Logo and Branding Identity No. 10: Arizona Wildcats
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.
After the bottom 2 (linked on the bottom of the post if you haven’t seen my choices yet) it gets much, much tougher for me. You see, it’s a mix between bad color combos but looks I like at the same time and classic looks I have a tough time envisioning a change for. But here we are at 10 with the U of A. I’ve always kinda liked Arizona’s look and logo, the A is classic and that particular logo has all 3 school colors in it. But it lacks true character. Meanwhile the new Arizona desert logo is pretty sick, but it completely out-dates both of the other logos as you can see.
The subtle blending of blue into the inside red in this particular logo is really, really tight and should be the updated main logo. It’s darker and has a character about it, while not really changing anything classic. With the Wildcat logo I’m cool with the look but I want to see some red in maybe the tongue and the eyes to give it an updated piece of character. I just really don’t understand why the other 2 logos have all 3 colors and the wildcat only featured blue and white. If it changed a little to a more sleek look with added red I think I would like that a little better.
Basically I just want some extra but I don’t want a total overhaul on Zona like I want for ASU and Stanford (featured in links below). But it’s definitely something that needs to be upgraded for me. Wilbur is cool; Do not change Wilbur.
#12: STANFORD CARDINAL