championship – creativebobbie

The Finals Logo Should Be More Different From The Playoffs One

I am not saying the logo isn’t well made. The logo is fine. However, the importance of the NBA Finals had typically been made immediately apparent by the logo. The sophisticated written wordmark with the trophy in the background was special. This new thing is way too similar to the new Playoffs branding.

In my opinion, there should be a stark difference between the logo promoting a first round game and the NBA Finals! Reaching the NBA Finals means reaching a special echelon in the sport of basketball. The logo should reflect such.

Loss of Personality

This whole movement by certain sports leagues (I’m looking at you NFL) towards standardization is so disappointing. NBA is also standardizing their All-Star Weekend logos, which is especially disappointing since the next one is going to be in my home state of North Carolina.

The NBA Finals logo has become so iconic to me and I will miss it. Listen. I understand what they are doing. I really do. I understand their desire for consistent branding and colors for the Playoffs and the NBA Finals. I just don’t like it.

But I expect, like most changes like this, we will eventually get used to it and accept our lack of control in the whole matter.

~b.

Last year, I talked about my dislike for the decision the NFL made to standardize the Super Bowl logo. I was a big fan of the personality shown in the old logos. So, I decided to start a design series in anticipation of the then-upcoming Super Bowl 50. I continued that with my Super Bowl 51 design. This year, after much struggle and many deleted concepts, I arrived at my version of the Super Bowl 52 logo.

Super Bowl 52 will be held at the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So, the very first thought I had was to try to incorporate the unique shape of the stadium architecture in the logo design. Deciding how to incorporate the shape proved more difficult than anticipated. I mistakenly tried to jump right into Adobe Illustrator and play. After failure and frustration were achieved in vector form, I took a step back and decided to go to pencil and paper. Sometimes you have to just stop and start over instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole – especially, when you’ve created an obscene amount of layers with no solution in sight.

Once I recalibrated and created a new concept on paper, I felt a lot better about the possibilities. In 2018, I’ve pledged to do more pencil and paper work – not just for rough ideas, but drawing full concepts before opening Illustrator. With the Super Bowl 52 concept, I finished my idea and then analyzed it. I drew guides on the drawing, which helped me see how I would want to construct this on the computer. It is important to determine as much as possible before opening Illustrator. The drawing, with guides for construction, proportions, and angles, helped give me clarity before assembling the vectors.

The hardest part of designing these Super Bowl logos – actually, logos in general – is achieving something I feel like could even stand in the same room as those that have come before. I’m not comparing myself to other designers, positively or negatively. It’s about the work. It’s about creating something that has a worthwhile polish that will appreciated and accomplish the goal. I was constantly looking at the Super Bowl logos that have come before, while reviewing what I had done for 52. I arrived at something I felt comfortable enough showing to the public.

~b.