules all - I can't imagine how they could have justified not playing with the idea of having a creature in their logo. Credit to them that they managed to do it in a very subtle way. 

[Gothamite]

21 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

Interesting that the Whalers logo was 'on the board the whole time:

 

I loved that logo a lot more in the green/blue era than I did in the navy era, because in the navy era, it had to be enclosed when used on the navy jersey, which robbed it of some of it's negative-space brilliance.  I feel similarly here.  I get that the eye may not have worked if the S was navy on the white, but I'd have to see unenclosed to judge. I like how the fabric of the jersey kinda creates a ton of negative space, rather than having it enclosed in a box.  Probably wouldn't have worked, but I'd like to see it.

 

So far, the indications are that they intend to keep the navy outline in every application of the logo.  And with very good reason.

 

 

Just doesn't work if the tentacle isn't dark, and if the red eye isn't staring out through the murky depths.

 

The Whalers connection is interesting.  Their logo never looked better than it did in its first incarnation on the white sweater.

 

 

I don't think it worked quite as well on the greens; making both shapes white loses something. 

 

 

But both of those were infinitely better than the later version, with silver and extra outlines fighting to be the most pointless addition.

 

 

Really, all I think the Whalers needed to do was give the first logo a white background to maintain the color balance on every application.  Exactly what the Kraken have done with theirs. 

[CaliforniaGlowin]

13 hours ago, TenaciousG said:

 

Perhaps that could be the Stadium Series uniform....

Kraken game at CLink??? OMG YES

[Bayne]

1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

 

This reminds me of why I like the Canucks white 40th anniversary jersey so much. So clean and cirsp. No unnecessary silver outlines and a nice basic striping pattern. 

[SFGiants58]

The Whalers retro merch gets it right.

 

 

A white “key background” on all applications eliminates the nasty “blue touching green.”

[ghost316]

On 7/28/2020 at 9:15 PM, andrewharrington said:

I can’t help but feel this scene was an “art imitates life” moment for JB, because he always said Krāken, with the long a.

 

@andrewharrington Thanks so much for the behind-the-scenes info.

 

Just curious, was there ever any formal discussion on which pronunciation the club would prefer? (Krah-ken, Kracken, Krayken)

 Thanks

[andrewharrington]

On 7/29/2020 at 8:48 AM, BringBackTheVet said:

I don't think the logo could exist with any other name, and I doubt they would have gone with just a blackletter S under other circumstances.

 

The irony of the whole thing is that the least mature name likely got us the most mature identity since any of the others might have resulted in logos that many of us would consider 'minor league', or 'cartoony', or 'immature.'

 

I don't love the name either, but I'll take it if it means we get to have this package.

 

Interesting that the Whalers logo was 'on the board the whole time:

 

I loved that logo a lot more in the green/blue era than I did in the navy era, because in the navy era, it had to be enclosed when used on the navy jersey, which robbed it of some of it's negative-space brilliance.  I feel similarly here.  I get that the eye may not have worked if the S was navy on the white, but I'd have to see unenclosed to judge. I like how the fabric of the jersey kinda creates a ton of negative space, rather than having it enclosed in a box.  Probably wouldn't have worked, but I'd like to see it.

 

On 7/29/2020 at 9:42 AM, Ridleylash said:

It's not bad, but the mark loses weight without the navy keyline that I think hurts it pretty badly. Even disregarding the now-floating eye, the entire mark looks too lightly-weighted without that keyline on a white backdrop, which is why I'd imagine they have it there to begin with.

Exactly. The eye really needs the darkness behind it to work right. The only way I could see getting the “best of both worlds” is if they had a dynamic identity where the road jersey had no eye/brow and used the dark/reversed colorway, then had the logo “come alive” on the home jersey with the eye.

 

Either that, or pull the eye/brow out of the primary and bring them into the secondary. Unfortunately, you have to make a small sacrifice no matter how you configure the parts.

 

6 hours ago, ghost316 said:

 

@andrewharrington Thanks so much for the behind-the-scenes info.

 

Just curious, was there ever any formal discussion on which pronunciation the club would prefer? (Krah-ken, Kracken, Krayken)

 Thanks

Not that I can remember. I was interested to see if they would unveil it with a long a, but they stuck with the more popular pronunciation (or maybe they just don’t have a collective/unanimous preference).

[ghost316]

12 hours ago, andrewharrington said:

 

Exactly. The eye really needs the darkness behind it to work right. 

 

 

Maybe an unpopular suggestion (this was a certain member's idea), but the nautical "S" (sierra) flag is a dk. blue patch on a white background.

 

Instead of a thick keyline around the entire S, why not place the letter on a blue square that's just big enough to catch the eye and the bottom of the tentacle.

That would allow the eye and tentacle to pop, and the background shape has significance. (maybe someone could render that out)

[1908_Cubs]

I don't want to speak for any other poster, but I'm definitely in the "I don't like the name, but I like the visual package" camp, and perhaps how I feel about the two is how they do, as well.  While I recognize that the name "Kraken" is the egg that hatched the visual package, I don't think it's fair to say if I like the chicken, I have to like the egg, as well.  When I say I don't like the name, but I like the uniform/logo, I mean it more in a "wow, I'm surprised they came up with a professional looking visual identity for a name that lends itself so easy to garishness".  There's an alternate world right now where the Seattle Kraken released a uniform that has a big ass cephalopod on it, breaking a hockey stick, and tentacles for hem stripes, and the logo is that same big ass cepholopod.  I would imagine there was at least some version of something like this discussed at some point in the creation of the logo from someone (not saying it was taken seriously, but I have a feeling someone brought up...something with less...restraint...once.  Get a big enough group together, someone's bound to go that direction).  

 

So I think you can section them off.  I think you can like or dislike a name, while also liking or disliking the uniform/logo set.  I like the name Lightening in a vacuum while also finding the uniforms right now bland (and lacking black, a color I think they should go back to owning).  For the last handful of seasons I've liked the Coyote name, while finding their uniforms on the weak side.  And conversely, I dislike the name Kraken, but applaud the team and the design crew for using a hell of a lot of restraint to deliver a uniform that is genuinely sharp, fairly unique in their color palette (though, frankly, still wish we had a Sockeyes' team in a coral/salmon+seafoam green, but I digress), and a logo that creatively uses negative space to create a mystery (and one I would hope Seattle never solves.  The mystery is the restraint).  I still find the name hokey.  But the uniforms professional.  And while I think there was a strong ability for it not to have to be an either/or situation and get both, if the team's going to have one part professional, and the other hokey-ish, I'd rather it be this way around, than a solid name and a stupid uniform, as well.

[ghost316]

Excuse my unartistic-ness, but I gave the idea a shot. 

Let the light colour of the away sweater flow into the light areas of the logo.

M-m-m-maybe not. but that would be a neat fan car flag.