Welcome To The Successories Conference Comment Count

Brian

leadership

aaargh unnecessary comma

When Twitter blew up at noon I figured something inane involving Jim Delany had just happened—this is my default assumption whenever Twitter blows up and has always been right, even when Michael Jackson died—and good lord, inane doesn't even begin to cover it. You know this by now but to remind you that the people in charge of marketing the Big Ten are either very stupid or think you are very stupid, the Big Ten Divisions are called "Legends" and "Leaders."

So. A group of people responsible for turning the Big Ten Network into a spigot of filthy lucre so gushing it can afford to employ Chris Martin is also responsible for making the Big Ten the Successories Conference. They've created division names that signify nothing about the teams inside of them—the only way I can remember that Michigan is in the "Legends" division is that "Leaders" is part of the friggin' fight song and we're not in that division. Their inane names don't just start with the same letter, they start with the same two letters. They are unusable.

And they've done this with 15 minutes in photoshop:

big-ten-logo

Note the use of negative space. Also note how stupid it looks.

By comparison, the new Pac-10 logo would look badass on any soccer shirt in the world:

pac-10

How can the same group of people responsible for creating the BTN be responsible for this? Obviously the visionary bits of the BTN arrangement come from Fox, with Delany and company the lucky nomads who parked their camels in the right bit of desert and now get to call themselves an emirate.

Policy

These division names do not exist. I'm not using them. Michigan is in the West. Ohio State is in the East. Wisconsin has to deal. It is immediately obvious which teams are in the West—the ones mostly in the west. Michigan can be Champions of the West, and no one has to think about how leadership is more about character than authority.

Can we make this a blogosphere-wide insurrection? Please? Everyone just use "East" and "West."

Remember when you'd go in your room and imagine that instead of a broken down tricycle you had a flying unicorn that could take you away from mommy and daddy's screaming? Yeah, this will be like that.

BONUS: someone on the twitters said "I'm pretty sure an ordinary @MGoBlog thread could have produced better logo options," which is true. So do it either in the comments or by email and I'll pull up the best five and we can vote on the Unofficial Big Ten Logo; I hope I can work out a deal with the winner so we can offer it to the conference for free, if only to shame them.

Comments

markusr2007

December 13th, 2010 at 1:56 PM ^

L's

"Somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me, I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. Well she was lookin' kinda dumb with her finger in her thumb and the shape of an "L" on her forehead......"

bigmc6000

December 13th, 2010 at 2:00 PM ^

Come on, you know that's not true. I re-created that logo in freakin' PowerPoint in 3 mins - most of which was spent just trying to get the font type and color exactly right. Seriously, 3 mins in a program that isn't even meant for something like that...

I Miss Bursley

December 13th, 2010 at 4:25 PM ^

from the pentagram website, "the conference is comprised of schools located mainly in the Midwest and includes world-class academic institutions such as Ohio State, Michigan State, Penn State, Purdue, Northwestern, and University of Wisconsin–Madison."

In a list of world-class academic institutions in the Big 10, Michigan did not make the top 6.

Michichick

December 14th, 2010 at 1:42 PM ^

Note also from the Pentagram website that the logo designers are a Wisconsin grad and the husband of an Ohio State alum. They are 2 of only a couple of Americans on the entire Pentagram staff, with one Harvard degree holder. The rest are Europeans and an Argentinian.  My guess is the Badger and the Buckeye spouse wrote the copy and deliberately omitted Michigan.

Jealous much?

BlueintheLou

December 13th, 2010 at 2:02 PM ^

I vaguely recall a threa like that already existing. It contained many excellent suggestions for the logo, especially compared to this goat turd. Anyone able to locate it? I have been unsuccessful to date, as I have been looking for it since this abomination surfaced.

rtyler

December 13th, 2010 at 2:38 PM ^

I don't know.  That looks pretty complicated for most uses.  And although we're all in knee-jerk reaction mode due to the stupid division names and everything, I honestly haven't seen a better mockup of a proposed logo, anywhere.  All the designs I have seen have been jokes or an attempt to shoe-horn a 12 into the pre-existing negative space logo. The new Big Ten logo will take some getting used to but I think over time people will come to accept and appreciate it.  It is simple, useful, will display well on paper, wall, screen, or fabric.  It might not be as clever as the previous Big Ten logo but that logo was dated and needed updating. Give it time.

betheballdanny

December 13th, 2010 at 2:07 PM ^

I had an awesome Big 10 logo that took me one minute to make in ms paint.  After 3 minutes of figuring out how to post it here, I gave up.  So here is the ascii version:

BIG * 6/5

TEN

Vasav

December 13th, 2010 at 2:08 PM ^

May be the worst branding by any group of people who talked so much about "brand management." The font is boring. There is nothing remarkable about the logo at all - save an "I" replace by a "1" and a "G" that fails in trying to look like a zero. It's as stuffy and boring as the stigma that the conference is trying to shake. What a steaming piss of fail.

bigmc6000

December 13th, 2010 at 2:12 PM ^

Ok DB, you wanted us to buy your story that you single handedly kept UM-OSU as the last game of the year (well, maybe with a little help from the tOSU AD) we're giving you a chance to live up to that pimp hand you're carrying around. Squash this - NOW. Maybe it's another intentionally retarded leak just to scare people into thinking the worst and then they'll give us something that's "meh" instead of "put a fork in my eye please." But, please, for the love of the fans kill this...

 

I still don't get why they said they never considered hiding a 12 in there - it's not like they haven't done EXACTLY that with the current logo...

bigmc6000

December 13th, 2010 at 2:16 PM ^

In response to the naming of the Big 10 divisions the SEC had to make sure they point out their superiority and they are going to be renaming their divisions "Best" and "Bestest" - those in the "Bestest" division will be the 6 schools that rank lowest in the US News & WR rankings...

Soulfire21

December 13th, 2010 at 2:16 PM ^

Than Legends and Leaders.

Also, give it to the Big Ten to keep the team that are the "Leaders and best" out of the leaders conference.

Soon we'll be talking about the leader of legends divisions, the leader of the leaders division, and how we still don't see the "12" hidden in the logo.

As an aside, I do like the shorthand version, the simple B1G (kind of cool), but the full on version isn't even worthy of a meh.

Section 1

December 13th, 2010 at 2:41 PM ^

The historical references to Michigan as "Champions of the West," the old reference to the teams including, significantly, Michigan, Northwestern and Minnesota, as being part of the Western Conference.  (Purdue, Wisconsin, Illinois and Chicago were the others).

I would've bet money that "East and West" would have been the default option, after all was said and done and a conference room filled with 12 assistant AD's and their assistant-assistants had finished laughing at an idea like "Legends and Leaders."