It has been quite a year for the Washington Capitals hockey organization. Last year the professional franchise created a lot of energy by re-branding its logo, followed by their first appearance in the playoffs in years, where their marketing push of “Rock the Red” took center stage. This year, they one-upped themselves by advancing in the playoffs to the second round. Perhaps next year will produce a cup winning team.
But to the subject matter at hand, their farm clubs, the Hershey Bears from the AHL and the AA affiliate from the ECHL, the South Carolina Stingrays, already grabbed their league’s respective cups and both did so in dramatic seven game series. Ironically, the Stingrays re-branding preceded their success as well. At the beginning of this season, the team released a new logo design, which features the same iconic stingray, but rendered in a much different way.
Whereas I didn’t really care much for the Capitals logo re-design, I did actually like this one. The Stingrays former logo featured a more cartoon-like style which was/is fairly consistent with the league’s other team logos. From a straight design perspective, the logo is too tight and busy in the way it incorporates the type. I don’t mind cartoony, but the type has to work with it, and in this case, the type makes it harder to assimilate the illustration. As it pertains to the illustration, I don’t care much for the flashing tail. But in terms of tails, it definitely is better than the original rendering.
The original design is very forced as all of the concept building blocks seem to be thrown on the canvas. It includes the state map, the stingray, the hockey stick, and a tail. The tail bothers me because I cannot tell if it’s a tail or a tree. I have a feeling it was intended to be both – the tree being the official state tree, the cabbage palmetto. The state shape has always interfered with how I interpret the shape of the stingray, which seems to get jumbled together forming one shape versus the two.
The new logo designed by The Joe Bosack Graphic Design Co. is much more integrated. As you can see right away, the type has a clear hierarchy with South Carolina on top, Stingrays underneath. The custom type treatment repeats the sharp edge seen throughout the Stingray illustration. The illustration itself is a lot more simple, yet still clearly identifiable. It also reproduces well on a small scale, even though the contrast might not be my first choice with two dark shades. The logo is definitely an improvement and has an aggressive quality which is ideal for hockey!
The secondary logo is a stylized version of the state flag, whereas the second has some simliar elements, adding in the Ravenel Bridge. The logos are cohesive in their styling with the primary logo in a number of ways, although I don’t think you’d be selling to many of these as jerseys of their own.
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