Awesome Sports Logos Blog

Sports Logo Spotlight on the Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox are one of those baseball franchises with a lot of history. Established as an organization in 1894, they were then known as the "White Stockings." In 1901, they adopted the nickname they have to this day, all under the direction of owner Charles Comiskey, who birthed this franchise after purchasing the Sioux City Cornhuskers and moving them to the 'Windy City."

As an organization, the White Sox have been innovative. For instance, they became the first team in major sports to put players' last names on jerseys.

Their original logo was a roman-style S with an "o" and an "x" within the circular loops of the slithering letter. This was the logo tied to the notorious 1919 Chicago "Black Sox."

Logos courtesy of sportslogos.net

According to the White Sox website, with plenty of changes along the way, the White eventually settled on their famous old english lettering for good in late 1990. It was a variation of the logo they had from 1949 to 1963. Besides great logos another aspect that is fading from sports is the team nickname. Whenever the Red Sox played the White Sox it was the Red Sox vs. The Pale Hose. Back in 2005 for NPR, Frank Deford called it one of the finest nicknames in sports.

I love this logo for its simplicity in its approach and its color scheme. There is something unique about the black and white color scheme. It isn't boring, like some might think, but it isn't too complicated, either. The coloring also creates a bit of a “good-guy, bad-guy” motif. Notice, the White Sox are an easy choice to be the “bad guys” in baseball movies because black is an easy color to associate with the bad guys.

The old english font pays homage to the organization's history and gives it that "classic" feel. Plus, it is cryptic to a small degree, with the "O" linked between the more visible "s" and "x." At least, it is more visible to me, but maybe I'm just blind because when I look at it knowing that it is there, it is easy to decipher.

If you notice, the "S" is the biggest of the letters and, in a sport where most of the hats are adorned by just a single letter, that makes sense.

The detail for this logo isn't in any imaging or an animal crawling in and out of the letters. Rather, it is the natural detail in the winding and lining of the old english font itself. Natural beauty, if you will. No makeup. No plastic surgery. Pamela Anderson isn't welcome here. And that natural beauty has to count for something, right?

Baseball logos are tough to measure because they aren’t as elaborate as logos in other sports. As mentioned above, it is often times a letter or, in this case, a few letters. But I really like what the White Sox do with their cap space using this logo.

We at Awesome Sports Logos also believe that lettering makes a logo. That’s why we also have a baseball logo with simple lettering. Each July, the small town of Decorah Iowa grows by leaps and bounds as they hold their annual Nordic Fest. This year it will be held July 23rd-25th. You can’t have a Nordic Fest without celebrating Trolls so that’s how we came up with this awesome sports t-shirt.

Sometimes, the lettering is all you need.

Thanks as always for reading,

Jared Sandler

Awesome Sports Logos Columnist

Posted in Baseball by Gavin on 6/26/2015 at 12:14:42 pm.

Awesome Sports Logos Blog

Sports Logo Spotlight on the Chicago White Sox

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