Minor/Independent/Collegiate League Baseball Logo/Uniform Changes

[PackerFan98]

I wouldn't consider this a swinging motion, it's like he's resting the bat on his shoulder.

[TheRicSlick]

My favorite logo from the new set:

[hailstateunis]

My favorite logo from the new set:

Agreed. That'll probably be the cap I get if I make it to a game this summer.

[Gothamite]

Interesting shout-out to the Brewers' script in that "B".

[Blackjack76]

And on the South Bend Cubs' front:

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20141125&content_id=102408840&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_t550&sid=t550

Looks VERY promising....

[oaklandhusker]

^ The Shuckers, love the name, are the Brewers minor league team. They only do that for the Pardes.

Not true. I think the 66ers are an Angels affiliate.

[Burmy]

And on the South Bend Cubs' front:

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20141125&content_id=102408840&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_t550&sid=t550

Looks VERY promising....

I still miss the Silver Hawks...hopefully they can launch an identity to make them at least not feel so bad about it.

[B-Rich]

Re: "Biloxi Shuckers"

Extremely disappointing. The name itself was possibly the weakest of the finalists, yet it was selected. The locals do NOT seem to be happy with it, going by the ratio of negative to positive responses over the internet (local paper, Facebook page, etc.). Displeasure seems to be with the name itself, the fact that the initials on one of the caps spell "B.S." (which can, of course, have its own meaning), and the fact that "shuckers" rhymes with at least two different sexual connotations. There have even been several posts dissing the color scheme, saying it should have featured "Biloxi" Red (local high school color) as opposed to the "Gulfport" or "Ocean Springs" blue.

But I'm mostly disappointed in the relationship of the name to the logo. A "Shucker" is a person, one who shucks oysters. It is not an oyster, as featured on the logo. Using the oyster, it would have been more appropriate to call the team the "Shuckees", or the "Shucked". But to use an actual shucker would be pretty boring-- an early 20th century Slavic immigrant or Cajun relocatee (most likely a woman), sitting on a stool in a factory shucking oyster after oyster assembly line-style. If they did that, then Brandiose couldn't have had yet another cutesy logo, adding big eyes to a thing that has none, and creating a cartoon anthropomorphic creature. And the shell doesn't even look like an oyster shell; it looks like a clam.

Any of the other names would have been better, and made for a better design set: Schooners, Mullets, Black Jacks, Shrimpers, even Beacons would have been better. Having been born in Biloxi and still having family there, I was looking forward to buying and proudly wearing some merch, but I doubt I will now.

The Biloxi Lighthouse logo-- probably left over from the "Beacons" logo brainstorming sessions-- is also MY favorite item. However, it has a major problem: the fact that there are waves up near the top of the lighthouse. It brings to mind too may negative connotations of storm surge and flooding a la Hurricanes Camille and Katrina. Makes it look like that's the top of the Biloxi Light House during the worst part of the storm.

[rams80]

Since the Alamo isn't a tall building, the slant doesn't really bother me as much as it would if it were a skyscraper.

So buildings can be skewed at 15-degree angles that they're not actually at as long as they aren't tall? MOD EDIT It makes no sense whatsoever. What are they doing, trying to show that there's something progressive and "forward-facing" about a historic building? There's one historic building I can think of that should be drawn so that it's leaning, and it's not because it's progressive.

Hey, my running shoes look like the ones the guy in the home uniform is wearing.

It's an identity for a baseball team. Baseball is a sport. Sports like baseball are about action. Italicizing things connotes action. Of course, the Alamo itself, unlike the historic building you referenced (we assume you are talking about a certain structure in Pisa), does not lean, but sometimes creative individuals use this thing called "artistic license," a hypothetical certificate of sorts that entitles the holder to not necessarily have to be literal in their depictions. I cannot argue with most of the flaws that the Creamer community has already pointed out about this particular identity, but I do not agree that the building being rendered in an italicized fashion is worthy of scorn.

I want to know what school gave you your graphic design/generic art degree so I can make it my mission in life to cost them their accreditation.

Some people are too busy keyboard mashing their way up to 20,000+ posts that they lost the ability to express their opinions with any tact. Again, ideally if you're rendering a building, of course you wouldn't slant it. Vertical structures like the Washington Monument or Empire State Building would appear to be falling. So at least with this logo, it's horizontal enough that it doesn't look like it's falling. It's not ideal but it's no big deal, right? (That question is rhetorical so no need to answer it to those unable to control the urge to accumulate another 20,000 posts.)

There has to be a better, less condescending way for you to express yourself.

I couldn't agree more, but at the same time I'll meet condescension with condescension. I stop by occasionally to check out and casually discuss the latest design releases, not to get confronted by an overly zealous, confrontational, thread-derailing troll.

Anyway, it seems he has gotten back on topic so let's do the same.

OK, you want a little more in depth discussion fine.

The problem with the San Antonio package is the same problem you see with everything else Brandiose churns out: a creatively sterile design package that fits their brand template and looks cutesy. There's no innovation here. No application of art. No playing with the medium. It's just ramming the same boring square peg into the damn hole, shape of the hole be damned! Honestly, it's not worth the discussion. Except that maybe they should be called out for playing games with lineage or pretending the 2014 Missions have any relationship with the 1888 San Antonio Gentlemen besides both organizations playing baseball in the city.

Now as to the original post that set me off, it's basically the problem with modern logo design in a nutshell. Every single flippin' element of a logo or a logo package has to MEAN SOMETHING. "It just looks good" doesn't work. It has to symbolize "action" or the designer's passion or that once ago the community had to recover from a catastrophic distillery fire or how the artist wouldn't know a pink snow bunny if it came up and bit him on the ass. Of course nowadays, this need for symbolism has grown into a tumor, so we have people concocting bizarre symbolism or rewriting history to justify bad design choices. So when you say "they angled the building to show action, because action means this..." well, that's a blatant example of the problem in modern design. Speaking as someone who's spent roughly the last decade of their life hanging around the liberal arts part of higher education, it's also a fine example of the vapid navel-gazing bull you get out of lower tier programs that are overwrought with their own self-importance. And it should be called out as such.

[jaha32]

I find it somewhat irking as well when every aspect of a logo needs to be explained or have some reasoning behind it. If it looks good, that's reason enough for me. I didn't say anything about slant symbolizing action. When I saw "Since1888" in there, I wondered if they actually expect anyone to believe that. All that being said, when I see this, and I'm strictly referring to the primary logo, it looks like a baseball logo and doesn't contain a flying squirrel, a rubber duck, or an iron pig. So in that sense, it is a breath of fresh air to me.

[Burmy]

http://www.milb.com/documents/2/6/2/102504262/Daytona_Baseball_Unveiling_at_The_Jack_snmgn33a.pdf

Sounds like a lot of hoopla for what we all know will end up being the "Daytona Reds."

[Blackjack76]

http://www.milb.com/documents/2/6/2/102504262/Daytona_Baseball_Unveiling_at_The_Jack_snmgn33a.pdf

Sounds like a lot of hoopla for what we all know will end up being the "Daytona Reds."

The operative words in that release are "Studio" and "Simon."

[Lee.]

Yeah, if I'm a minor league team owner, I don't even let Brandiose in the office. Simon or Bosack are the first calls I make.

[TheFloridianLogoMan]

http://www.milb.com/documents/2/6/2/102504262/Daytona_Baseball_Unveiling_at_The_Jack_snmgn33a.pdf

Sounds like a lot of hoopla for what we all know will end up being the "Daytona Reds."

I'd bet you my last dollar it won't be "Daytona Reds"

Anyway, I will be at the unveiling in person next Thursday.

[TheFloridianLogoMan]

Yeah, if I'm a minor league team owner, I don't even let Brandiose in the office. Simon or Bosack are the first calls I make.

I'm not dissing Brandiose (everyone knows I'd give anything to be in his spot).......but why is it that we don't hear as much good about Studio Simon as we hear bad about Brandiose? When was the last time Studio Simon did a Minor League team? I can't remember.

[-kj]

Remember when we all seemed to be ape- about Brandiose/Plan B? It's funny that as soon as a small studio has success we turn on them.

[Brian in Boston]

When was the last time Studio Simon did a Minor League team? I can't remember.

Studio Simon's most recent work on behalf of a minor-league client was unveiled last month. They designed the new logo package for the Tennessee Smokies.

[eRay]

Someone should be defending Casey and Jason the same way people defend Nike or adidas. The redundancy is not entirely their fault. Sure, it seems formulaic to see each minor league team release an identity with an ornate custom wordmark, a batting mascot logo, and a tertiary logo that is based off something off the beaten path. But if they walk into Team A's office and the ownership group says they want those things, their job is to make the customer happy while also producing work they can stand behind. If an owner knows that the Montgomery Biscuits made a ton of money off their logo being popular, they will want something similar (Modesto Nuts, Biloxi Shuckers, etc.) so that they can make that money too. If Brandiose doesn't want to deliver that, they know Simon or some up-and-coming design firm will.

[The_Admiral]

Someone should be defending Casey and Jason the same way people defend Nike or adidas. The redundancy is not entirely their fault. Sure, it seems formulaic to see each minor league team release an identity with an ornate custom wordmark, a batting mascot logo, and a tertiary logo that is based off something off the beaten path.

It's not just the formula, which all their designs do follow, it's that they're so obviously done by the same people. Same text treatments, same line weights, it's like it comes off an assembly line. I'm not going to defend "Casey and Jason" for a string of perfunctory crap. Maybe because I'm not on a first-name basis with them.

[Brian in Boston]

Remember when we all seemed to be ape- about Brandiose/Plan B? It's funny that as soon as a small studio has success we turn on them.

Plan B / Brandiose has done some great work over the years. When they have, I feel that it's been praised in this community. That said, as much as I've absolutely loved some of their work, I personally feel that their hit-to-miss ratio has been on a decline.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I prefer a lot of Jason and Casey's earlier work on behalf of clients such as the Clearwater Threshers, Lakeland Flying Tigers, and Spokane Indians. Their more recent efforts seem to lack the focus and cohesiveness evident in those identity packages. For the past couple of years the guys have shown a propensity for throwing "eveything but the kitchen sink" into their logo packages. Rather than paring a branding package down to its simple, less-is-more essentials, they seem hellbent on marrying disparate themes and elements together... with the result being unwieldy, overdone clunkers.

Case in point: the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders identity package that Brandiose was responsible for creating. Apparently, the RailRiders and Porcupines names both received a lot of support in the team's "Name The Team" contest. I can understand the desire to somehow try to reflect that in the identity package. That said, sometimes a losing idea/identity just has to be consigned to the ashcan. By trying to marry a pair of disparate elements in the RailRiders logo package - the region's rich rail heritage (particularly, the electrified rail system on which the nation's first trolley system ran) AND a porcupine - Brandiose failed to give either element the focus it deserved. The rails are so subdued in the logo as to almost be an afterthought. This being the case, they're easy to overlook, which throws the focus for a team named the RailRiders onto a porcupine. If Casey, Jason and/or the client felt that it was absolutely necessary to marry the trolley-rail and porcupine themes, they'd have been better served to use one of the alternate logos from this package - a porcupine garbed as a train/trolley conductor - as the primary mark. Otherwise, they should have simply chosen either the RailRiders name or the Porcupines sobriquet and illustrated said brand accordingly.

Similarly, Brandiose's identity package for the Lexington Legends was stuffed to bursting with ideas the guys seemingly just couldn't bear to part with. An old-time ballplayer sporting a moustache that is practically a character unto itself shares space with a horseshoe AND the abbreviated placename "LEX" AND a stylized "L" depicted as a paddock fence. Simply because you CAN fit the multiple elements into the logo doesn't mean you SHOULD put them in the logo.

Bottom line? Less is often more when it comes to creating a successful identity package. Brandiose seems to have gotten away from that and, to my mind, it has been having a detrimental effect on their output for the past couple of years. Still, what do I know? Their clients clearly love the work that they're doing.

In any event, I didn't "turn on them" because they became successful. Rather, I just believe that a lot of their more recent work would benefit from a paring down of the number of component elements.