What makes a great sports logo?

[Siouxperfan7]

14 hours ago, dakotadan said:

Exactly, it is your opinion. And the rest of us can have opinions too. 

I think that the Fighting Hawk nickname sucks. I'm not trying to cling to the Sioux nickname by saying this. I'm not a bad UND alumnus for saying this. I'm not a bad season ticket holder for saying this. I'm saying that I think the new nickname sucks and that is my opinion. And it's not going to change because you tell me to get over it or to move on. 

OK, so what is your plan for moving forward?  Complain about how the new nickname sucks for the rest of your life?  I was not a fan of the Fighting Hawks name.  I voted for Roughriders 3 times.  Was I happy that Fighting Hawks won?  No.  But I am not gonna bitch and moan about it.  I get it.  Losing the Fighting Sioux name sucked.  Picking Fighting Hawks as the new name sucks as well.  But welcome to the real world.  You don't always get what you want.  Man up and deal with it.  If you want to be that jaded, bitter, old man that complains about everything because you don't like it, that's fine.  But the rest of us grown ups are going to accept reality and move on. The fighting Hawks name is not going away.  The sooner you accept that fact, the better off you will be.  

[ArchyAlum11]

Hawks is used by at least 28 other universities in Division one, and countless more in Division Two and Three, one of them in North Dakota (the Dickinson State Blue Hawks). So tell me how are you helping the university by supporting a branding choice that really does nothing to help set UND apart from these other universities. The only good thing about the fighting hawks nickname is that it creates a turns the attention of the fan base away from trying to the get the Fighting Sioux back to just trying to good nickname, it also helps get the PC police off our backs. The longer quislings like you keep supporting the the new branding choice the longer the university will keep this disastrous bland and common nickname choice that does nothing to help set the university's athletic program apart as a brand. In hockey we are already pretty well known, but what about football, basketball, etc? We already get confused with NDSU on a regular basis just by virtue of the fact that we are from the same state, imagine when we have the same nickname as 28 other universities. By rejecting the new brand we force the University to begin looking for a new option and with a new overriding priority for that new nickname, uniqueness and strength, something the well represents the school, students, alumni, and our athletics. The current branding choice was selected with a single goal in mind, lets make sure no one could possible ever be offended by this. Yes it was voted on, but all the nickname options to be voted on came out of committee established by the university administration. The committee members including the chair have admitted that the process was manipulated and influenced by university administration, and we now get to see the results.

The reality is that booing the new NICKNAME is already having an effect, the athletic department has already begun removing it from game notes in hockey, time for the other sports spectators to step it up. If we reject the new nickname we can force university administration to begin to accept the idea that Hawks will need to be replaced or at least downplayed, and if people don't buy the Fighting Hawks merchandise  (Non-nickname merchandise is still good to buy) then manufactures will stop making it.The more resistance we as a fan base put up right and sustain the quicker the university will do an about face, right now their is little benefit to trying to force acceptance the new brand and the person that would have been its chief proponent in administration is gone. The current interim president Ed Schafer is a business man, and he is not going to waste time trying to promote a BRANDING option that is not accepted by fans. Flickertails changed to Sioux, Sioux changed to Hawks, their is no reason that Hawks cannot be changed. Though it may take a few years but if fans put the pressure on the University administration they will either downplay it or they will start looking for a new nickname, unburden by the hyperactive PC crowd and the fans that still think the Fighting Sioux can be brought back.

Also lets not make the delusion that the not supporting the new brand is synonymous with not supporting UND and our athletics. Once the new nickname was removed at hockey games their was no more booing from the student section so it should be pretty clear as to what people are upset about.

[darell1976]

1 minute ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

Hawks is used by at least 28 other universities in Division one, and countless more in Division Two and Three, one of them in North Dakota (the Dickinson State Blue Hawks). So tell me how are you helping the university by supporting a branding choice that really does nothing to help set UND apart from these other universities. The only good thing about the fighting hawks nickname is that it creates a turns the attention of the fan base away from trying to the get the Fighting Sioux back to just trying to good nickname, it also helps get the PC police off our backs. The longer quislings like you keep supporting the the new branding choice the longer the university will keep this disastrous bland and common nickname choice that does nothing to help set the university's athletic program apart as a brand. In hockey we are already pretty well known, but what about football, basketball, etc? We already get confused with NDSU on a regular basis just by virtue of the fact that we are from the same state, imagine when we have the same nickname as 28 other universities. By rejecting the new brand we force the University to begin looking for a new option and with a new overriding priority for that new nickname, uniqueness and strength, something the well represents the school, students, alumni, and our athletics. The current branding choice was selected with a single goal in mind, lets make sure no one could possible ever be offended by this. Yes it was voted on, but all the nickname options to be voted on came out of committee established by the university administration. The committee members including the chair have admitted that the process was manipulated and influenced by university administration, and we now get to see the results.

The reality is that booing the new NICKNAME is already having an effect, the athletic department has already begun removing it from game notes in hockey, time for the other sports spectators to step it up. If we reject the new nickname we can force university administration to begin to accept the idea that Hawks will need to be replaced or at least downplayed, and if people don't buy the Fighting Hawks merchandise  (Non-nickname merchandise is still good to buy) then manufactures will stop making it.The more resistance we as a fan base put up right and sustain the quicker the university will do an about face, right now their is little benefit to trying to force acceptance the new brand and the person that would have been its chief proponent in administration is gone. The current interim president Ed Schafer is a business man, and he is not going to waste time trying to promote a BRANDING option that is not accepted by fans. Flickertails changed to Sioux, Sioux changed to Hawks, their is no reason that Hawks cannot be changed also it may take a few years but if fans put the pressure on the University administration they will either downplay it or they will start looking for a new nickname, unburden by the hyperactive PC crowd and the fans that still think the Fighting Sioux can be brought back.

Also lets not make the delusion that the not supporting the new brand is synonymous with not supporting UND and our athletics. Once the new nickname was removed at hockey games their was no more booing from the student section so it should be pretty clear as to what people are upset about.

 

Don't you think for one second people are sick about bringing up UND's nickname? Now you want to scratch this one, go back to nothing and redo the whole thing again, and when a crappy name is picked, you would want to scratch that, and redo the whole thing again. And keep going in this circle until 2 things happen either UND says FU to the NCAA and goes back to the Fighting Sioux or UND has no nickname at all. Well step one will never happen, UND will never be the Fighting Sioux ever, the NCAA had made sure of that. And the NCAA has also made sure that by having no nickname will come with a price. You will find more and more Fighting Hawks around the REA in time, especially when a new logo is branded and new hockey jerseys come out around 2018.

[iluvdebbies]

#neverever

[jdub27]

55 minutes ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

The reality is that booing the new NICKNAME is already having an effect, the athletic department has already begun removing it from game notes in hockey, time for the other sports spectators to step it up. If we reject the new nickname we can force university administration to begin to accept the idea that Hawks will need to be replaced or at least downplayed, and if people don't buy the Fighting Hawks merchandise  (Non-nickname merchandise is still good to buy) then manufactures will stop making it.The more resistance we as a fan base put up right and sustain the quicker the university will do an about face, right now their is little benefit to trying to force acceptance the new brand and the person that would have been its chief proponent in administration is gone. The current interim president Ed Schafer is a business man, and he is not going to waste time trying to promote a BRANDING option that is not accepted by fans. Flickertails changed to Sioux, Sioux changed to Hawks, their is no reason that Hawks cannot be changed also it may take a few years but if fans put the pressure on the University administration they will either downplay it or they will start looking for a new nickname, unburden by the hyperactive PC crowd and the fans that still think the Fighting Sioux can be brought back.

They haven't been removing it from game notes (its used multiple times in the Game Notes for the US U-18 game). Per Schlossman, they are using it the same amount during the game, however they have adjusted when it is used. Saturday night it was said multiple times with little if any reaction at all.

Not sure why the other fans should "step it up". The coaches, staff and teams of the other major sports (FB, MBB, WBB, VB) have all embraced the new name and have no issue using it when speaking or on social media.

An interim President is not going to make any major decisions nor take any sort of stance on the nickname.

[ArchyAlum11]

3 minutes ago, darell1976 said:

 

Don't you think for one second people are sick about bringing up UND's nickname? Now you want to scratch this one, go back to nothing and redo the whole thing again, and when a crappy name is picked, you would want to scratch that, and redo the whole thing again. And keep going in this circle until 2 things happen either UND says FU to the NCAA and goes back to the Fighting Sioux or UND has no nickname at all. Well step one will never happen, UND will never be the Fighting Sioux ever, the NCAA had made sure of that. And the NCAA has also made sure that by having no nickname will come with a price. You will find more and more Fighting Hawks around the REA in time, especially when a new logo is branded and new hockey jerseys come out around 2018.

Making some big assumptions on that one, First they have to produce a new logo, which who knows they might shock all of us and make something fantastic, that can covert skeptics like me who make up a big portion of the fan base, but as i said previously the overriding goal thus far has been to make something unoffensive, not something that is distinct and unique, this doesn't fill me with hope going forward. So with new jerseys coming out in 2018 the hockey program will get time to gauge the popularity of the new logo, if people don't like it don't expect the UND hockey to use it.They want to sell jerseys and fans aren't going to shell out $100 for a product they don't want, again a great logo is really the only hope Hawks has, I just don't think they will pull it off.

[darell1976]

1 minute ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

Making some big assumptions on that one, First they have to produce a new logo, which who knows they might shock all of us and make something fantastic, that can covert skeptics like me who make up a big portion of the fan base, but as i said previously the overriding goal thus far has been to make something unoffensive, not something that is distinct and unique, this doesn't fill me with hope going forward. So with new jerseys coming out in 2018 the hockey program will get time to gauge the popularity of the new logo, if people don't like it don't expect the UND hockey to use it.They want to sell jerseys and fans aren't going to shell out $100 for a product they don't want, again a great logo is really the only hope Hawks has, I just don't think they will pull it off.

That's why I hope they get Bennett Brien to make the logo. He did great with the Sioux logo, and I think he can make a Fighting Hawks logo stand out among the other Hawk names.

[77iceman]

I think it's pretty safe to say that anyone who is hell bent on NOT accepting the FIghting Hawks name isn't going to accept any logo that the University ends up with.  Not sure why this would even be a discussion anymore.

 

[ArchyAlum11]

1 minute ago, darell1976 said:

That's why I hope they get Bennett Brien to make the logo. He did great with the Sioux logo, and I think he can make a Fighting Hawks logo stand out among the other Hawk names.

He won't, they are farming it out to some design agency that will in all likelihood create a generic logo.If he did i doubt they would take it, because he would actually do something smart like try to incorporate elements of the old logo into the new logo in a way the would establish the new brand but also acknowledge the past, it would be a proverbial olive branch logo with good symbolism that we could all probably rally behind. However that would also mean that it would have native american elements which would offend a subset of the native american community and up tight white people, so unfortunately I doubt that will happen.

The big problem and big regret is I have as whole is that we as fans, students and alum didn't go in and start supporting a new option like Nokota's  once the it was clear that Fighting Sioux was going to be sacrificed to the gods of political correctness. That is part of the reason that we as flickertails was replaced by Sioux, because the students came up with the idea and campaigned for it, if we had the foresight to do that we might have been able to avoid all this. 

[Siouxperfan7]

5 minutes ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

He won't, they are farming it out to some design agency that will in all likelihood create a generic logo.If he did i doubt they would take it, because he would actually do something smart like try to incorporate elements of the old logo into the new logo in a way the would establish the new brand but also acknowledge the past, it would be a proverbial olive branch logo with good symbolism that we could all probably rally behind. However that would also mean that it would have native american elements which would offend a subset of the native american community and up tight white people, so unfortunately I doubt that will happen.

The big problem and big regret is I have as whole is that we as fans, students and alum didn't go in and start supporting a new option like Nokota's  once the it was clear that Fighting Sioux was going to be sacrificed to the gods of political correctness. That is part of the reason that we as flickertails was replaced by Sioux, because the students came up with the idea and campaigned for it, if we had the foresight to do that we might have been able to avoid all this. 

It is unfortunate that instead of supporting a name that would be good to replace it, most of the students (and many others as well) put all their effort to fighting a lost cause to try to keep the name and then putting their support in having no nickname.  By the time that having no nickname was not an option, the list was already narrowed down to 5 names and there was no chance for students to get behind a name that they could really suppport.  INstead they were stuck with the 5 names that were left at the time.

[UND1983]

33 minutes ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

Making some big assumptions on that one, First they have to produce a new logo, which who knows they might shock all of us and make something fantastic, that can covert skeptics like me who make up a big portion of the fan base, but as i said previously the overriding goal thus far has been to make something unoffensive, not something that is distinct and unique, this doesn't fill me with hope going forward. So with new jerseys coming out in 2018 the hockey program will get time to gauge the popularity of the new logo, if people don't like it don't expect the UND hockey to use it.They want to sell jerseys and fans aren't going to shell out $100 for a product they don't want, again a great logo is really the only hope Hawks has, I just don't think they will pull it off.

What do you want the new nickname to be?

[UND1981]

26 minutes ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

 because he would actually do something smart like try to incorporate elements of the old logo into the new logo in a way the would establish the new brand but also acknowledge the past, it would be a proverbial olive branch logo with good symbolism that we could all probably rally behind.

 

This would be a good outcome but unfortunately won't happen. 

[ArchyAlum11]

53 minutes ago, UND1983 said:

What do you want the new nickname to be?

I personally think that Nokota was the best option, it pairs well with NDSU Bison now that they are trying to revive that rivalry. Also horse mascots aren't as common as bird mascots so it would have been a bit more unique especially since the Nokota breed is found only in North Dakota, and it would have helped out the Nokota Horse Conservancy by giving them some more publicity.

Raiders would have been a good options because branding wise you could take it in many different directions that would allow for a lot of cool logos and jerseys. I personally would have done it with a WWII aircraft motif, but viking, pirates, old west outlaw ideas could have worked too.

I think something Norse or Viking themed would have been good too, you could have had a Nordic Flag with UND colors that would have been kind of neat. Also a lot of different logo ideas, plus you have an excuse to serve mead at the games.

Other options that might of worked would be the Cavaliers, Roughriders,  or the Flickertails(But only if the mastcot looked like the picture below!)

[77iceman]

Nordic or Viking would be out . . . Portland State Vikings.  And why should that be allowed? Vikings were notorious for being horrible

people.  Shouldn't Scandinavians be offended by that?

 

Personally, I was pulling for something in the aviation theme.  Bombers, Jets, etc . . .

Think of what they could have done with AV and sound for home games!  Air raid sirens, explosions, any music from Top Gun

 

I'm over it, though.  GO HAWKS.  There are way bigger problems to deal with in my world than a team name and logo.

[ArchyAlum11]

31 minutes ago, 77iceman said:

Nordic or Viking would be out . . . Portland State Vikings.  And why should that be allowed? Vikings were notorious for being horrible

people.  Shouldn't Scandinavians be offended by that?

 

Personally, I was pulling for something in the aviation theme.  Bombers, Jets, etc . . .

Think of what they could have done with AV and sound for home games!  Air raid sirens, explosions, any music from Top Gun

 

I'm over it, though.  GO HAWKS.  There are way bigger problems to deal with in my world than a team name and logo.

Thats the reason i liked Raiders, you could of had a number of aircraft elements, Imagine UND Raiders Bomber jackets like the ones they had in WWII. Also imagine a fly over by vintage WWII aircraft at the homecoming parade. Though if you used the right aircraft you could still do an aviation theme with fighting Hawks, but they aren't creative enough to try that.

[darell1976]

3 hours ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

Thats the reason i liked Raiders, you could of had a number of aircraft elements, Imagine UND Raiders Bomber jackets like the ones they had in WWII. Also imagine a fly over by vintage WWII aircraft at the homecoming parade. Though if you used the right aircraft you could still do an aviation theme with fighting Hawks, but they aren't creative enough to try that.

There are 2 DI teams with Raiders, but there is only one Fighting Hawks and its UND.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_college_sports_team_nicknames

 

[darell1976]

4 hours ago, 77iceman said:

Nordic or Viking would be out . . . Portland State Vikings.  And why should that be allowed? Vikings were notorious for being horrible

people.  Shouldn't Scandinavians be offended by that?

 

Personally, I was pulling for something in the aviation theme.  Bombers, Jets, etc . . .

Think of what they could have done with AV and sound for home games!  Air raid sirens, explosions, any music from Top Gun

 

I'm over it, though.  GO HAWKS.  There are way bigger problems to deal with in my world than a team name and logo.

I actually submitted Jets as one of my two nickname choices when this whole thing started. Yes Winnipeg has the Jets but no DI team has it plus UND is known for aviation, but oh well that's over and we are the only Fighting Hawks in the NCAA.

[ArchyAlum11]

3 minutes ago, darell1976 said:

I actually submitted Jets as one of my two nickname choices when this whole thing started. Yes Winnipeg has the Jets but no DI team has it plus UND is known for aviation, but oh well that's over and we are the only Fighting Hawks in the NCAA.

I submitted raiders for a similar reason a lot of good aviation potential.

[ArchyAlum11]

Wait i have done it, I have single handedly saved the fighting hawks name with the most awesome mascot we could hope for. 

[darell1976]

49 minutes ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

Wait i have done it, I have single handedly saved the fighting hawks name with the most awesome mascot we could hope for. 

Warner Brothers won't approve. 

[SIOUXFAN97]

1 hour ago, darell1976 said:

There are 2 DI teams with Raiders, but there is only one Fighting Hawks and its UND.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_college_sports_team_nicknames

 

um-eastern shores fighting hawks...they already have it.

[SIOUXFAN97]

what makes a good sports logo? 

 

a good nickname.

[darell1976]

15 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

um-eastern shores fighting hawks...they already have it.

They are the Hawks not the Fighting Hawks.

[77iceman]

This whole thread has me picturing some crabby old man setting alone somewhere clutching his UND Flickertail sweater in his hands, mumbling something about how stupid the Sioux name and logo is.

[ArchyAlum11]

2 hours ago, darell1976 said:

Warner Brothers won't approve. 

I think they would just be happy that people remembered chicken hawk.