Six Zero's Official Response to the Big Ten Logo and all of the Resulting Fallout
Alright... I've read enough of these posts and responses about the Big Ten logo and I was actually writing all of this as a response to the "Reconsider Division Names" thread when I finally decided to bump it into its own post. I'm not trying to come off as some logo elitist, a creative snoot or some kind of uppity know-it-all. It's just that there's several enormous parts of the iceberg regarding the creative process, decision-making, and ultimate implemenation of a big-time corporate logo that many of you aren't aware of, and so I'm trying to enlighten some people.
Personally, I'll own up and give you my own opinion of the official Big Ten logo at the end of this post.
In the meantime, it's no secret that most of the blog hates and loathes this thing like it came from Columbus. And that's awesome-- everyone has the right to respond to it however they'd like. BUT what's bothering me is that everyone, including Brian, is suggesting that we just have a contest and the people will fix what the king's court could not. And, my whole plumbing analogy notwithstanding, some of you are even suggesting that the Big Ten will save so much money by not having to hire some snooty art company type thing.
I couldn't disagree with you more. They'd still have to spend almost the same amount of money to get a design firm to adapt a 'contest winner' into a working branding concept and final production suite. Multi-venue solutions (line art, grayscale, full color, spot color), vector and raster images, RGB vs. CMYK files-- all of these things need to be prepared so that the logo can successfully depart for file management and implementation.
Let's say that Jim Delany saw the shield logo on our blog -- TScherne or Block M or whoever did it-- and decided that was the one he was going to run with. What would really happen? Chances are they'd write a little check and have the designer sign off ownership of the design about twenty times. THEN they'd go back to Pentagram or another design firm, and they'd essentially recreate it in vector format, tweaking it slightly to maximize production and reproduction. Then they'd create countless format options for the logo, some for web, some for print, some for line art solutions like one-color tees, etc. etc. And the work doesn't end there.
Perhaps very few of you realize that the design firm is also responsible for the production and publication of a proper creative brief, design manual, or reproduction requirement publication. Basically it's a manual that follows the logo wherever it goes throughout its shelf life, telling every prepress artist or web developer how it should, and more importantly, how it cannot be used. For example, the UM sports department probably issued a new brief last year telling everyone NOT to use the block M with 'MICHIGAN' through the middle, and not to use the one with the blue stroke, and instead use only the single color block M. It might also say you cannot add to the mark, rotate the mark, use different typography for the mark, etc etc. All of this has to be prepared, developed, and considered so that no handling or manipulation of the logo is open to interpretation. Many of these documents are small, but several can be up to 40-50 pages. I've worked with Bucknell's and few others, and have seen countless more. It's a very legitimate and binding document.
In other words, you just don't draw up a logo and send it in. Even if it's a contest winner, you're not saving any money, and chances are you're only setting yourself up for future complications. Let the experts do their job, man.
NOW, if you hate the logo, that's another thing-- but ultimately Delany and the Big Ten are responsible for choosing and approving that solution, not the design company. I'd bet Pentagram created at least a dozen other solutions that Delany and company passed over. This is not something that was just whipped up on a napkin, my friends.
If you think the design firm could have done better, chances are they did. It just wasn't chosen.
Personally....
I don't think it's that bad. Seriously.
But I also think it's no home run. Yes, the Pac10's logo is so much sweeter. The new logo is to the point, the typography is relatively clean and is also current without being too trendy. I also think the whole B10 shortened mark could probably catch on, if it's handled the right way. Still, they could've done a much better job in promoting the personality and character of what we consider GGRRRRR BIG TEN FOOTBALL by choosing the right typeface. Typefaces are like voices-- they can all say the same words and yet the meanings can become completely different.
What I really dislike is the color. That icy blue doesn't have enough contrast to really pop off a white background, and on a black background it'll probably be unappealing in a Carolina Panthers kinda way. I also don't like how they did the whole black "B" with the blue "10" concept-- looks very bleh, and too NFL on FOX. I'd have probably done something that combines current with tradition, but that may not have been what the Big Ten as an organization asked for. We'll never know what the customer requested prior to design.
As far as contests and my uppity opinions, etc., someone has already asked me 'hey why don't you whip something up?' I will not. And I'm not ripping on anyone who had the scrotum to work something up and post it here on mgoblog-- more power to all of you and I'm certainly willing to recognize some strong efforts. If someone were to commission me to create a logo then perhaps I might-- but technically none of you have the right to hire me to create a Big Ten logo-- that would be a conflict of ownership with the Big Ten. So yes, I have some ideas, but until the miraculous day that I get a call from Jim Delany asking me to knock something out, I'm going to keep my concepts to myself.
Go Blue and Merry Christmas everybody.
December 17th, 2010 at 11:57 PM ^
All due respect to Six-Zero, of which I have much, but I simply don't care how hard it is to come up with a good logo. Patients don't care how hard it is to do a surgery correctly, and car buyers don't care how hard it is to make a car go...just do it.
I do appreciate that fact that this is probably not the only design Pentagram came up with and I put the blame for the disappointment squarely where it belongs-the same mind that brought us 'Leaders Division' and 'Legends Division'- Jim Delany.
Having said that, as a layman, I find no redeeming qualities in this logo. At all. It's quite like the Pontiac Aztek. There were some really good qualities to that vehicle--JD Power studies ranked it very high in everything except styling--but it was hideous. After that, nothing else mattered, no one bought it. It was a failure.
I wont be surprised if the Big Ten rebrands in much less than 20 years...
December 17th, 2010 at 1:20 PM ^
One tends to forget about everybody on the client side having to put their fingerprints on the creative as well. Good post.
My first thought on seeing the colors of the logo was, "No wonder Delaney likes them, they're North Carolina's colors."
My second thought was that he'd somehow gone mad and wanted to reflect his admiration for the Detroit Lions' branding and color scheme.
December 17th, 2010 at 1:28 PM ^
clouding the issue with relevant facts. Such clear insights and background information do nothing but sully the clarity of my initial glimpse of the situation. A glimpse of any given situation provides more than enough information for me to develop and broadcast an opinion that will be rife with indignation and replete with swear words. What a buzzkill.
December 17th, 2010 at 1:38 PM ^
people who say the logo is overpriced (how would you even know that?) or ugly or dumb or whatever are the same people who said in 2008 that "this is michigan, we have to beat toledo!" no matter what the actual facts would tell you. or in 2009 said "we are michigan, our defense has to rule!" no matter what really happened.
this logo is 100 times better than any of the alternates i have seen and the office that did it is one of the best in the business so i trust that over the next few years as it is implemented it will be successful.
December 17th, 2010 at 1:52 PM ^
Without disputing your other assertions, I want to simply add that being the best in a line of business doesn't mean sh-t when it comes to the end result's effect on the public at large. Case in point: OJ's defense lawyers. They were/are some of the best defense lawyers in the country and arguably performed at an extremely high level from a legal standpoint but the end result of their efforts made a mockery of the justice system from a popular opinion standpoint.
December 17th, 2010 at 2:03 PM ^
... are you saying that we shouldn't expect to either beat Toledo or like the new logo? I get that Michigan fans are obnoxious and arrogant and generally expect to beat teams like Toledo and have attractive logos, but you're telling me that's wrong, That's a real downer.
December 17th, 2010 at 2:54 PM ^
many times people simplify things they don't understand or like. for instance, RR lost to toledo and the defense stinks when anyone who understands the indepth circumstances is more patient and has the attitude of "i wish it were better, but i understand this is a complex change and i will defer to those who make these decisions as it is their job to make these decisions, not mine."
December 17th, 2010 at 6:01 PM ^
And this, too, is quite an oversimplication. You seem to be reducing our defensive problems to one issue (youth), while imploring us to should put our trust in a man who has screwed up two DC hires in three years. (Well, actually the Shafer hire would have probably been fine, if RR would have let him actually coach.)
December 18th, 2010 at 7:53 PM ^
It sounds like you're telling me that if I don't care for their logo, I have "oversimplified" some issue of which I lack understanding.
Dude, I just don't like it. I don't like spinach either. You could sit me down with a botanist and a nutitionist and have them explain all kinds of complexities about spinach, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up my "oversimplified" opinion and start gobbling that stuff like Popeye.
December 19th, 2010 at 1:34 AM ^
as an indirect criticism of RichRod supporters
I doubt he really cares about the logo
December 17th, 2010 at 2:27 PM ^
God....fine, whatever. You're right and I'm wrong. Logic and knowledge blows.
December 17th, 2010 at 2:28 PM ^
I was hoping for a Six Zero-designed logo.
December 17th, 2010 at 2:33 PM ^
As a lowly young graphic designer trying to work my way up to being a brand manager somewhere or another I would like to thank you for expressing the side of the entire process that most people never seem to realize.
I have lectured enough clients on the importance of having a professional logo that stands up at different sizes with limited colors as well as black and white to realize the uselessness of trying to get involved in a discussion like this.
Personally I totally agree that there is nothing wrong with this logo, and the only thing that I don't understand about it is that color blue they used. Which puzzles me becauses I'm almost sure the blue they use to use was a much darker bolder color, as this shade seems to just kind blend in with everything else.
December 19th, 2010 at 1:39 AM ^
the only thing that I don't understand about it is that color blue they used. Which puzzles me becauses I'm almost sure the blue they use to use was a much darker bolder color, as this shade seems to just kind blend in with everything else.So you don't really like it either? But you seem to be so caught up in the minutia that you can't bring yourself to say it sucks. THe Big Ten-Ten logo is awful.
December 17th, 2010 at 2:50 PM ^
I appreciate the insight for people that aren't aware, very informative.
I think you've focused on too small a portion of the idea -- saving the big ten money. The more important idea, i think, is that creativity isn't exclusively the domain of professionals or people knowledgeable about the process. If someone came up with a very cool concept, yes it would need to be pretty much created from scratch to be used, but the inspiration is extremely valuable.
From MonuMental's wallpapers to the lloyd brady photoshops, this board has shown tremendous creativity and I think a logo contest is a great idea.
December 17th, 2010 at 2:53 PM ^
Hey SixZero, thank you for the informative post and the insight. Question for you or anyone else really (and this has probably been asked in one or more of the 27 other threads about this, so I apologize): Was Pentagram responsible for the logo design only, or would they have also had a say in the division names? Or were the division names at the sole discretion of the Big Ten?
December 17th, 2010 at 4:02 PM ^
on the general topic of the "Big Ten's new logo and division names."
It's columnist Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune, writing in his personal "Rosenblog," attached to the Tribune.com web pages. Rosenbloom is, if I am not mistaken, the son of the (infamous?) Carroll Rosenbloom, the now-deceased former owner of the Rams and Colts at various times. Rosenbloom is an assertively vocal USC alumnus.
So he writes a moderately clever blog-post, detailing his ridicule of the new division- and trophy-names. Which was pretty much like everybody else's ridicule of the same things.
Until Rosenbloom got to the end of his post. Where, out of basically nowhere, he ends his thoughts about the foibles of the Big Ten Conference administrators and logo-consutlants with an attack on... who else, but Rich Rodriguez !?!
That's right. I am not kidding. Out of nowhere. With no warning and, naturally, without the slightest justification or rationalization.
These are the last two paragraphs of the "Rosenblog" entry. I'm quoting the last two paragraphs, because otherwise, you'd never believe the completely mindless lack of context for this:
But the real point is the divisions don’t matter. The conference does. Computer ratings and coaches’ rankings aren’t based on the Big Ten-Eleven-Twelve Legends division or the SEC East -- they’re based on the Big Ten-Eleven-Twelve and SEC, period. The conference matters, not the divisions.
There was no need to open the conference to more ridicule. There will be enough of that with RichRod at Michigan.
Please do feel free to make you feelings known to Steve Rosenbloom at the Chicago Tribune.
December 17th, 2010 at 4:37 PM ^
Not only is this a stupid comment, it also makes no sense. The comment is so veiled that its indecipherable.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:09 AM ^
There was no need to open the conference to more ridicule. There will be enough of that with RichRod at Michigan.
It's not a cheap shot when it's 100% accurate. For better or worse, whether you love him or hate him, Rodriguez has been a lightning rod at Michigan. I just hope he can win the bowl game and finally start to put that ridicule to rest.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:20 PM ^
who proposes that Rich Rodriguez is a deserving recipient of "ridicule" for anything. Nothing, that is, apart from, "You are a complete, fucking idiot."
December 17th, 2010 at 5:35 PM ^
I loved reading this post. I thought it was very informative while also giving an interesting viewpoint on the process, and I thank you for that.
I still really don't like the logo, though. Just because you spend a bazillion dollars on it and it's functional doesn't mean it's actually a good idea; Simply ask the people who came up with Crystal Pepsi...
December 17th, 2010 at 6:13 PM ^
Even taking this very reasonable post into account (I shall henceforth ignore the substance of your post, but this is really a related point), it seems like there's still a problem with the conference going to Pentagram for a logo that will impress design people. Indeed, somebody on this site already linked to a design blog full of praise for the logo, so I take it that it's a pretty good logo if you're a font kid. But it's really a terribly ugly one if you're not. The B10 fan base is not composed in any significant portion of design people. Most people don't give a crap about clever font selection or embedding one part of a word mark in a larger part to create a "clean" design composed entirely of letters. (Hell, for a while, I did all of my academic presentations in Comic Sans to f with people who care unreasonable amounts about fonts.) And that's really where the conference missed the mark* here--they listened to the experts and ignored the public.**
*Design pun intended, but oh how I loathe myself for it.
**There's a salient political analogy about messaging problems to be given, but it's either obvious to you or you don't care, so I'll happily adhere to the no-politics rules.
December 17th, 2010 at 9:18 PM ^
Okay, okay. Thanks for the "look inside" on this whole deal, and I really do understand and appreciate what you're saying, but what I'M saying is, I don't need someone in the know to tell me whether or not this thing sucks. I mean, I do have some experience; I've been inundated with logos and advertisements screaming at me every day of my freaking life. I'm not comparing this to something I could do, if I was, I would stare at it daily with awe. I'm just comparing it to logos that exist and I know, and this is not nearly as good as many that I have seen. Now, of course I believe that these things take a great deal of work and development, and I know that this wasn't just something that someone at Pentagram scribbled on a bar napkin. It just looks like it was...
December 17th, 2010 at 10:37 PM ^
But you can't put make-up on a pig. The logo sucks. If you design something absolutely everyone hates, that is an accomplishment, just that you could design something so bad that you can get more than 55% of the people to agree on anything. You can posit that Delany chose a bad one, but for all we know, this was the best one Pentagram designed, and the rest sucked WORSE. We'll never know. So to shift blame seems a bit too convenient.
December 17th, 2010 at 10:46 PM ^
I guess I don't understand the obsession with incorporating the actual number of teams into the logo. Everyone should have already accepted that the Big Ten does not have ten teams; that's been the case for a while. Why can't the "Big Ten" name just stand for the conference that has included 11 teams and will soon number 12? It could be Big Ten, or The Happy Conference, or Conference X, or whatever. It's just a name, not a descriptor, and it's been that way for a while. Kind of like how people refer to a guide to market values as "blue book" value. Yes, we use the words "blue" and "book". But none of us expects to actual open a published book with a blue cover. It seems like at least some of the stupidness of the logo is the forced "12".
December 18th, 2010 at 11:41 AM ^
That "blue book" happens to actually be blue. But it could still be a "blue book" if it were red, or white, or online, or in an email. It's still a "blue book" price. (Just to clarify: a blue book price is not limited to Kelly's and cars. It's "a term often referring to an almanac or other compilation of statistics and information", according to Wikipedia. Otherwise, I would agree I chose a poor example.)
In federal appropriations law there's a thing called the "red book", because it was originally published in a book with a red color. I don't think it's still published in a book with a red color; it's just an online resourch for most people (and all in black and white). But it's still the "red book".
We still use the terms water pump and horn in relation to cars, even though the pump doesn't pump water and we don't have actual horns mounted to the outsides of our cars like we did 100 years ago.
This isn't quite on point, but when you save something, what do you click on? An image of a floppy disk. We're not saving to a floppy, we know we're not saving to a floppy, but we all understand what that image means.
So that's my point. The "Big Ten" does not mean ten teams, it hasn't meant ten teams for a while, and we all understand that. Just accepting that "Big Ten" is now a symbol for the conference that will soon number 12 teams and not trying to force a "12" somewhere into the logo would make the designers' job maybe a little easier, so maybe they wouldn't come up with another design like they did. Although none of this excuses that color they chose.
December 18th, 2010 at 3:56 PM ^
i was just amused. also, i got the point, although i think you're wrong that "Big Ten" has fossilized. if it had, you wouldn't expect people to point out so readily the fact that the B1G now has 12 teams and the big twelve only 1G. but i'm happy to take what you're saying as a prediction that the name will remain fixed however many teams are in the conference in the future. (personally, i'd like to think that within the next few years the conference name would change to something not involving an inaccurate number of teams, but i guess we'll find out.)
December 19th, 2010 at 2:11 PM ^
from misopogon's diary post: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jSljNiAd9hPEc74MM2Sg1…
seems like the people in charge of the B1G have your view (but i'm still inclined to think the additional expansion has just made it more ridiculous that the name hasn't changed).
December 18th, 2010 at 12:16 AM ^
My question is why didn't they do some simple market research? I find it hard to believe they did any since the reaction is so poor.
Nobody is saying changing the logo would be easy. But it's bad and I think they can afford the change...
December 18th, 2010 at 11:31 AM ^
was the cost of rolling out a design everyone (very vocally, I might add) hates. Negative association and lack of support has a cost that, while difficult to put an exact number on, far outweighs the cost of redoing the whole thing and coming out with a logo that everyone loves - or at least likes.
Just look at the sh*tstorm caused by the GAP this year when they changed their logo.
December 19th, 2010 at 3:54 AM ^
I understand what six-zero is saying in his post, and he's right about the cost and time associated with this. As another commenter said though, we don't know if this was the best one they offered or there were better ones that delaney didn't choose. I think one important thing to remember here though, is that one of the reasons we have logo's or marks is to put it on products to sell to consumers/fans. If 90% of the fanbase hates this thing, no one will buy the products that it is put on. In the grand scheme of things, it's used for many other things, and no one is going to not go to a school they want to because of the conference logo. However, I wouldn't buy anything that had this logo on it. I agree with another poster above who said that they missed the mark, and listened to "experts" instead of the public. You'll never make everyone happy, but usually you won't make everyone hate something either. As another poster commented as well, the majority of us are not experts in developing a brand logo/mark or anything like that, however the logos/marks are designed to get us to recognize the brand, and buy it. In that aspect we are experts because we are targeted every second of every day by brand marks/logos. We recognize and buy into ones that are good, and we avoid, ignore, and don't buy into ones that don't connect with us. In this case the Big Ten made a mistake and didn't connect with their target audience, and I believe it's in their best interest to start over and get another one. I am thinking of the long term, because I don't believe that the logo chosen will ever "grow" on me. It has absolutely no appeal to me, or most other fans. I can live with the trophys, hell, I can even live with the division names, I think they could have done better, but they also could have been much worse. The logo though, I don't think they could have done worse. I'm also not advocating hiding or even putting the number 12 in the logo, because seriously, it's not, and hasn't been for over a decade the actual number of teams in the league. It's simply the brand name.
I am sure that after reading your post, probably most of the designers and people will change their mind while deciding upon their unique logo design. Definitely these are some of the most important points to always remember while creating a logo.
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