Awesome Sports Logos Blog

Sports Logo Spotlight on the Joliet Slammers

We have a first of its kind here at Awesome Sports Logos. We’ve blogged about animals, mythical creatures, and various other unique sports logos. That’s why we are excited to tell you about a sports logo named after a prison.

The Joliet Slammers play in the Independent Frontier League. They are named after the well known Will County Correctional Center as well as the Stateville Correctional Center. The name has double meaning of course because baseball uses the term “Slam” in various forms. A grand slam or even a pitching “Slamming the door”.  The Slammers have been around since 2010 and won to division crowns, one in 2011 and just last year in 2016.  They even have some creative mascots. J.L. Bird short for Jailbird wearing the black and white pinstripes and the other is named Spikes.

So how do you create a logo out of a prison? Let’s take a look.

 

I thought that Dan Simon of Studio Simon who created this logo did a nice job of making a prison look similar to a ballpark. It’s open like a prison yard yet it takes that diamond shape like a ball field. You also have the guard tower and the barbed wire. The font on both Joliet and Slammers really sticks out.

 In an interview with the great sportslogos.net last year, Simon pointed out how proud he was of the alternate logo which he felt should be the primary. “They opted not to go with this direction because they wanted the primary logo to focus on the law side of the Joliet prison story, not the lawless side.”  Once again kudos to sportslogos.net for digging up an interesting aspect of this sports logo.

Personally, I’m with Dan Simon, I love the Jail Bird logo but I understand their philosophy. They need to cater to their fans, many of which work in the prison system on a daily basis.

Overall, I’m a fan of the name and their logos. It’s creative and it embraces a huge aspect of Joliet and that is so important when creating a sports logo.

Opening Day is Tuesday for Joliet. Go Slammers!

Opening Day is everyday here at Awesome Sports Logos. We’re always open and trying to bring a smile to your face with our awesome t-shirts.

Let’s look at a few of our baseball t-shirts.

We just talked about featuring what the area is known for in a sports logo. That’s why we are so proud of our Idaho Taters baseball logo. A “tater” is a long home run. It’s also a huge export for the gorgeous state of Idaho.

The Boca Raton Cougars

Okay, Boca Raton is known for a lot and maybe Cougars isn’t at the top of the list but we hear they roam the streets of Boca at night. They know what they want and they usually get it. Go Cougars!

We also feature some other cool baseball t-shirts like the Boston Accents, The Dallas Doughboys and the Decorah Trolls. Check em’ out and support the cause if you can. Our T-shirt of the Month Club is a great way to pick out a couple of them and enjoy savings and free shipping.

Thanks as always for reading,

Gavin Spittle

Founder, Logo Lover, T-shirt Fanatic

Awesome Sports Logos

Posted in Awesome T-shirts by Gavin on 5/14/2017 at 9:40:04 am.

Sports Logo Spotlight on the Down East Wood Ducks

Earlier this week, the Down East Wood Ducks, the new Carolina League Single A affiliate of the Texas Rangers released their logo and it’s awesome.

 

This isn’t surprising since Brandiose was behind the logo design. Brandiose is our favorite professional logo designer and they have been on a tear bringing back the fun and creativity to minor league logos with a local flare. The Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, The New Orleans Baby Cakes, and the Norfolk Tides are just a few of the many logos that they’ve worked on for the 2017 season.

This is actually the second Duck logo that Brandiose has recently designed. We did a blog on their other release the Akron Rubber Ducks, a tribute to the tire industry based in Akron. The city was given the nickname, “The rubber capital of the US”.

 

How much can a logo have an effect on team attention? Here’s a great article where the New Orleans Baby Cakes change has vaulted them into the top 10 in merchandise sales in just five weeks.

Let’s dive into the Wood Ducks name and logo. Hunting is a major part of Down East North Carolina so Wood Ducks fits in perfect with the local lifestyle. After unveiling the logo, the team held an open house selling tickets as well as merchandise. They are off to a great start. 

 

The team has put an emphasis on presenting bright colors but also colors that are true to a Wooden Duck. A couple of nice touches on the logo is the neon like sign surrounding the Duck. The other is the wooden bat in the shape of a tree branch. The bottom of the branch replicates the bottom of a baseball bat. You might not see it at first glance.

This logo gets high marks from us. Still to come is the new mascot as well as the uniform release which should be unique. Nice job Wood Ducks, you have an awesome sports logo.

 Speaking of some awesome baseball logos, we have a few of our own that you might enjoy. Quickly approaching in Dade City Florida is their annual Kumquat festival. On January 28^th, thousands will descend on this festival to crown Mrs. Kumquat, do a Kumquat run and celebrate this hidden gem of a fruit festival style. I love this logo of this fruit that looks a little “juiced” if you ask me swinging for the fences.

Speaking of festivals, in July, Decorah Iowa goes from being a small town to an area that celebrates Nordic history. Similar to the Wood Ducks, our Decorah Trolls logo substitutes a club for a baseball bat.

 

If Cougars are your think, than we have a baseball team that fits your style in Boca Raton Florida.

If you dig Boston sports and the Accents shared by the natives then the Boston Accents is the perfect baseball team for you.

The best part about these t-shirts is that you can combine them two ways. If you buy 3 t-shirts from us, we give you a 4^th t-shirt for free. Just pick out the 4 awesome t-shirts and use the coupon code, 3ThenFree at checkout. But wait, there’s more!  You can also sign up for our T-shirt of the Month Club. You get our t-shirts at a discounted price with free shipping. There will be good news in your mailbox each month. Now that’s awesome.

Thanks for reading everyone. Go Wood Ducks!

Gavin Spittle

Founder, Logo Lover, T-shirt Fanatic

Awesome Sports Logos

Posted in Baseball by Gavin on 1/15/2017 at 1:50:14 pm.

The Best New Sports Logos of 2016

This year has been amazing for the debut of some awesome sports logos. We began this company for a few reasons. The first is we love wearing super soft t-shirts, not shirts that could double as cardboard. The second and most important reason is that sports logos went through what we like to think of as a “vanilla” stage. A stage where many parent clubs were forcing a form of their logo across the minors to further create brand awareness. Logos were no longer localized highlighting the great history of that area. Our goal at Awesome Sports Logos was to bring back the fun and creativity to sports logos with our t-shirts. We wanted to be the opposite of the political correctness that was occurring.

Times have changed though and that’s because of you, the sports fan. You responded with the wallet scooping up merchandise from teams like the El Paso Chihuahuas which caused others to take notice.

So here are a few of the sports logos that we were happy to see debut in 2016.

 The Norfolk Tides

 

This was an awesome upgrade of a logo that needed an update. You don’t see any Seahorse sports logos so it’s one of a kind. Cool colors with a nice touch of Oriole orange to represent the parent club. You might miss this small nuance but check out the Trident the Seahorse is holding. A usual Trident has three prongs. This one is an “N” for Norfolk. Nice touch for an awesome logo.

 

 

This is an amazing story of how a sports logo fueled a franchise. When the logo made its debut, viral marketing took off. Pardon the pun but people were going “bananas” for their merchandise. With that came people supporting this local collegiate league franchise. Sell out crowds and a championship season followed. The Bananas are alive and well in Savannah!

 

The Hartford Yard Goats

 

Hard to believe that such an awesome sports logo had to play its complete first season on the road because their stadium wasn’t finished on time. A Yard Goat is actually from railroad yard slang. A great touch of this logo created by Brandiose is the colors. Green, Blue and White were the colors of the former NHL franchise in Hartford, the Whalers.

 The New Orleans Baby Cakes

 

This logo only debuted a little over a month ago and I love it. While merchandise sales have picked up, there are many in New Orleans that loved the old name Zephyrs but in the teams defense, that name was carried over from when they played in Denver. What is a Baby Cake? A Baby Cake is a figurine found in King Cake during the Carnival Celebration season in New Orleans.  A baby swinging a bat is all I need to love it.

 

Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp

 

The Jacksonville Suns needed a logo makeover and they certainly got one with the Jumbo Shrimp. You might not notice at first glance but the shrimp curls up to form a “J”. St. Johns Navy, Patriotic Blue, American Red and Shrimp make up the team's new official colors, paying tribute to Jacksonville's rich military heritage. Huge improvement in Jacksonville so we say, “Go Jumbo Shrimp!”

Those are a few of our favorite minor league logo changes. On the pro side, kudos to the Florida Panthers and their new NHL design.

2016 has been an awesome year for Awesome Sports Logos and that is thanks to you. Here are our top 3 selling t-shirts.

 The Cocksville Blockers

 

The Las Vegas Hookers Fishing Club

 

The Arizona Pricks

 

Grab these 3 as part of our T-shirt of the Month Club. No better way to begin 2017 with a super soft closet favorite in your mailbox.

Happy New Year everyone!

Gavin Spittle

Founder, Logo Lover, T-Shirt Fanatic

Awesome Sports Logos

Posted in minor league logos by Gavin on 12/29/2016 at 9:54:01 pm.

Crayola Joins Forces with Minor League Baseball

Minor League Baseball is quickly racking up the hits. Just a few years ago, parent clubs were forcing their logo on their minor league cities to extend their brand. Fast forward to today and the tide has shifted to local sports logos that are being embraced like the El Paso Chihuahuas, Biloxi Shuckers and the Frisco Roughriders. This has led to record merchandise sales in 2015 and I’m sure it will continue to increase this year.

Now Minor League Baseball has announced a one of a kind partnership with Crayola making them a “Preferred Partner”.

The partnership will include a Crayola MILB All Star Experience and a lot of interactivity in local parks. I love the logo they created for the All Star Experience. The crayon crossing with bat with both the Crayola and MILB logo featured is a nice touch.

 

In their joint press release Mimi Dixon, Customer Development and Activation for Crayola said,  "Crayola is excited to be teaming up with Minor League Baseball," It's the first sports sponsorship of its kind for Crayola and we are planning to surprise and delight families next season with fun, color and creativity."

I love this partnership. Maybe it’s the sentimental part of me that remembers making sports logos with Crayons when I was a child. Using the blue for the Quebec Nordiques and the green and yellow for the Minnesota North Stars. Yes, I know, those teams are now in Colorado and Dallas. I’m showing my age.  I just picture little kids grabbing Crayola packs and drawing their favorite minor league logos like the Hartford Yard Goats or the Akron RubberDucks, two of my favorites.

Congrats to Minor League Baseball and Crayola on a unique partnership that I believe will help both brands.

While we may have not used crayons to create our very first Awesome Sports Logo, we came pretty close with what little we had. Even though this is our first logo, it’s still one of our favorites. Here is our Idaho Taters awesome t-shirt!

Thanks as always for reading,

Gavin Spittle

Awesome Sports Logos

   Posted in Baseball by Gavin on 8/9/2016 at 10:02:38 pm.

My Favorite Dog Sports Logos

Dogs are awesome! We all know that and they certainly aren’t just “Man’s Best Friend”. I witness that every night at bedtime. The order of space in our bed is wife, dog and whatever sliver is left to squeeze into, I take. I’m sure I’m not the only one that faces this situation. That being said, we can’t say enough about our joyful animal friends and we also can’t say enough about Dog Sports Logos. Here are a few of our favorites.

The El Paso Chihuahuas

 Logo photos courtesy of SportsLogos.net

Back in 2014, the Padres moved their AAA team from Tucson to El Paso. With that came a new stadium and a new sports logo and boy did it take off. El Paso loves their Chihuahuas. Their gear is at the airport, at shopping malls and it has quickly become the best selling minor league baseball logo. Go Chihuahuas!

 The Jackson Generals

 The Generals are based in Jackson Tennessee and are the AA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in the Southern League. Now that’s a long call up trip from Jackson to Seattle. Terrific artistry by the designer on this sports logo. If you pictured a dog General, it would look like “Sarge” who is the Generals mascot. I also love the replacement of chewing on a bat instead of a bone. Go Generals!

The Batavia Muckdogs

Baseball has been in Batavia New York since 1961. The Muckdogs are the Single A affiliate of the Florida Marlins in the New York Penn League. So what the heck is a Muckdog? Muck is a form of soil found in this part of New York. The name Muckdog came from a fan contest back in 1998. I like this logo for several reasons. Muck regionalizes the logo’s heritage. Crafty work by this sports logo designer making the broken fence into an “M” with a tough looking pooch breaking through.

The Midland RockHounds

 Midland is the AA affiliate of the Oakland A’s in the Texas League. In a 2014 interview with the awesome website sportslogos.net, Rockhounds PR man Brian Smith at the time said that the name is a nickname for a Geologist. Midland Texas is serious oil country, thus the hardhat on the dog and if you look real close, you can see some Oil Derrick’s in the background.

 

The Beverly Hills Fighting Chiweenies

 We are biased on this one because it’s one of our logos. This was actually a school project for one of our logo designers. She was given the task of creating a ferocious sports logo out of a docile creature and she nailed it with this cross between a Chihuahua and a Dachshund. We needed to find a location and Beverly Hills just seemed like the place you would find a Chiweenie peeking outside of a purse. Dog lovers will certainly strike up some conversations by wearing this awesome t-shirt. Even better, get your Chiweenies t-shirt at a discount price by subscribing to our T-shirt of the Month Club. Free shipping and discount prices. It also makes your trip to the mailbox easier because it’s something other than a bill. Now that’s awesome.

Have a great day and be sure to support your local animal shelters to help out dogs and other animals in need.

You are awesome!

Gavin Spittle

Founder, Logo Lover, Super Soft T-shirt Fanatic

Awesome Sports Logos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Batavia Muckdogs by Gavin on 7/31/2016 at 3:43:42 pm.

The Tennessee Smokies Have an A+ Sports Logo

Posted in Baseball by Gavin on 7/4/2016 at 3:34:21 pm.