Syracuse Crunch Unveil New Logo
Monday · Jul 2 · 2012 | 10:01 AM PDT
The AHL's Syracuse Crunch unveiled their new logo today. And this is it.
As rumored on Wednesday, it's a reboot of the club's original superhero mark from 1994 with the colors of its new NHL affiliate, the Tampa Bay Lightning. (Hey, by the way, are those lightning bolts on his helmet?)
For an upgrade, it's not bad. I would've liked to have seen the CRUNCH font get a bit of a modernization as well, but that might be too much to ask. Of course it is the thing that ties the team's various identities together. It hasn't changed since 1994.
New uniforms will be unveiled in October when the AHL season gets underway. And for those of us who didn't know, Syracuse's superhero dude is named Crunchman. He replaces Al, the (world's only) Ice Gorilla who has reigned as the team mascot since 1999.
Honestly, I don't have much more to say about it. It's underwhelming even if I can't say it's terrible. Though many readers tend to react to new logos in hyperbole so I'm sure we'll see that in the comments. Beyond that, what are your thoughts?
Reader Comments (40)
Wat.
Slimming down to two colors is a good plan when the logo is as busy as that. It makes it look significantly sleeker, even if it doesn't totally make up for the fact that way too much is going on. The bolt hat is a nice touch, but could it have not been a baseball cap? Also like punching through ice. The best thing about it though is that it's not that gorilla. I can't name all the things that didn't work in that old logo.
Overall: much better, still not great.
The last one was better. Don't know what else to say....Its kind of underwhelming, drab, should I dare say boring?
Having a super hero as a logo is almost as dopey as naming your team the Sky Chiefs. When they first named the team after a Nestle bar, this team was doomed to be a merchandising joke.
Meh, It's alright I guess. Would've prefered a re-coloured version of the previous logo over this.
P.S: IMO the hockey stick the mofo is holding looks wierd.
wow, thats a contender for worse current logo.......
Looks like he is holding a Field Hockey Stick.
I'm not a fan of the style at all, but I think it's an acceptable logo for a minor league team.
But what really annoys me is that they simply took the wordmark from the previous logo. Drawing a line though the logo history is one thing, but that way it's not even matching the graphic style and looks competely out of place.
Yeah, way too much going on in this logo, but I think it's supposed to be a visor or "cool" protective eyeglasses, not a baseball cap?
1) Am I alone in thinking that it looks like "Crunchman" is holding a golf club in his hand instead of a hockey stick?
2) Why is "Crunchman" off centre from the CRUNCH font? It makes the logo look completely off-kilter to me.
Is it just me, or does he remind anyone else of the Greendale Human Beings logo from "Community", just angrier?
What can you expect from a team with a name better suited for a breakfast cereal than a professional sports team.
Holy ECHL!
Nice tie-in to the parent company with the lighting bolts though.
I don't like it. As other people have said, it looks off-centre, the hockey stick looks weird, and the word-mark looks out of place.
Hey Chris, don't forget the lightning bolt on the arm! I wonder what the jerseys will look like... anybody else expecting the design to be re-used from the past two Crunch rebrands? With blue silver and white of course.
That is marginally less ridiculous than the ice gorilla. So I'm in favour of it. Sigh.
I think since it's a professional team and a paid for logo, we can feel free to really let it fly. What I see is an attempt at a style by someone who isn't well versed in it. The shadows and highlights are all over the place. When this style works, it just looks great. If done right, you wouldn't need that silver sliver on his jaw. The style is sharp in some areas, yet there are blobs for the glove & knuckle highlights. Also, you can't just add a stroked path OR THREE, and think that's going to frame it up nicely. Also, on stroked paths, you still need to go in and adjust your sharps. The artist didn't do his knockouts again after he added the final outer white background shape. That's why you see three different silver shapes around white. As one reader pointed out, one of those shapes fools your eye and makes you think it's the head of a golf club. I think if the knockouts were done, it would look even more off center. They could have gotten by using the old CRUNCH word, if they at least thickened it to match somewhat. Also, the BOLTs integrated are so poorly executed they just might be accidental.
Lol the stick looks like a golf club. bad omens for them
Looks like a guy in a cyclist shirt and helmet hold a long handled ladle. I expect a cartoon bubble above him saying "No soup for you !"
Way to make a bad logo even worse.
this logo and the past one suck. the name "crunch" is lame. why dont they put a captain as thier logo and be the "captain crunch". i cant really understand how an organization can sit there and say, "this is an awesome loge/rebranding and we will sell hella jerseys and merchandise." the only good thing is the colors, but everything else is an epic fail!!!
Simplifying the colour scheme is nice, and the idea is right, but I can't get behind the artistry of Crunchman himself... The awkwardly sized fist, everything about his head looks goofy, especially the visor and helmet, and his torso is way too scrawny!
took me a while to realize why the hockey stick looks weird and its cause his cap is all flying around it.
The first thing I noticed about this was that the way the space between the cape and the stick looks like a spoon.. I immediately thought "breakfast cereal". That is all I see when I look at it now. Syracuse Crunch doesn't sound like a terrible cereal though.
My first thought in seeing the logo is ROLLER DERBY.......and it looks like he has a soup laddle in his hand!!
Connecticut Whale = Horrawful
This = Terribad
hahahahahahahahaha!!
I dont think its quite as bad as most other comments make it out to me.
But the more I look the more problems I see. Is he wearing a helmet with a visor or a baseball hat? The stick looks like a gold club, or if you look at it right, a spoon. The logo isnt very well integrated with the wordmark at all. The guy is a little too far off center.
It looks ok at first glance I would say, but the more you look at it the more you realize it's not that great.
Well, at least it matches the Lightning affiliation.
The stick really looks like a spoon, or like he's grabbing a sail.
I assume the designers have just forgotten to remove the white areas. With the three areas cut out, the logo works better.
Well, i think the design and colours are an improvement over the original and gorilla logos but still too cartoony. Same complaints... leaning to the left, weird outlines, strange helmet/shield combo. I actually think that white/grey egg shape at the corner of the "H" creating the "ladle" effect could possibly be meant as a puck (i know im reaching), the other white shape by the arm on the shaft, and on the other arm... no idea. Cant really come up with an explanation whatsoever.
Love the CRUNCH wordmark but it really looks like a golf club rather than a hockey stick in his hand.
Ha! It does look like a soup ladle! I'll never unsee that.
The logo itself is okay. A marginal improvement, but it just seems like there's way too much happening here.
Why is he wielding a huge ladel? Is he about to serve giant portions of soup?
Eat your Syracuse Crunch cereal kids make sure you have a big spoon like me and dig in and you to can be a super hero like me. What a joke they would have been better off having a big C or S as there logo on a shield something with a little bit of a twist from the Superman logo if they wanted to go toward a super hero look. Last year it was the TB Lightning looking like The Flash now this, I guess that is what you get when you have the Blue Flashes as a parent club, at least the team should be better than what they'll look like for all intensive purposes it's the Norfolk Admirals the defending AHL champs so at least they have that going for them if they don't compete on the ice they can take on at least try to take on the The Avengers or the Justice League.
Wow. A character/animal/mascot standing behind/climbing over/leaning on a name bar. I have never, ever seen anything like it.
It looks like a guy from the 1982 version of Tron holding a golf club. He just launched one of those discs from the movie. The crunch name is lame, but changing everything to match the nhl affiate at every change gets old. Create your own identity a la the Hershey Bears or Rochester Americans. The team will be better with the defending calder cup champs coming in, but the logo gets an F. knowing PT Dolgon the jersey will either be the same as tampa or the same cuse design with the new colors.
So is he called Captain Crunch? No wait...
Terrible.
Poor Norfolk. They win the championship and their team is shipped to Syracuse.
It's original. I'll say that.
Is it just me or do the logos in the minors look a lot better then the ones in the NHL? The Crunch Logo is mazing!