Official Big Ten Logo/Divisions Reaction Thread.

Submitted by jatlasb on

(Ed-I fail at internets. The links go to the images supplied by the Michigan Football twitter account.)

http://ow.ly/i/6lS9

My thoughts:  Meh.

I liked the hidden 11 in the old logo, and hoped there would be one in this, but it's not terrible.

The second logo, a horizontal shortening, is awful and needs to be destroyed.

http://ow.ly/i/6lSt

Your thoughts?

Derek

December 13th, 2010 at 12:19 PM ^

That's awful. Both are. The color scheme is too close to UNC, and the type-face is too modern-ish for the Big Ten. We're a classic conference, whereas these look like a tame Oregon-conference design.

Blue-Chip

December 13th, 2010 at 12:19 PM ^

I posted it in another thread, but I'll put it here also since it's a dedicated thread.  I'm unimpressed.  Seems very bland.  It's like they waited to the last minute and told a designer "you have half an hour, just put something together."

mgowake

December 13th, 2010 at 12:19 PM ^

Look closely at the diagonal part of the N. It's discontinuous. I'm sure the intern they hired to make the logo could have done better with minimal inspection.

KSmooth

December 13th, 2010 at 12:20 PM ^

First impression?  Definitely meh.  Interesting thing about the second version -- it could easily be adapted for a league that wants to call itself "The Big Sixteen"

Hmmm...

MGoBrass

December 13th, 2010 at 12:22 PM ^

but, Legends and Leaders don't seem to be on the same level, power-wise (if you know what I mean.) Legends seem way more influencial than Leaders. Couldn't they have done something simple like "These 6 Teams" and "Those 6 Teams?"

Big fail, and the logos are terrible too.

True Blue in CO

December 13th, 2010 at 12:23 PM ^

Actually thought we would get something cool and innovative like the last logo but both the logo (Carolina Blue) and the division names are disappointing.  See too much input from the same folks who did the BTN graphics.  With geography out of play, the division names were going to be controversial regardless but Legends and Leaders seems too vanilla.  Back to work.

Don

December 13th, 2010 at 12:37 PM ^

It appears to be based on the typeface "Vitesse" from Hoefler & Frere-Jones with just a little bit of unimaginative twiddling with the "I" and the "G."

I hope they didn't pay a lot of $$ for it; if they did, they didn't get very much for their money.

The conference names are much lamer, IMHO. They have all the cachet of something dreampt up by Delaney's 14-year old niece at the dinner table.

rtyler

December 13th, 2010 at 1:58 PM ^

It looks like I'm not the only armchair typographer in the room.  As much vitriol as this logo is provoking, I can't seem to hate it.  It's not great -- when I found out the designer of the previous B10 logo had made other versions with hidden 12s I thought for sure they'd just dust off one of those.  This is a compromise on that idea -- you get to keep the "hidden" number (the 10 in Big) but go with something fresh and eschew focusing on the true number of teams, which from a branding perspective is moot. I wish they had unveiled some sort of icon-type logo that looks as good as the SEC logo put on officials, etc. 

Don

December 13th, 2010 at 2:07 PM ^

It's competent, but thoroughly unremarkable. It's just big, beefy slab-serif type which will adapt well to a wide variety of situational uses. Stolid, workmanlike, unspectacular, plodding, straightforward.

Just like the popular conception of the Big Ten in other parts of the country, in other words.

I'm a designer in my day job (when I'm not wasting time on MGoBlog, that is) so this stuff hits close to home professionally-speaking. The only thing I'll say on behalf of the designers at Pentagram is that it's possible they presented truly innovative and memorable design concepts which were rejected by the client. That's a normal part of the design biz.

UM4ME

December 13th, 2010 at 12:25 PM ^

OMG, everything is AWFUL!

Honestly, did some clown take all of 10 minutes to design those logos in MS Paint.
 

Actually, I shouldn't insult MS Paint like that.

Ugh!

formerlyanonymous

December 13th, 2010 at 12:28 PM ^

If there ever is a meme to replace the "Antonio Bass", I vote it's to never actually use the division names contrived today. We must, no, will, henceforth describe the divisions as Brian and Tim.

/kidding

Blue in Seattle

December 13th, 2010 at 1:20 PM ^

otherwise you can't have a championship game.

And now that Big Ten and Pac Ten will be having championship games, along with the SEC, ACC and Big East, allowing a 6 team playoff will be easy!

5 Champions and one wild card!

Although I'm sure there trying for 8 teams in the playoff.

Remember the thread bitching about all the bowl games in january.  well, how many bowl games do you need for a playoff of 8 teams?