At first, I thought the new Marlins logo that was leaked was a joke. Now, it appears to be the real deal.
In what can only be described as an attempt to further alienate their fanbase, sources have confirmed to ESPN.com’s Paul Lukas (who remains the authority on all things uniform and logo-related) that the disaster you see above will in fact be the Marlins’ new logo for the 2012 season when they officially become the Miami Marlins.
Joe touched on it earlier this week when the logo was initially leaked but I’m going to continue to hammer the point home. This thing has the potential to be one of the great all-time aesthetic disasters in the history of professional sports.
It’s tough to tell how it’s going to look in jersey form but if that’s the way they’re going to set it on a cap, you’re looking at a rebranding disaster on par with the New York Islanders’ infamous fisherman jerseys, which were introduced to a heavy round of derision in the mid 1990s. If nothing else, it is the baseball equivalent of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ technicolor logo, which was used from 1998-2003.
Why doesn’t this work? Where do I begin?
First of all, this looks like something straight out of the movie Back to the Future, something graphic designers would have envisioned as a futuristic logo for an imaginary team that would never exist in real life. Not only that, but it has a distinctly ’80s feel to it. Everything from the font of the “M” to the cheap neon lights-looking color scheme to the fake fish – is that supposed to be a marlin? – shooting out of the logo screams gaudy and cheap.
The current Marlins logo actually isn’t all that bad. It’s simple but it works. The team’s color scheme — black, white and teal — works well together and the marlin used in team branding actually looks like a marlin.
This? Too busy. I get the fact that designers were trying to incorporate the neon elements of Miami’s skyline and culture into the logo but it doesn’t work on a logo and I’m doubting it’s going to work in jersey form. The best jerseys in all of sports are the simplest ones. The Marlins’ current ones work for that very reason — black script, black pinstripes against a white backdrop. What exactly are they going to do with this color scheme? Blue, orange and yellow pinstripes with black script across the front? Aqua and orange alternates? In 1981, this would have worked. In 2011, it does not.
Reaction on Facebook and Twitter has been fast and furious. Most everyone who has seen the logo doesn’t like it. I’ve had friends who are Marlins fans tell me specifically they won’t be buying the new gear because what you see above simply does not work for them.
Of course there’s still plenty of time for the Marlins’ front office to react to the criticisms and go back to the drawing board. The backlash, from what I’ve seen, has been loud and uniforms and logo aren’t scheduled to be unveiled until the beginning of November, so maybe at that time we’ll see something completely different. The social media age has given teams new channels to gauge the consumers’ pulse and listen to their feedback on what’s working and what isn’t. This logo clearly isn’t.
If this is in fact what the Marlins choose to stick with for their new identiy, let’s hope that new stadium really is all it’s cracked up to be and/or the jerseys don’t look nearly as bad as what you see above because the team is going to need all the positive spin they can get heading into 2012 if they’re going to fill it game in and game out.
