Creative Visual Design for Print and the Web

By Cody Babbit       November 14, 2017

 

You are a logo of yourself. Think about it for a second, all that you stand for, know, and project to the world can be boiled down to a graphic symbol. You've heard the saying that a person has become a "caricature of themselves", well, first you are a logo of yourself. For most of us that logo is a symbol or your "likeness," actually how you look, dress, style your hair and present yourself.  WE remember these features in others and the info is brought up in our brain in a millisecond when we need it.

 

If you're having some trouble with this concept just look at social media, the profile photos of users on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  These show, or at least try to show the users personalities. There are straight up selfie photos, caricatures pets, kids, even icons of things the people love. All connect to the users identity in some way.

 

This is our "Identity." Kind of a basic security check we humans do at a glance to confirm that this is the right person to trust, speak to, befriend or even marry. This memory we have "uploaded" is a snippet of the persons branding and whether you like it or not, this is the "brand" you are projecting to other and is , in fact your logo. A logo is a graphic symbol and a "proxy" for our identity. It can represent a person, a family, a group, a company or even an entire country.

 

Sports teams have logos too. This is the same thing as an individual, it just covers a much larger group of people, a team, an organization. Their reputation, history, pride, following and identity is all wrapped up in that little graphic symbol. I am a fan of the Green Bay Packers, a historic team in the National Football Leaque, (NFL) that goes back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Loaded with sports traditions, personalities, records and accomplishments.

 

The Green Bay Packers logo is a simple attractive graphic with a large "G" on an oval field. Its on the helmets, the center of the field at the 50 yardline, the scoreboard, just about everywhere! Not only in Lambeau Field either. If I counted every Packer logo inside my house right now, on t shirts, jerseys, and memorabilia right now, it would probably number over 50.

 

"If you thought the large "G" in the Packers

 logo is for Green Bay... you'd be wrong!"

 

It is widely thought that the "G" stands for Green Bay, but this is i ncorrect, it actually stands for "Greatness". The logo was created by the then equipment manager George Braisher in 1961.

 

In 1963 the University of Georgia asked for permission to use the packer logo as their own and was granted permission and use the same logo today with different colors, red and back as apposed to the Packers green and gold.

 

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The unique thing about the Packers, that is, besides the greatness of the franchise itself, is that they are in the smallest, (football), market in the country, with the team/stadium being owned by the fans themselves. Actually the stadium, Lambeau Field, might be the only football venue in the United States named after an honorary person, Curly Lambeau, and not a corporate entity. I don't think the fans would ever stand for renaming anything involving the Packers, corporate of otherwise.  Earl, "Curly" Lambeau, who founded the Packers along with George Whitney Calhoun, solicited funds from the Indian Packing Company in Green Bay, where Curly had a day job. He asked them to sponsor the team and received $500. for uniforms. The team was called the Acme Packers and later became the Green Bay Packers.

 

The thing about the professional sports organizations in general is that most of your favorite pro sports teams are talent managed. This means all of the players are brokered for their talents from other parts of the country and not from the Green bay, (or your city's), area at all. This means your hero's are all picked from the same pool of talent available to every team in the NFL. This says that the real heros are the teams general managers who pick the talent and although these guys play for your team, they aren't from your city, the city where you are born/raised so some of the pride is mute. Since even the team personnel, coaches and business people is from other areas of the country, it seems that you are rooting for the logo of your team all by itself itself.

 

Could it be that the graphic designer is the hero? Think about this for a second! look how all of the teams are marketed. What is consistent about your favorite team? Coaching? Quarterbacks? Stadiums? These all come and go, what is always there? The team logo! So, in essence it all comes down to you cheering for a logo!