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NHL’s New Seattle Kraken Announce Name & Logos


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2 minutes ago, darkpiranha said:

 

I think the "Release the Kraken" wasn't a starting point as so many people seem to want to insist.  Kraken has been a cool word and image for my entire life (I'm 50).  "Release the Kraken" was a fun thing that came along that just added to it.  The meme, surely though, came up when discussing branding and merch opportunities.  It's just built in.  It's fun to say.  In looking at the other branding directions they were considering, you see the discussion at the table.  "What is Seattle known for?"  "Water."  "Space Needle"  "Native American heritage"  "Fish"  "Trees.   "A don't forget the original Metropolitan hockey team."  That's day one.  Then you just start brainstorming words and phrases and imagery associated with those ideas.  "Kraken" is going to be one of the first things that comes up. "What's that giant squid called? A kraken? Man, that sounds wicked!"   It's just a no-brainer of a potential name.  It just evokes a whole line of imagery that doesn't exist in any of the four (or five) pro sports or even in colleges.  Or even in European sports.  Charlotte FC just debuted yet ANOTHER crown logo.  See how excited people are for that?  See how that rock-solid traditional, conservative sports image just fires up the world and makes them stand out?  

 

Does Kraken skirt on the edge of cheesy?  Sure.  But so would "Yankees" in 2020.  So would "Penguins".  It's going to all depend on what they do with Kraken from here on out.  "Release the Kraken" is not something I'll count against them because there's no way of avoiding the existence of that phrase or pretend people aren't going to say it.  So I'm okay with them leaning into it.  It's fun.  

 

(and I know you hate all the other Kraken concepts.  We'll just have to agree to disagree, lol)

I do not disagree that in a vacuum, the mythical Kraken, the giant squid, is objectively cool.  It is.  It's a big scary sea monster that eats boats or whatever.  I'm in, man.  There's a part of me that so much wants to love this name.

 

But in the end, whether the team started with Release the Kraken, or didn't, it's clear where it sits in their identity.  I don't think it matters if it started there, it matters that it's ending there...because it gives the illusion that's the root.  And I think if it wasn't the absolute foundation, it was among it.  It's why it did well in the voting, I'd guarantee it.  And the team recognizes it.  It's why their store is called...Release the Kraken.  It's why all their stuff says it on there.  It's why they said it, like, 10 times in the unvail.  It's why I can download a Desktop Wallpaper with it plastered on it.  Whether or not it is the seed reasoning, it's apart of their identity.  And whether they mean it or not...they do sound like they're just trying to be cool harder then needed to be.  So intentional or not, it adds a cringe factor in.

 

When you take all of that together...it has that same feel of an MiLB team picking something big and brash.  It feels like it's trying just...a modicum too hard for me...to capture something in pop culture.  And it feels less like a badass name at that point.  And more of...something...much less.

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Guest darkpiranha
1 minute ago, IceCap said:

If your point is just go BORING then I'm unsure what the point actually is.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a boring name and logo that uses an archaic spelling and they're a billion dollar sports brand. You don't need to be QUIRKY and EXCITING to have a solid identity.

 

My point about Charlotte FC was the opposite, lol.  I was being sarcastic about how excited people are for it. It's just a boring, safe, traditional logo that will get totally lost in the mix, and no one will discuss it because it's just a bland, invisible logo and identity.  Which I know some people LOVE and wish all logos could be that muted and non-threatening.  

 

And to bring up the Maple Leafs or Cleveland Browns or another other 100-year old sports identity doesn't hold any water because those identities are disconnected from the meanings of the words that make up those brands.  Those brands are billion-dollar brands because they've existed for 100 years and are cemented in the public's eyes (as long as they've been alive) as associated with that team.  Cognitive dissonance with "Maple Leafs should be Leaves", or "What is a Brown?" doesn't matter for those teams today.  If any of those names were introduced today, they would be laughed out of the room.  They resonate because it just always HAS resonated.  Coca-Cola is a dumb, meaningless name when you really look at the component words.  You'd never call it that today.  But it MEANS "that cola drink that everyone loves that has red and white as its color scheme" globally. 

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3 minutes ago, IceCap said:

If your point is just go BORING then I'm unsure what the point actually is.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a boring name and logo that uses an archaic spelling and they're a billion dollar sports brand. You don't need to be QUIRKY and EXCITING to have a solid identity.

 

You don't if you have enormous historical weight behind the name, no.

 

Comparing apples with apples means looking at other modern era expansion teams across major sports. Quirky and exciting names like Hornets and Raptors have resonated better over time than more traditional sounding sports team names like Panthers, Jaguars, Timberwolves and Grizzlies.

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1 minute ago, Dexter Morgan said:

These rules some of you have are so dopey . Like you can name a team after a real animal but not fictitious monster? Says who? And why... 

We're not at all against fictitious creatures as the basis for sports teams (at least, I'm not, and I have to assume I speak for at least a few of the other members here when I say that) but my problem with Kraken is it comes off as trying too hard. "Kraken", by nature of not ending with an "s" and being a giant mythical squid monster, becomes associated with "extreme", "edgy" and "cool" stuff, and when that's harnessed by a major league sports team, it becomes laughable and minor league. That's why I was so surprised to see the restraint Seattle exercised, they could've easily plastered a huge squid on their jersey and people would've loved it, but they built an incredibly solid identity around the mystery of the deep sea and not the Kraken itself.

the user formerly known as cdclt

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Just now, darkpiranha said:

My point about Charlotte FC was the opposite, lol.  I was being sarcastic about how excited people are for it. It's just a boring, safe, traditional logo that will get totally lost in the mix, and no one will discuss it because it's just a bland, invisible logo and identity.  Which I know some people LOVE and wish all logos could be that muted and non-threatening.  

No, that's my point. You're going on about how boring it is, and it really doesn't matter. People will care if they win.

 

1 minute ago, darkpiranha said:

If any of those names were introduced today, they would be laughed out of the room. 

You can't separate a team identity from context.
"That would never fly today!" is a meaningless critique because it attempts to view things outside of their context. Which is very hard, if not impossible, to do when everyone (including the person making the claim) is aware of said context.

 

2 minutes ago, El Scorcho said:

Comparing apples with apples means looking at other modern era expansion teams across major sports. Quirky and exciting names like Hornets and Raptors have resonated better over time than more traditional sounding sports team names like Panthers, Jaguars, Timberwolves and Grizzlies.

Hornets isn't quirky. Try again. Hell, they took the name from an old minor league baseball team! And they got from a British officer's quote about Revolutionary War-era Charlotte being a "hornet's nest." "Hornets" is as traditional as it gets for a North Carolina sports team name. The only name you've listed that's quirky is "Raptors," which was almost changed at once point and still has people calling for its removal today.

To say that the name "Raptors" has resonated more than any other team name you listed is, to be frank, an absurd assertion to make.

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1 minute ago, IceCap said:

No, that's my point. You're going on about how boring it is, and it really doesn't matter. People will care if they win.

 

You can't separate a team identity from context.
"That would never fly today!" is a meaningless critique because it attempts to view things outside of their context. Which is very hard, if not impossible, to do when everyone (including the person making the claim) is aware of said context.

 

Hornets isn't quirky. Try again. Hell, they took the name from an old minor league baseball team! And they got from a British officer's quote about Revolutionary War-era Charlotte being a "hornet's nest." "Hornets" is as traditional as it gets for a North Carolina sports team name. The only name you've listed that's quirky is "Raptors," which was almost changed at once point and still has people calling for its removal today.

To say that the name "Raptors" has resonated more than any other team name you listed is, to be frank, an absurd assertion to make.

Even more so when you remember that Charlotte, lost the Hornets, then, got a new team, named something completely different, then demanded a return of the Hornets.  

 

I'd argue the name that resonated the most is that.  By a damn mile.

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2 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Even more so when you remember that Charlotte, had the Hornets stolen, then, got a new team, named something completely different, then demanded a return of the Hornets.  

 

I'd argue the name that resonated the most is that.  By a damn mile.

FTFY

 

Well yeah, that's the point he's making, that the Hornets name resonated, but not because it was "quirky", but because it was locally appropriate and had been in use for literal decades (the first known use of "Hornets" as a nickname for a Charlotte baseball club was in 1892). That's why it resonated, not because it was some quirky new thing but because it was the literal opposite of that.

the user formerly known as cdclt

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Just now, QCS said:

FTFY

 

Well yeah, that's the point he's making, that the Hornets name resonated, but not because it was "quirky", but because it was locally appropriate and had been in use for literal decades (the first known use of "Hornets" as a nickname for a Charlotte baseball club was in 1892). That's why it resonated, not because it was some quirky new thing but because it was the literal opposite of that.

Oh I was expanding on it.  Not disagreeing!  Definitely on the side of "it resonated because it was appropriate".

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2 minutes ago, IceCap said:

No, that's my point. You're going on about how boring it is, and it really doesn't matter. People will care if they win.

 

And that's MY point.  No matter how boring, or historically-inaccurate, or dumb, or cheesy, or meme-y, all of the over-dramatic hand-wringing will fade away if the team wins, and as it settles into the public consciousness.  I thought "Golden Knights" was a notch too much of a name, but a couple of years later, I don't even think about the component parts of the name or identity.  Golden Knights = "that team with a cool logo and color scheme and that went to the Cup in its first season and got robbed in its second season and is a threat to win in its third season."  Right now, Kraken is cool and fun and moody and unique among sports.  The logo could have been cheesy, but it's slick and elegant and evocative.  So as far as I'm concerned, the whole thing starts on relatively solid ground with nowhere to go but even higher.  And if the team wins like Vegas did?  It's going to be a fun ride!

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Just now, 1908_Cubs said:

Oh I was expanding on it.  Not disagreeing!  Definitely on the side of "it resonated because it was appropriate".

Ah, I'm sorry! I misunderstood your post.

the user formerly known as cdclt

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Just now, QCS said:

Ah, I'm sorry! I misunderstood your post.

I live in a world of middle schoolers who look at me like I speak Japanese when I say "did you turn your homework in?"  This does not offend me in the slightest.  

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7 minutes ago, darkpiranha said:

No matter how boring, or historically-inaccurate, or dumb, or cheesy, or meme-y,

Look dude. I'm not sure what you're getting at, or what you're trying to convince me of, but as I said here...

 

I GET IT.

The problem is that medieval Norse history and mythology was something I spent a lot of time studying and writing about in school. I don't like the depiction of the kraken as a giant squid because I, as a consequence of what I studied, know that's not accurate to the myth's origins. I don't expect the team to cater to people like me in this regard, but that doesn't mean I have to be ok with it either. It's just something that I'm never going to fully appreciate as a consequence of my academic and professional careers.

 

So your attempt to get me to appreciate it BECAUSE FUN AND EXCITING AND QUIRKY AND UNIQUE is really a case of you barking up the wrong tree. We just agree to disagree.

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So I've now gotten caught up on things and...

 

- Its apparent to me that some of y'all need to live life just a little while longer and you'll come to find that there are just some things that really ain't worth the emotional energy or investment to get worked up about--such as whether team names should end in "s" or not. Shoot, just peel back and enjoy the ride--you'll experience much more joy that way. (And I say this at the ripe ol' age of 38.)

 

- I always wondered whether we'd see a sports identity based around a squid, and now here we are. Wouldn't surprise me to see folk (& I'll probably be the first, starting right now) nickname-reference the Kraken in shorthand as the "Squids". Why not?

 

- I'm not paying $300-something for no clothes, anywhere--but if I had the dispensable funds, I'd cop one of those navy sweaters pronto. If the hats come with the seafoam-color brims, I may just have to snag one...and speaking of that...

 

- I love everything about this. As said, I'm not from Seattle (but I've been there twice), nor the Pacific northwest (though I go out there often), and until the Seattle NHL rumor mill started up two years back (?), I'd never even heard of a kraken. (I've also never seen Pirates of the Caribbean OR Clash of the Titans, so there.) That said, I have no real dog in that fight--and no one out that way cares what some random trucker dude out in the toenail of South Dakota has to say about it anyway😁--but I'm fine with the nickname. That visual identity, though...WOWZA. That is instantly one of the top brands in North American pro sports, from a uniqueness perspective. Who'd have though modified blackletter would've been the way the Seattle expansion team would go? (I see the connection to Seagram's gin, though--somebody got creative with that inspiration for sure.) I bet my boy Harry got down on those numbers...and I'm sure the other Andy had a steady hand to play in this too (you know who you are).  I do like how the dark navy allows the more distinctive seafoam blues to "pop" (and let that be a lesson in color theory to you aspiring designers, as the Tennessee Titans employed this same approach before Nike convinced them to cosplay as...whatever the heck they are now, but anyway: a darker, more neutral base can be preferable for letting more unique colors shine.) 

 

I really can't find anything about this I don't like, so...9.8/10.

*Disclaimer: I am not an authoritative expert on stuff...I just do a lot of reading and research and keep in close connect with a bunch of people who are authoritative experts on stuff. 😁

|| dribbble || Behance ||

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2 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Other way around, the Bears were trying to be a more intimidating version of the Cubs because they moved into Wrigley Field.


He said if Cubs were to become a team today

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