I realize I’ve gone a little crazy with the baseball posts of late, but with Major League Baseball’s regular season coming to an end this week, I have to get one more in. (Okay, maybe two.)

Baseball fans are essentially glorified brand loyalists. I am objectively aware that my affinity for the Philadelphia Phillies amounts to an irrational, overly emotional connection to a team of multi-millionaires wearing pajamas with the same logo, but I can’t help myself. That said, for those in the business of branding, there are lessons to be learned from the way different Major League Baseball teams have approached the use of their logos.

The Classics

Baseball’s most popular and recognizable logos are consistently simple in design and color palette and have been in use largely unchanged for decades. (Note: for the purposes of this post, I am writing primarily about cap logos, like the “NY” on the left below, as opposed to official logos like the “Yankees” script and top hat.)

Every year, the Yankees far outdistance other teams in sales of merchandise. Sure, you can argue that Yankees apparel is popular because New York is the largest market in the nation and there are legions of bandwagon fans all over the world riding the coattails of their 26 World Series championships. But while some teams occasionally introduce new logos in an attempt to get fans to buy the latest gear, the Yankees have used essentially the same logo since 1913. The iconic interlocking “NY” probably wouldn’t make it past focus groups in today’s environment, but simplicity, longevity, and the team’s success make this logo one of the most recognizable in the world.

On the other hand, the Boston Red Sox play in a much smaller city (23rd largest in the US) and until recently, were famously unsuccessful, going 86 years between World Series championships. But like the Yankees, the Red Sox have used essentially the same identity—some version of the stylized “B” and/or some version of the socks—since the early 1930s, and they, too, rank among the top two or three in merchandise sales each year. The common factor between the Yankees and the Red Sox is the extended use of a consistent, simple logo.

The Dodgers have been playing in Los Angeles since 1958, and since then have been using this purely typographic logo, another of baseball’s most popular and recognizable. Lots of baseball teams use the technique of interlocking city initials, but the Dodgers logo is unique in that the horizontal stroke of the letter “L” doubles as the cross stroke of the letter “A.” Again, this logo is not exactly jazzy (one color, slab serif type), but it’s been in use for six decades and Dodgers fans wear it with pride right up until the 7th inning (have to leave the ballpark early to avoid traffic).

I’ve not mentioned the Chicago Cubs here, though they are among the classics. See a post about their logo from earlier this summer here.

The Era of Teal, Purple, and Vector Art

Teams with complicated logos, trendy color choices, or constantly changing identities tend to be less successful in branding efforts than the classics.

The Arizona Diamondbacks, who came into existence in 1998, have had two distinct color schemes and seem to change their logo every other year. The above images represent cap logos from 1999, 2000, and 2007. Though the Diamondbacks are in Phoenix, the sixth-largest city in the nation, and had immediate success, winning a World Series in just their fourth season, they are never mentioned among the best-selling or most popular brands in baseball.

The Florida Marlins were introduced in 1993 and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998. It was the ’90s, everyone was wearing flannel, and vector art was all the rage. Sure, we all look back at fashion choices from our past with a chuckle, but the trendy color choices and complex designs of these logos lessened their effectiveness. (In fairness, the teams were terrible for a while, but even when the Marlins won World Series titles in 1997 and 2003, their gear was still not that popular.)

The logo that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays wore on their caps in 1999 (mercifully just for that one year) featured a three-color gradient blend, which might sound like a lot of nerd speak, but it’s really tacky when it comes to logo design. I maintain that the Devil Rays (who have since changed their logo, colors, and team name) were trying to distract fans’ attention from their horrendous stadium with an even worse branding system.

Obviously, factors like market size and success on the field affect the popularity of a team’s merchandise, and it takes newer teams a generation or two to really entrench themselves in a community’s psyche. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Major League Baseball’s most recognizable and popular identities are simple, clean, and long-lived.

Tune in next Monday for “Baseball Logos, Part 2: The Era of the Clever Logo.” Thanks to www.sportslogos.net, which is a great repository of information and images related to logos from all sports.

I have an understanding wife. For those who know me or my wife, it is easy for you to relate to how understanding she really is. She favorably tolerates my obsessions and, whether or not she admits it, enables my participation in them. She has followed me on multiple excursions, from chasing rare birds in some of the finest wastewater treatment facilities in the United States, to hole-in-the-wall restaurants searching for the perfect barbeque sandwich, from Dave Matthews Band concert to Dave Mathews Band concert in more states that she can remember, to sitting patiently while I photographed various elements of design and interviewed various people on design topics.

On a recent romantic weekend getaway (sans children) to Nashville, Tennessee, she was again supportive upon my discovery of the oldest working poster print shop in the United States. I was excited and nothing induces romance like the fumes from ink. Wait, that’s not romance that’s hypoxia. I digress.

A working print shop since 1879, the Hatch Show Print Company is a Nashville landmark that is directly connected to the country music of the region. Even though I am not a big country music fan, I do appreciate pointy toe cowboy boots and 10-gallon hats. But due my previous connection to sweater vests and bow ties, I have been banned from the country and western scene.

Hatch Show Print Co. is in operation today using the letterpress process in a world of desktop publishing, offset printing and computer processing. The print shop/museum is an amazing collection of design history. Viewing the collection of hand-carved woodblocks and metal type in and of itself is worth the price of admission (there is no admission fee). For the better part of the 20^th century, the posters produced by Hatch were the principle medium for the promotion of special events, entertainment acts and the Grand Ole Opry (for which they are most well known).

Their client list ranges from Johnny Cash to the Dave Matthews Band. The letterpress along with the design create stylized products that are recognizable as Hatch prints, but are unique to the product/artist/event they promote. Hatch is in the business of interpretation, whether they know it or not. With statements such as, “There’s a heritage that we try to relate to the customer or the viewer when they see a Hatch poster,” I can see direct ties between what they do as designers and what we do as interpretive designers. The heritage of the company that they are relating to customers is protected by consistencies in production and design. They know what they do well, and do it well again and again. The introduction of new elements (new typefaces or other modern equipment) is not allowed in order to protect the niche that has made them popular and successful. However, new carvings are made on linoleum to meet needs and demands.

Being a geek hopped up on ink fumes, I did have a few questions for one of their designers about specific design decisions they made on some of the posters. I was curious about the reasoning behind re-occurring elements in multiple designs such as this target or bull’s eye.

I found myself drawn to the target designs for reasons I can’t explain (again possibly the fumes). When I asked if was there a connection to an artist, time period, or reason the target was used in several designs throughout the shop, she responded by saying that there is no known significance behind the design. It is simply what they do. Sometimes that’s all the reasoning you need in the decision-making process. I said earlier that they know what they do well and they do it well again and again. This is an example of that principle. I had several other questions but after glancing at my wife, I paid for my t-shirt and we left.

Today the Hatch Show Print Co. posters are highly sought after by fans of music, artists and designers. If you are interested in having Hatch produce a poster for your event, you are in luck. They is still an active print shop working with clients on a daily basis and producing over 600 newly designed products each year. They can produce just about any product that involves ink and paper. It is great to see a traditional method being used for “preservation through production.”

Now I need to get back to planning my next romantic getaway to the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices or the Spam Museum.

It seems that I’ve made enough snarky comments about the Phillies’ recent World Series championship in posts completely unrelated to baseball that we’ve started showing up when people search terms like “Phillies typeface” or “Phillies logo font” on the Internet. Inevitably, anyone clicking through to this site after one of these searches is disappointed because they’re probably looking to download Phillies fonts, which are custom designed and not available to the public.

To confirm this, I called the Phillies and spoke with Print/Creative Services Director Tina Urban. (I asked to speak with Shane Victorino, but he was busy.) Ms. Urban told me that the Phillies typeface (as seen on my son Joel’s T-shirt above) was designed by Major League Baseball and is called Scriptwurst, which to me sounds like a magical combination of type and sausage.

This got me to thinking about the relationship between typography and my favorite baseball team. This summer, I stopped at a T-shirt shop on the Ocean City, New Jersey, boardwalk to get Joel a personalized Phillies T-shirt with the name and number of his choice on the back. He chose “Joel” because that’s his name and “10″ for reasons I have yet to determine. (I know what you’re thinking, but this was before the Phils traded for fourth outfielder Ben Francisco.)

Associated Press/Charles Dharapak

When we placed the order, I envisioned a shirt with the typeface the Phillies use on the back of their jerseys, which is different from the Scriptwurst logo that appears on the front of the jersey. The typeface on the back of the jerseys is a sans serif that is thick and slightly rounded (which describes a fair portion of Phillies fans, as well). It’s easy to read and a little more fun than most of the typefaces you find on professional sports paraphernalia.

Even President Obama likes this typeface enough to have gotten himself a personalized Phillies jersey. (Now people searching the Internet for serious political news are going to find themselves here. Sorry, folks.)

What we got instead was what you see here. The color of the shirt is the appropriate red and the composition is loosely correct. But on the other hand, the baseline on the number 10 is uneven because of what my grad school professors would call a “poor level of craft,” and technically, the name should be on a slight arc instead of straight across.

Most importantly, though, the typeface on Joel’s shirt has nothing to do with what the Phillies use on their official gear.

Now, I imagine that if we were at a Phillies game in a stadium that routinely hosts roughly 45,000 fans, I might be the only one concerned about the typography on the back of a T-shirt (with the notable exception of Tina Urban). But to me, the typeface used on the back of the shirt has nearly as much to do with the identity of the team as the logo itself. Ms. Urban agrees, and says she has to wear blinders when she goes to the shore because she can’t stand to look at the indignities inflicted by boardwalk T-shirt vendors on the Phillies’ carefully crafted identity.

In retrospect, I should have ordered something online from the Phillies website to get the official custom typeface rather than having some guy on the boardwalk iron type onto a shirt. To me, this shows that visual identity is about more than just a logo; it’s a system of design choices related to color, type, and composition, and all of them need to be consistent.

Note: Out of curiosity, I Googled “Phillies typeface” and came across an excellent post called “Baseball Season” on the website GraphicHug. Little did author Chris Ro know when this article was posted on October 15, 2008, that the Phillies were on their way to winning the World Series—a victory for the Phightin’ Phils and sophisticated type!

Noted friend of Interpretation By Design, Kelly Farrell, sent us this photo. It was taken by a friend of hers who has a growing collection of “exotic” signs.  I too have a collection of “exotic” signs that are not permitted to be posted on this website by the FCC and my wife.

Over the last few years and many presentations our collection of funny signs and interesting approaches to design continues to grow.  If you have a funny sign photo send it our way and we can put it up on IBD for all to see.

Designers are pompous, arrogant jerks—real loudmouths who feel they’re always right and that everyone else is an idiot. Well, luckily for everybody, there’s a website out there, www.design-police.org, that has taken it upon itself to formalize all of the hang-ups and attitudes that make people think this about us. Friend of IBD Brian Trosko turned us on to Design Police, which offers a free pdf for download with five pages of red tags meant to be cut out and applied to other people’s work. Each of the tags represents a common criticism in the design world.

Clearly, the folks responsible for this site have been through graduate school critiques and are lashing out at the world in response. I’ve included a few of my favorites with comments below.

When we present Interpretation By Design workshops, participants frequently bring projects for us to review. Almost without fail, the first step to improving a project is implementing some sort of grid.

First, this is funny because these tags themselves are set in Helvetica. Second, any chance we get to take a jab at Comic Sans, we take. Shea will have to make his own “Papyrus Does Not Communicate What You Think It Communicates” tags, as the Design Police make no mention of it.

Interpreters love words. Lots and lots of words. One of the hardest things for any writer to do is be concise, but it’s particularly important at interpretive sites, where visitors’ attention spans are limited.

This one is just for Shea, who is trying to shake the habit of double-spacing after periods, a practice that became obsolete with the advent of the personal computer. The reason that we no longer need to double space after periods is that most typographic character sets have that spacing built in already.

If Microsoft Word is to page layout what the microwave is to gourmet cooking, then Word Art is sugar-free, caramel-cheddar popcorn that was overcooked by about a minute. Word processors should not be used for page layout because they’re not designed for that purpose. Word Art should not be used for anything because pretty much every one of its features violates some tenet of good typography.

Sometimes you just can’t resist that last drop shadow, inner glow, blur more, craquelure, and ocean ripple effect. And if you can’t, you need some jerk designer to let you know that you’ve gone too far.

And finally, every once in a while, you get one of those criticisms that just cuts right to the bone. If you get a comment like “Bad logo” or “Over-designed,” all you can do is shake it off or start over. Designers really are jerks.

When I began junior high school my modus operandi was to stay off of the radar and try not to be noticed. Being somewhat scared by the idea of conflict between me (nerd) and upperclassmen (complete with mustaches and other tosterone induced signs of coolness). I wanted to disappear into the crowd. That all changed when my Grandmother bought me a red pair of parachute pants (at that date and time parachute pants were really cool, I promise). I was excited about my stylish new pants but quickly found out that it is hard to go unnoticed when the friction of your (uh, my) husky legs rubbing together in copious amounts of red nylon creates such a “whooshing” sound that is reminiscent of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince scratching some old school vinyl. I was officially on the radar from that point on. Now erase the image you may have of me in parachute pants or anyone in parachute pants for that matter and I will continue.

Sometimes it is a good thing to go unnoticed in the products we create. That’s right, some things go best unsaid or mostly unnoticed. We have had several posts on IBD that were written to help improve the chances that your product will be read or used by visitors. You may now be wondering why go to the trouble to create it, if it is not designed to be conspicuous?

What sparked this post for me was a recent trip to Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas and the discovery of a well designed sign at the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Overlook of the Petit Jean Valley. In most cases the architecture of the CCC (a public relief program that was active from 1933-1942 employing young men across the country to primarily focus on natural resource conservation projects) compliments the landscape, is aesthetically pleasing and was designed to enhance the visitor’s experience.

Upon arriving at the overlook, I was immediately I was drawn to the view and the dramatic landscape. Secondarily, I recognized that I walked right through a CCC picnic pavilion as a gateway to the view’s most dramatic point, without even noticing the pavilion. The historic structure encased the view and made it possible for our group to enjoy it safely from it’s most dramatic point. After soaking in the landscape we began to notice the “parkitecture.” Freeman Tilden states in Interpreting Our Heritage that interpreters “do well to…create the best possible vantage points from which beauty may be seen and comprehended; and…do all that discreetly may be done to establish a mood, or sympathetic atmosphere.” The CCC was successful at reaching this same goal at Petit Jean State Park, setting the stage for an interpretive experience.

While looking more closely at the construction and elements of the structure I noticed a stone carved sign that did an excellent job of blending in. Pretty much the polar opposite of red parachute pants, again lose the image.

I’m not sure if the sign is original to the structure (more than likely not) and then was altered in 1981 by the YACC or added in 1981, but either way it speaks volumes to the understated design of the CCC. The material for the sign is consistent with the other construction materials and the landscape. There is no reason for it to stand out; the message is understated, matter of fact, and perfectly appropriate. As simple as it is, it has plenty of character. From the inconsistent kerning (letter spacing) to the regal, hand carved, serif, letter forms that are consistent with the era work well to speak volumes.

Next time you are creating a sign or product take into consideration the impact of the product on the landscape.  Sometimes the location may call for red parachute pants and other times it may simply call for classic blue jeans. You make that call.