The Tampa Bay Lightning officially unveiled their 20th anniversary logo today. It's very much in line with the club's new branding. And the style reminds me a little of the Calgary Flames' 30th anniversary logo from a few years ago.
You can read more about the Bolts' 20th-year plans on their website.
What's your instant read on it? Good, bad or ugly?
Two big 2013 events in minor league hockey officially have logos now.
The ECHL is marking its 25th birthday with a new mark for the 2012-13 season. The logo was unveiled yesterday. It's your standard anniversary logo.
Here's what the league says: "The logo has the traditional ECHL logo surrounded by the number ‘25’ enclosed in a classic circle flanked on the left side by 1988 and on the right side by 2013 with the Premier ‘AA’ Hockey tagline on the bottom."
It'll be featured on all sorts of merchandise and anything related to the ECHL for next 12 months. Exciting stuff.
Like clockwork, we can count on the ECHL to celebrate an anniversary every five years. Here are the logos they've used over the last 15 seasons.
Elsewhere, the Hershey Bears unveiled the logo for the 2013 AHL Outdoor Classic, an event they'll be hosting next winter. And it looks very chocolatey.
The Bears will host the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the elements on Sun,, Jan. 20, 2013. This year also happens to be the Bears' 75th in existence. So mark another anniversary divisible by five.
By the way, back in the ECHL, the Colorado Eagles are celebrating their 10th anniversary. And of course there's a logo to go with it.
Outside Nationwide Arena today in Columbus, the NHL unveiled the 2013 All-Star Game logo in front of a surprisingly large crowd.
The logo is par for the course on NHL All-Star logos over the past decade. Nothing surprising. The designers honed in on a recognizable symbol (Ohio's state flag) and were sure to work in some other elements of the host team's identity.
The star and crossed hockey sticks were lifted off the Jackets' shoulder patch. Though technically the sticks are an emblem on a Union soldier's hat, but you get the picture. Plus you wouldn't want anyone in Columbus to see the logo and mistake it for another sport.
All right, I'm not trying to take potshots at the logo. It's a good logo. It's just not mind-blowingly impressive or anything. To quote a fittingly tired phrase, it is what it is.
A big crowd takes in the logo unveiling ceremonyEarlier, I expressed surprise at the size of the crowd, not because of the rotten seasons the Blue Jackets have been having (ergo, jaded fans), but rather because this was nothing more than an unveiling for a logo with a shelf-life of 275 days.
Goes to show that hockey fans in Columbus don't need a winning team to be great hockey fans! My fellow Lightning fans from the '90s and I know a thing or two about that. Granted, there probably weren't as many of us back then.
I didn't hear any mention of the All-Star uniforms today. If I had to guess, I'd say we get the same ones for a third year in a row — which would be a first since the mid-90s. Those teal and purple jerseys were used from 1994 to 1997.
I'm not saying it's necessarily bad thing that we'll get them again. I actually like them a lot. But it would be one less new NHL design to anticipate in 2012. But I assume Reebok spent a lot of time on those 2010 jerseys, so they want to get their money's worth.
If you missed the live-streamed unveiling today, you can watch the cannon fire here.
I'd love to know what everyone else thinks. Share your critiques in the comments.
The Columbus Blue Jackets have announced that the 2013 NHL All-Star Game logo will be unveiled at Nationwide Arena this Friday. The event will take place at noon ET.
The team designing the logo, Frederick & Froberg Design Group, have been hard at work on the new mark for the past several months. For more background on the design process, check out this blog post from February.
If you'd like to see what some of our talented concept artists have come up with for the next All-Star Game, click here to have a look.
Drop by Icethetics on Friday to see the logo and share your reaction.
The designer behind one of the most hated logos in NHL history is once again talking about the process of rebranding the Buffalo Sabres back in 2006 — a rebrand which has since been completely dispensed with.
Kristopher Bazen made news here last year after he asked Sabres creative services director Frank Cravotta to remove some old sketches of the "Buffaslug" from his online portfolio. Bazen said it might've been "misleading" since the design was a "collaborative effort." However, a year later, Bazen has posted more of that early conceptual work on his own website. Here's a look at those designs:
Buffalo Sabres conceptual work (2005) / Kristopher Bazen
There are a lot of neat ideas in there, but I'm not sure any of them would've been an improvement on the original 1970 logo — an updated version of which the Sabres use today.
On this subject, Bazen made the rounds yesterday on some popular hockey websites. He posted the above link on the SportsLogos.net message boards and spent a lot of time talking about the design process. If you have some time to kill, there's some stuff worth reading. Basically, for an artist, he's one thick-skinned human being and he's good at responding to questions. More on the SportsLogos.net blog.
Also yesterday, Puck Daddy had a long in-depth feature about Bazen and his work with the Sabres. I highly recommend taking the time to read this one. Greg Wyshynski leaves no stone unturned and if you like hockey logos, you'll find yourself fascinated by almost every word.
I think the reason Bazen keeps coming up is that despite the fact he is a fantasic logo designer, he's being haunted by what the higher-ups in the Sabres organization ultimately wanted. He doesn't need to defend himself as he's quite talented as you can see in his portfolio. But I like that he's giving us a little insight into how it all works.
Friday · Jun 22 · 2012 | 10:07 AM PDT