Ever since the Wild first dropped the puck in 2000, I’ve always been confused about what exactly their logo is. What is a “Wild”? Maybe it has to do with the vast wilderness of Minnesota? That works, I guess. But then what is that weird animal represented in the logo? It looks like some sort of Wild Cat, or a Lynx, or something. What does that have to do with Minnesota? It’s just weird. I’ve always talked about how much I hated the logo, but now, with everyone else in the world rebranding their companies, why not give the Minnesota Wild a face lift?
I started brain storming, and figured out I wanted the logo to stay pretty similar. I didn’t want to change it so much that the casual person doesn’t know it’s Minnesota’s logo. I still wanted it to represent Minnesota, and still keep the “Wild” and wilderness theme. If you’re any kind of Wild fan, or even just a sports fan in general, you know the Minnesota Wild hockey team is very rich in hockey tradition and built around its fans and community.
That gave me a few options. Geese, birds, moose, deer, nope. I tried Bears but everything looked like the Boston Bruins. I was trying to avoid Wolves, because of the Timberwolves, but I decided if I did it right, it could work. Wolves are fitting, not only because they are spotted in Minnesota, but because of the rich Native American history Minnesota has. The wolf is a symbol of leadership, courage, and hope in the Native American community, mainly the Lakota Sioux who originally migrated from Northern Minnesota to North and South Dakota.
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Now that looks a lot more bitchin’. I kept the same idea. The silhouette of an animals head, except I changed it to a much more vicious and threatening animal in the wolf. Also, like I said before, the wolf represents Minnesota much more than…. whatever that is. Next up were the jerseys.
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First up was the home jersey. I wanted that “old school” look. Minnesota is about old time hockey. Our hockey was built in the north with the hard working, bloody knuckle type workers. Skating on the frozen lakes in below zero weather. We need old time hockey jerseys that represent that. We also need Minnesota right there on the chest, not some tiny “if you squint real hard you can see it“, Minnesota font like we currently have.
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Next up was the road jersey. Traditionally, the road jersey is supposed to show who you are, where you’re from, and what you’re about. That’s why the state of Minnesota is placed on the upper right chest, for everyone to see who they are playing for. Then I felt we needed to put the new, “intimidating” logo dead center. Again, I threw in the old school flavor with the traditional stripe across the middle, a la the original 6.
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Last, but not least, every team has the alternate jersey. The alternate jersey has always been the “futuristic” look of the franchise. We’ve seen a lot of ugly things from the alternates from other franchises (Vancouver….), but occasionally you get an alternate so cool, it eventually becomes a regular jersey (Rangers). I’ve always been a fan of putting the number on the front of the jersey. I also threw in a hint of the traditional look in the manuscript font spelling Minnesota. Perhaps a throwback to old Gopher jerseys. Then, the modern feel comes from the long, swooping line across the entire jersey. This is gaining popularity around the league, with a lot of teams doing this on their every night jerseys.
Conclusion
And there you have it. Not only would it bring Minnesota a much more traditional looking team, think of the sales numbers a rebrand would bring. We’ve already sold out every single home game since 2000, imagine if we had something new to be excited about. It would be almost as exciting if we put a few numbers in the Win column occasionally.
Tags: Design, Graphics, Ideas, Inspiration, Minnesota, Photoshop, Sports, Vector, Wild
January 24th, 2009 at 4:32 am
Haha when I went to the Coyotes vs Wild game here I was wondering the whole time what the hell is a Wild?
I like the rebranding. The logo especially. Your is much, much better. I vote they hire you for a rebranding effort.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:19 am
Glad to see that this site works well on my Blackberry Bold, everything I want to do is functional. Thanks for keeping it up to date with the latest.
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:48 am
No, sorry. Your wolf logo looks like an anatomical model of a wolf with a visible esophagus. It looks like what you’d see in a commercial for antacid.
The current logo has a double meaning. The animal/landscape design duality is along the same lines as the arrow in the FedEx logo. First you see one, then you see the other.