I got an e-mail from one of our readers, AJ from Louisville, yesterday who had an interesting suggestion. He wanted to see a column devoted to how a certain sports logo or design made you feel. How did it represent the passion you had for your team and what memories or feelings does it produce when you see it. As an Alabama fan, AJ really has a passion for the team's A logo and shared his thoughts on it with me. I really thought this was a great idea, especially for those of us who are sports logo junkies and sports fans.
I'm going to go back to a team I profiled when this blog first took off. This team was my favorite when I was a child and my love for the team was completely based on the team's logos and uniform design. That team was the Houston Astros of the late 1970's and early 1980's. I still get a good feeling when I see the Astrodome surrounded by orbiting baseballs with that futuristic Astros typeface.
Though the Astros rainbow look was a thing of controversy, you either loved them or hated them. I thought they were great. I loved the bright colors and the orange hats. The look was like nobody else and the design captured my attention and led to me becoming a huge fan of the Astros. The sight of that classic H-star logo on their hats still brings back so many great childhood baseball memories.
I can still name the players, J.R. Richard, Jose Cruz, Cesar Cedeno, Joe Sambito, Kiko Garcia, Terry Puhl, Dickie Thon, Nolan Ryan just to name a few. Even though I lived nowhere near Houston, I rooted for the team, mostly because I loved the designs, uniforms and logos. From there, I grew to love the players as well.
My love for the team continued when they evolved the rainbow design to a bit more reserved look. The new jerseys still featured the rainbow colors, only this time they were limited to the shoulders of the jersey. The famous Astros font and huge star were still featured on the front. I can still see the image of Nolan Ryan on the mound in this look, adding to his legendary strikeout totals.
With this uniform change, the Astros also went back to a navy blue cap with the H-star logo on it. This cap flashed back to the earlier years of the team and provided a great partner piece to the new jerseys. I have one of these caps in my closet today and wear it whenever I can. I get a great feeling from this classic look.
As the years went on, the Astros changed away from this classic look and adopted new logos and colors. Once they did that, I really lost some of my love for the team. I was so fond of their rainbow look that I was disappointed when they went away from it. Even today, I will flip to an Astros game just to see if maybe they decided to wear throwback uniforms that night in hopes of getting that feeling of love again for the team that their early designs gave me.
If you have some stories about how a team's logo makes you feel or the feelings you get when you see it, send an e-mail with your story. I would love to be able to put a collection of your stories together for a post. I'm sure there are many of you out there like AJ from Louisville with stories to tell about how much a sports logo means to you.
I'm shocked no one commented here.
Posted by: Logo Design | February 13, 2010 at 03:39 AM