Staten Island FerryHawks

183

Without doing any research, I instantly understand a lot about this logo. The name refers to the Staten Island Ferry, which is the main way to get from Staten Island to Manhattan. The boat in the logo is, of course, one of those ferry boats. And the bridge in the logo is the something Narrows Bridge (I know the something is an Italian name starting with a V, but I can't remember precisely what it is), which is the bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn.

Um...why do I know all this? I've never been to New York. I don't especially care about New York. I certainly don't know this much about Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Los Angeles, or any other major city in the U.S. except for Washington, which is where I'm from. I'm not certain how I learned it, or why. But here we are.

But that makes this a rather easy review to write, because I don't really need to put any effort into it. I just look at the logo and comment on it.

On one level, the inclusion of the bridge and boat are a bit silly. It's a bit like if Chelsea F.C. decided to put a double-decker bus in their logo, or if the San Francisco Giants added a streetcar, or if the Washington Wizards added a bunch of cars stuck in traffic on the Beltway. On the other hand, the ferry and the (let me go look this up real quick) Verrazzano Narrows Bridge are probably the most iconic things Staten Island has (again, how and why do I know this?). Their inclusion gives the logo a sense of place.

Either way, the hawk needs work. It's a particularly clumsy mixture of actual hawk and anthropomorphization. The arms — they don't look much like wings — are in a position that arms don't actually go in without dislocating something. The things at the end of the arms are clearly intended to be feathers, but the way they're splayed out and the relative lengths of them makes them look like fingers — and given the weird angles in those fingers, they must be broken. The awry cap looks silly. The way the hawk is looking directly at you is good, but with so much else wrong with the hawk, it's not really very effective.

As for the lettering...um, whatever. It's not amazing, but who expects lettering to be amazing? It gets the job done.

So basically the FerryHawks have a logo with only one problem, which is the actual FerryHawk. Somehow that seems like a problem to me. It's like a pizzeria with great salad and great breadsticks, but the actual pizza is pretty shitty. I feel like somebody focused on the wrong thing.

Could they leave everything else alone but fix the actual bird? Maybe it would work and maybe it would just make things worse, but it seems like it would be worth a try.

Final Score: 183 points.
Penalties: Software, 27 pts; Compound, 34 pts; Scenery, 11 pts; Equipment (the uniform), 13 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Colorful, 31 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts.
Bonuses: None.