Pac-12 Countdown: Logo and Branding Identity No. 11
By Josh Davis
In honor of the Oregon State Rebrand, I thought I’d count down my favorite Pac-12 logos and branding identities in order from worst to first. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be putting a quick focus on one school at a time from the best conference in the country; The Pac-12! For this countdown I’m using three variables; originality of the look, color scheme and variety throughout the Universities’ athletic programs. The lower the number, the more I would prefer a rebrand (or perhaps another rebrand) of the school.
Ok so I know that ASU is as fresh as it gets on the new paint job, a totally new design a couple years ago and now a brand new Sparky. The problem isn’t that they tried, the problem is that they failed. Horribly. Miserably. To be totally honest I didn’t think ASU necessarily needed a makeover from the old look, just a splash of something extra.
As far as the new design, the more I look at it, the more I really hate the pitchfork. I like what it’s trying to be, but there’s too much going on. It does look kinda sick on the white helmet or against a white background, I will admit, but the other combos look terrible and the white is an alternate alternate (yes I meant it twice). Perhaps it’s the fact that all 3 forks are bigger than the handle so it looks more like a ninja fork than a pitchfork. I don’t know.
Personally, I really wish they woulda gone with a combo of the old baseball logo (right) and a pitchfork. For me, I would really liked to have seen a maroon A and a white or gold S wrapped around like it is, and then the alternate color pitchfork going left to right through the middle. That would have been totally sick! Also it would have given correct proportion to the fork.
Another option would have been some form of “ASU” with the pitchfork being the “U”. Could even have done the previous thought, utilizing a smaller, sleeker version of this this “AS” logo being speared by the middle spike of the pitchfork and forming the “U” around them at the same time. Any combo of all three colors for each separate letter would be simply incredible.
If not for the unbelievably boring nature of the Stanford emblem (featured in the next page of this post if you haven’t seen why that’s my last place logo and branding identity yet) this would take last place for me. Not even necessarily for what it is, but for what it could have been or deserves to become. I have to mention though, the women’s basketball team won big time with the new design. Their new uni and short combos are very sweet.
However, the clear loser is the new Sparky. You see, the new Sparky looked like something (or somebody?) you could rally around as a sports team. The new one looks like he’s taking you to the theme park. They should trash him and start over… again. Here’s a great (funny) youtube video giving you a picture of what happened to him: