Team logos are one of the most beloved parts of any professional sports organization’s brand. Some sports logo designs span decades and are woven into the lore and nostalgia of the team’s history, along with being firmly planted in the hearts and minds of the fans. They’re a coat of arms, a battle flag that fans wave proudly. Old family photos with dad wearing his favorite Celtics hat or a sibling who’s typical school outfit for months at a time was their Hornets jersey remind us of a certain time or place, or just remind us of that person and how we still can’t picture them without a team logo on their head or chest.
So changing a team logo is an especially difficult challenge, one that seems to happen rarely these days in professional sports outside of expansion teams or a team making a big move to a new city. Even when a design change improves the organization’s visual identity, fans are often reluctant to accept any changes to their cherished team’s image.
Still, it’s fun to explore the possibilities of these beloved brands and what they could look like if the folks working in the team office ever decided that it was time for to refresh their visual identity.
We love our sports franchises and we love competition, and that’s the intersection where the Super Design Bowl operates, creating a platform for designers to go head-to-head and re-imagine what these logos might look like with a fresh perspective and some creative new ideas.
I had the opportunity to compete in the Super Design Bowl against another designer with the proposed challenge of taking on the New York Rangers hockey team logo. Some preliminary research into the team’s history (being a Devils fan my Rangers history is lacking) revealed that there wasn’t going to be an easy and obvious subject to lean on. The Rangers don’t have a mascot, and the team isn’t really even named after a “ranger” in the cowboy or rancher sense. So the approach I landed on was to redraw the iconic shield shape and build in some additional New York imagery in the form of elements of the Statue of Liberty.
Also taking some visual cues from a past Winter Classic team logo (a simplified shield with the letters NY inside), and wrapped in a deeper blue color palette, the results are below:
Special thanks to the people behind the Super Design Bowl, The Athletic Design Club, Billy Baumann, Joe Moore, Aaron Sechrist, and Trevor Botting.