Texas Stars

54

Who is the moron who decided to call the team the "Texas" Stars? Not only are there other hockey teams in Texas, not only are there other teams in the same league in Texas, but there are other hockey teams called the Stars in Texas! This doesn't deserve to get the "egregious" modifier; it deserves to get the "bizarre" modifier. Just call the team the Austin Stars and be done with it. Yes, yes, I know: they actually play in Cedar Park. I don't care. They should still be called the Austin Stars. If they absolutely can't stand to do that, then let them be the Cedar Park Stars. Anything would be better than calling themselves the Texas Stars team when they're taking the "Stars" name from another team in Texas.

As for the logo, in order to discuss the Texas Stars logo properly you have to start with the Dallas Stars logo. The reason for this is obvious: that's where the designers of the Texas Stars logo started. The Texas Stars logo, as you can plainly see, is the Dallas Stars logo with three modifications.

The first modification is that they replaced the word "Dallas" with the word "Texas". That makes sense.

The second modification is that they changed the font and color of the word "Stars". That was a mistake.

The third modification is that they made the star two-toned instead of a solid color. That was a big mistake.

Why? Because the logo now looks amateurish. The Dallas Stars logo isn't spectacular, but it's there's nothing wrong with it. There's an elegance in its simplicity. The Texas Stars logo, on the other hand, is not elegant. Someone saw a good, simple logo, and decided that what it really needed was a bunch of clutter. The person who made these modifications is clearly the Phil Spector of logo designers. The difference is that while Phil Spector's studio tricks may undermine the charm of certain songs, as a general rule that don't completely ruin it. These changes do.

The logo was fine before. It did not need to have the Star Wars font inserted into it. It did not need a shadow effect inserted into it. Most of all, it did not need the yellow replaced with a color reminiscent of baby vomit. It doubly did not need the shade of bright green and the baby vomit. Aren't logo designers supposed to know something about color theory? Because if they had, they'd have realized that bright green plus dark green plus baby vomit yellow equals visually ugly plus oddly reminiscent of the pea soup scene from The Exorcist. I'm sure they teach this very fact in art school. I'm sure they tell their students, "Remember: If you put bright green, dark green, and baby vomit yellow together, you wind up with something visually ugly and reminiscent of the pea soup scene from The Exorcist." My mother-in-law is an artist, and I'm sure she would agree that they teach students this in art school. I'm sure she'd say that's what her teachers taught her, even though she went to art school before The Exorcist came out.

Occasionally I make suggestions on how to improve these logos, such as color changes or the removal of extraneous features. In the case of the Texas Stars, it's real easy. First, find the MS Paint file (the logo definitely looks like MS Paint was involved) where you transformed the Dallas Stars logo into the Texas Stars logo. Then open it up. Then click on "Undo". A lot.

Final Score: 54 points.
Penalties: Region (quintuply-egregious), 23 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Colorful, 13 pts; Offspring, 5 pts; Yucky-Name, 4 pts; Yucky-Logo, 5 pts. Bonuses: Local, -3 pts.