Louisiana IceGators

88

If you look to the right, you will see the four logos that were under consideration by the Louisiana IceGators before the season began. These were posted on the web, and you could vote on which one you liked. You can, of course, see which one won at the top of the page. All I can say is that either the vote was rigged or the people of Louisiana pick logos about as well as they pick politicians.

The first logo is the same logo that the ECHL team of the same name used. The third (and eventual winner) is a slight — and I do mean slight — variation on the same. In fact, the orientation of the head is the only change in this entry. The second logo is, as best as I can determine, a snow globe with a collection of logo cliches in it. I hate to admit this, but if they actually made this logo into a snow globe I'd probably buy it, just because it would be the most ridiculous snow globe ever made. It would be even worse than this snow globe of Scarface saying "Say hello to my little friend!".

Then there's the fourth logo. I like the fourth logo. It doesn't exactly look like a sports logo, but that's fine. Sometimes you have to go with something different. And while it may not look like a sports logo, it does look really cool. I'm generally fond of minimalist drawing, and I love the way this logo manages to convey the idea of an alligator with nothing more than eight little squiggles. And while I generally don't like red eyes, it works here since there's clearly no attempt to be accurate with the colors. Here it draws your attention to the eye, and the eye looks menacing and vaguely demonic. The word "Icegators" in the logo actually helps it out by improving the height-to-width ratio. This is a fantastic logo. This should have been their logo.

Instead, we get the minor variation on the old logo. And it doesn't work, largely for the same reasons that the old one didn't. First, tan and green is a hideous color scheme. Second, the net is poorly drawn. The only way you would see a net at that perspective would be if you were below it, in which case the alligator would have to be frozen in the ice. Third, it's hard to imagine what position the torso could be in that would allow the legs to be where they are. Fourth, the effect of the snow on top of the letters looks like something straight out of one of those CDs you can buy with 1,000 fonts for $9.99.

Even the changes aren't much help. It's a slight improvement over the original, but only a slight one. Most logos with a head-on perspective create a sense of immediacy as a result. This one doesn't. I think the problem is that the colors are all so muddled that you have to look carefully at the logo to even notice that the head is looking straight at you. By that time, it's too late to be effective.

Then there are the red eyes that worked so well on the fourth logo. They don't work here. Here, the green alligator and the reddish orange net make it clear that this logo is aiming for color accuracy. With that in mind, the red eyes just look stupid.

My advice? Throw out the logo that won, and go with the fourth logo instead. So what if it didn't get the most votes? Buy a few votes to make it the winner...you can't tell me it would be the first time that had happened in Louisiana. That way, the team will have one of the most distinct and one of the best logos in all of minor league hockey, instead of one of the most derivative and one of the worst.

Final Score: 88 points.
Penalties: Region (egregious), 5 pts; Ice, 9 pts; Compound, 13 pts; Software, 8 pts; Wordplay, 7 pts; Cartoon, 17 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Equip-Logo (egregious), 8 pts; Colorful, 13 pts; Yucky-Logo, 5 pts; Yucky-Name, 4 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -3 pts.