LOGORRHEA

Well, I'll be damned:

The Nationals logo is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the generic result of techniques commonly applied to corporate advertising campaigns. The NoVa man whose website points this out is not, as it happens, a disinterested observer. It turns out he's been promoting his own designs for a Washington baseball club logo for a year or so, long before baseball in DC was a sure thing (note, the deal is still not done as of this posting). Here's a few of the logo concepts he's worked out:


The baseball as Capitol Dome is inspired, particularly the bottom one, where the blue stitches remind me of the longitudinal ridges on the actual building. I'm not so sure about the K street lobbyist swinging the bat, but it's a funny and even knowingly endearing take on the city's lobbyist culture.

His proposals run into a bit of opposition on this MLB message board, where he also claims to be in the process of licensing his ideas to the team. I assume the likelihood of these concepts being incorporated into a future design is minimal, but anything's better than the would-be Fuddrucker's sign.

In any case, it also happens that the franchise itself already has a hat-appropriate circular logo:


The Nationals are still selling hats with the cursive "W" last used by the Senators in the 1960's, and while I don't hate it, neither do I like it. And did they have to buy it back from the Texas Rangers? I wonder. The fact that this round logo is buried halfway down Nationals history page (what has it been, a month?) and not visible anywhere on the Nationals front page makes me wonder about how seriously they're going to push it. In fact, there is only one item in the official store which features this icon, and it's not exactly wearable:


In case you were wondering what it's called (how could you not be?) this is a "Forever Collectibles Washington Nationals Beanie Bear." No, it's not a Teddy bear, though that would at least be appropriate, presidentially speaking.

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posted by WWB at 5:05 PM |