NHL’s New Seattle Kraken Announce Name & Logos

[Bmac]

6 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

From everything we've seen of the actual logo's development, it doesn't seem like they actively considered the "90's wild animal" route for the primary at any point once they had a design team in place;

It seems the logo was always basically the same concept as the final product.

 

One little-known fact:

The 'bear" logo that serves as the primary logo was not technically the original primary logo. When the team was first introduced in 1998, they used the roundel logo, which eventually became the secondary logo.

 

 

 

Edit: now that I think about it, the original logo is actually different than the secondary logo that adorned the original jerseys. That logo (posted a few pages back) has a totally different color layout.

[AustinFromBoston]

I would love to see the other names they had considered for Seattle before settling on Kraken.   

As well as some of the early concepts designs. 

[gosioux76]

9 hours ago, Bmac said:

 

One little-known fact:

The 'bear" logo that serves as the primary logo was not technically the original primary logo. When the team was first introduced in 1998, they used the roundel logo, which eventually became the secondary logo.

 

 

 

Edit: now that I think about it, the original logo is actually different than the secondary logo that adorned the original jerseys. That logo (posted a few pages back) has a totally different color layout.

 

This is interesting. Found this story from 2011 on the Wild's website about how the organization selected the name and logos. I think we're all familiar with how Wild was among six finalist names submitted by fans: Freeze, Northern Lights, Blue Ox, White Bears, Voyageurs and Wild. In the passage below, Matt Majka -- now the team's president -- outlines what came next, including the initial introduction of a wordmark followed by a logo design process. I've highlighted a few passages I think offer some insight to what we've been discussing. 

 

Quote

The six names were pitched to the fans for feedback, and Majka admits, there wasn't a clear consensus.
"It was a bit of a 'pick em' situation as we got to the end," remembered Majka. "We liked the marketing potential of "Wild", so we went with it."
That was the reason for Majka's sweaty palms on that January night, because he knew not everybody would be on board with the new name, which was then unveiled in wordmark form.
"It wasn't as popular as we might have hoped, but we also knew we had more work in front of us," explained Majka.
From there, the Wild worked with New York design firm SME to come up with a logo that captured the wilderness and outdoors theme that Majka wanted to portray with the name and team identity.
"[SME] was fantastic," said Majka. "They really got the whole concept of what we were trying to communicate, and over the next year they worked with us to hone in on what the Wild name and logo should be all about.
"SME came up with 10 different concepts for the icon for the Wild. We did 300 one-on-one interviews with fans and showed them all 10. The eventual winner, now the Wild logo, was the faraway winner."
On November 18, 1999 at the John Rose Oval in Roseville, Majka readied for another unveiling, and this time, there was zero trepidation.
"I wasn't nervous that day, because the fans had clearly said 'this is the mark that tells me what a Wild is.'"

 

[Ricky_Roby]

The more I look at the Kraken stuff... the more I'm just not a fan. The colours are beautiful but that logo just doesn't do it for me. I've heard some fans say it looks cool while also "vintage" but I don't see it. Vintage logos never had monster eyeballs on them, unless I'm missing something. The alt logo is a nice idea, but just looks boring in execution.

 

I look back at that teaser video (clearly filmed pre-covid), and the salmon/black/white colours on the early version of the website... it really tells me they were going with Sockeyes early on before the fans on twitter made them go a different direction. I wish we could see what a potential Sockeyes identity would have looked like. We'll never know for sure, but I'm fairly certain I would have liked that one more...

[ManillaToad]

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

 

This is interesting. Found this story from 2011 on the Wild's website about how the organization selected the name and logos. I think we're all familiar with how Wild was among six finalist names submitted by fans: Freeze, Northern Lights, Blue Ox, White Bears, Voyageurs and Wild. In the passage below, Matt Majka -- now the team's president -- outlines what came next, including the initial introduction of a wordmark followed by a logo design process. I've highlighted a few passages I think offer some insight to what we've been discussing. 

 

 

Good grief they had Northern Lights AND Voyageurs as finalists and they still went with Wild??

[Survival79]

Wild shows its new colors

 

Quote

 

When Minnesota's NHL expansion franchise announced in January 1998 that it would be called the Wild, the obvious question was, "What's a 'Wild?'" The team's response: "Whatever you want it to be."

 

The Wild's home sweater, unveiled Thursday at the Roseville Skating Center, is dominated by the head of a beast that might be a bear. Or maybe it's a mountain lion? A wolf? A very angry gopher? Who really knows?

 

And again, that's precisely the point.

 

"It's a wild picture," chief executive officer Jac Sperling explained. "People will see what they want to see. It's intended to be a wild animal."

 

 

[gosioux76]

Quote

"People will see what they want to see. It's intended to be a wild animal."

 

So they're just one of those magic eye posters, essentially. 

[kimball]

41 minutes ago, ManillaToad said:

Good grief they had Northern Lights AND Voyageurs as finalists and they still went with Wild??

 

Northern Lights is dumb. It should have been Voyageurs. 

[CaliforniaGlowin]

I would have loved a colorful Northern Lights branding.

[Chromatic]

Northern Lights is awful and I suspect people only like it because its reminiscent of North Stars.

[charger77]

45 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

So they're just one of those magic eye posters, essentially. 

 

Sailboat, sailboat, God Damn Sailboat!

[SFGiants58]

Northmen, Norsemen, Voyageurs, and Geminis all work for me.

[CaliforniaGlowin]

I'd love Seattle's AHL team to be the Jellyfish to stick with the nautical theme.  Wouldn't work for Palm Springs though.

[tBBP]

On 8/5/2020 at 1:10 PM, gosioux76 said:

 

This is really interesting. I never really thought about it much over the years, but you could argue that the Minnesota Wild organization hasn't adequately defined the word "Wild" for itself. 

 

I agree with your description of the primary logo as a serene setting inside a bear silhouette. That implies "Wild" as an abbreviation of "wilderness." But the original team wordmark -- with its scraggly typography -- seems to evoke "Wild" as an adjective for unrestrained or violent. They've shifted away from this in recent years, of course, but the term "Wild" is still not clearly defined. 

 

 

Just move the team to Charleston, West Virginia then-- the nickname would fit perfectly there...

 

 

 

 

Hey, this is Bettman's NHL--anything's possible. 
 

 

[VancouverFan69]

6 hours ago, Survival79 said:

Wild shows its new colors

 

 

 

Bushleague organization. Had the NHL been run by hockey people instead of lawyers and non-hockey/sports people, the "Wild" would cease to exist today.

[sportsfan7]

12 minutes ago, VancouverFan69 said:

Bushleague organization. Had the NHL been run by hockey people instead of lawyers and non-hockey/sports people, the "Wild" would cease to exist today.

I think everyone in MN is a hockey person

[BBTV]

6 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

 

So they're just one of those magic eye posters, essentially. 

 

5 hours ago, charger77 said:

 

Sailboat, sailboat, God Damn Sailboat!

 

It's a f-ing schooner.

[TenaciousG]

17 hours ago, AustinFromBoston said:

I would love to see the other names they had considered for Seattle before settling on Kraken.   

As well as some of the early concepts designs. 

There’s a time capsule in the space needle that supposedly has the top 5 names... but it won’t be opened for 50 years. 
 

Likely: Kraken, Sockeyes, Steelheads. Possibly Totems, Metropolitans. I still don’t know why Thunderbirds wasn’t in stronger competition.

[Ridleylash]

1 minute ago, TenaciousG said:

I still don’t know why Thunderbirds wasn’t in stronger competition.

The WHL team, probably. Ownership must have wanted a unique brand to themselves instead of just yanking the T-Birds' identity and calling it a day.

[monkeypower]

5 minutes ago, TenaciousG said:

I still don’t know why Thunderbirds wasn’t in stronger competition.

 

 

See a lot of my posts in this thread as to why Thunderbirds wasn't in -ing stronger competition.