The University of Northern Colorado just redesigned their logo and posted it last Friday.  Those familiar with the old logo and the growing campus, know the redesign was well overdue.  The old logo can be seen on sportslogos.net.  The idea was a less ferocious, but more serious bear.  This tight design puts UNC’s branding on the same level as big, expensive universities such as Duke and the University of Connecticut.  The thing we really liked about this design is a custom font was used.  A slab serifed font was developed and named “Greeley” after the town of Greeley, where UNC is located.  Nothing is more powerful than when a logo design has a font that is totally unique.

 

Coming up this 12th of July, the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain will be held in England.  Along with the events, the commemoration has this nice logo design.  We might say some of the elements are too small for a business card but in this case the logo is more of a poster sized element, rather than a traditional logo design.  To make sure all considerations are taken beforehand when designing your company logo give BusinessLogos a look .

In the news this week, Sun Broadcast Group released their new logo design.  Never heard of Sun Broadcast Group?  Neither had we – but we are impressed with their new logo design.  What we like about it is it’s cleanliness, and that the icon can be used as a stand alone if needed (at the bottom corner of the TV screen, for example).

In other semi-obscure logo news the 2015 Preakness logo design has been revealed.  For those who do not know what it is, it is the “140th running of the middle jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown.”  While we have seen this style of horse many times before and wish there was more originality to the logo, overall, it looks nice. The three views give the sense of motion around the oval track, as if you were there at the races.

The final logo design we take a look at is the insignia of Ukraine’s all volunteer “Donbass” Battalion.  While we distance ourselves politically from this semi-obscure conflict, we do enjoy the dramatic rendition of a diving falcon.  The design is made of flat color, made to be embroidered – and the haunting depiction of the descending bird of prey is appropriate for an aggressive and motivated group of soldiers.  Certainly good for morale.

If any designers out there feel they’d like their work critiqued by a team of experienced experts, go ahead and send it to us at info@businesslogos.com.

We are not the only logo design freaks out there, it seems!  SportzEdge is hosting a new SEC tournament, going on right now – where you can vote for your favorite SEC team logo!  You are supposed to vote for your favorite team logo design, not your favorite team; although we realize for many hard core fans, the two will be inseparable!

We could go on and on about the logo designs themselves, but we don’t want to sway the voting! We want to see the real raw results on this.  These basketball team logo designs remind us of what makes successful logos, even if they are not super fancy or technical.  Most of them are, first and foremost, quickly readable and clear at a distance.  It reminds us of an art director we had that would reduce the logo design to the size of his thumb, then bounce it up and down ever so slightly to see if it was legible small and at a glance.

We dare say most of these logo designs pass the thumb-wiggle test, as we will call it.  It may seem strange, but in reality, small and slightly wobbling is how sports team logo designs are generally perceived.  This concept also applies to potential business customers glancing at a logo from the car while driving, or briefly scanning the front pages of publications and signs while exiting a store for example.  No matter how fancy and awesome a logo design is, it will not do the company or business  a lot of good unless it can be legibly read at a high speed.  Visit us when you need the proper logo design parameters considered from the get go.

 

Since they say everything in Texas is bigger, we could not help noticing how huge the icon design, or symbol above the text is on this logo!  Woah there, cowboy… when designing a professional looking logo design the icon and the name should have equal weight, as a general rule.  Rules are made to be broken, however, especially where Texas is concerned; so we could live with just a small amount of downsizing to this icon, while still letting it be the dominant piece of the entire logo design.  This icon design is just…massive.

In regards to the whole thing, we will give it a Not Bad rating, based on originality and execution.  We see the “A” theme, for Arlington (and America?) and it has the look of a cattle brand. We can live with all of that, and it’s resemblance to Mall of America’s old logo design. It just doesn’t have a huge “wow” factor.

What bugs us most is the strange touching of the wave in the star, to the top of the “N” in Arlington.  Yikes, people.  Everything in the logo should have a reason. Sometimes doing something for the sake of doing it only, or acting on a serendipitous visual correlation like this can work. In this case it seems forced, and the straight line of the “N” does not really match the smooth curve coming down through the icon design. This just adds a point of tension in the logo, taking away from the icon and the name. I’m going to give the design studio the benefit of the doubt and guess that this occurred during the revision stage, by a committee (the worse thing that can happen to a logo is its presentation to a committee for disassembly).

Here we have the design, with our adjustments – por gratis.  We can only hope the City of Arlington takes notice of our benevolent aid with their logo.  Take a look below, and tell us there is not a better sense of balance and professionalism.  Ahhh.

This example is to show that the last bit of spacing and design is very important when considering your logo design.  When getting your logo designed, leave it to the logo design professionals and you will not have to make changes and redesign the logo down the road.

 

 

There has been some uproar over the content of the 2014 FIFA World Cup logo design.  The logo icon is made up of multiple clasped hands.  When one plays the game of soccer (or futbol, as they say) one always remembers the paramount rule of “NO HANDS”.  You can do almost anything, as long as you do not use your hands.

In developing the logo design, the usual reasons of inclusiveness, welcome and togetherness were given for the use of hands.  We see no problem with incorporating a theme into an icon design, but picking an opposing symbol to what the subject is about does seem questionable.

The other thing we would say about this World Cup logo design is that it relies on many gradients, making it cost double or more to print on anything.  On a lower end press, it will hard to maintain consistency. Our advice would be to make it all flat colors. A luminous, jungle feel could still be easy enough to achieve, and it could even be stamped in huge numbers at little cost.  In it’s current form, embroidering would be close to impossible.

We hope they have a flat version of it for certain uses; hopefully it does not lose too much when seen at a small size as well.  To make sure all of the necessary considerations are taken into account from the outset, get a professional business logo designed for your company. Don’t trust just anyone to take care of your own company image.