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Anyone who examines the history of Super Bowl logos will notice a trend that began in 2010.
The Super Bowl logos archive on Sportslogos.net shows the design evolution for each year of the NFL title game. The first 12 logos featured similar designs before the league got more creative and colorful. In the 1990s, in particular, designers went out of their way to create unique brands for Super Bowls.
Next, the league unveiled the logo for Super Bowl 45 in Arlington, Texas, and announced that it had partnered with design firm Landor, which has since been involved in the design of the Super Bowl logos.
And it shows.
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The Super Bowl logos since this partnership began have pretty much the same look: mostly gray, featuring the Lombardi Trophy and (for the first six years) something that involved the city.
In recent designs, the logo has become even more standardized with the design simply adding another I as the Roman numerals continue to grow. The Super Bowl 55 logo follows a similar theme with the Lombardi Trophy after the Roman numeral L followed by the rest of the Roman numerals.
Landor released the following statement shortly after partnering with the league:
“The NFL historically introduced a radically different Super Bowl logo each year, based primarily on the location of the game, and using Roman numerals for the greatest impact. Landor’s strategy for the new visual identity system sets at the heart of it is the Vince Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the Super Bowl winning team each year. Depending on the NFL event, the new system allows for the introduction of additional elements. The published version, for The 2011 Arlington Super Bowl XLV, is the first example of a regional identity that will include each year’s stadium location and Roman numerals to denote the event. This system keeps the NFL consistent from year to year , regardless of the elimination event. “
Sporting News reached out to Landor, who chose not to comment on this story.
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“The general stifling of creativity that we increasingly see in all sports is effectively sterilizing the entire design industry,” Chris Creamer, founder of Sportslogos.net, told Sporting News. “I mean, sure, I can definitely understand why they would want to go this route – it’s easier, it has to be cheaper and it’s a way to increase brand awareness with a consistent look. what it ultimately does is force us all to stick to one design made over ten years ago, despite any changing social tastes and industry trends.
“The NFL is far from the only league that has tried to standardize a logo from year to year; it’s just taken the most drastic change from creative and unique every year to rigid and lifeless. “
Todd Radom, who designed the Super Bowl 38 logo and was involved in designing the Super Bowl 39 logo, spoke to SN about the logo’s development.
“Sport is all about passion, color and energy,” he said. “The current logo is a beautifully rendered illustration, but it’s colorless and static, corporate and soulless; all metaphors to many – fairly or not – for the NFL itself.”
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From Super Bowl 45 to Super Bowl 49, there was no color in the logos. Most recently, Landor has started incorporating color, but only a little.
In contrast, the logo for Super Bowl 33, for example, featured six distinct colors. Radom said the logo was among his favorites, including those from Super Bowls 14 and 17, because those logos had “a definite sense of place and time.”
Said Radom when asked what makes a great Super Bowl logo: “A sense of excitement and scale, and a structurally strong logo that will resonate with fans at retail. Something that may well be ‘animate to broadcast and on our devices, a logo that can separate them into smaller logos for optimal multi-purpose use and hopefully someday something that gives us back the sense of time and place we’ve lost along the way. “
Creamer also noted the lack of homage to host cities in the Super Bowl 51-53 logos.
“Just compare the Super Bowl 28 logo with a giant peach with this year’s rehash,” said Creamer, referring to the 2019 logo. “It’s hard to imagine that the same city hosted these two games. .
“A good Super Bowl logo should clearly represent the city or region that is hosting the game. These communities devote a lot of time, money and other resources to organizing the game. It is right that the league send them back. a little love. This should be a fairly straightforward task including the individual elements of the host including an appropriate color scheme combined with changing the Roman numerals from game to game to take care of of most of it. “
But, as Radom says, “change is inevitable, especially as visual trends and digital technology evolve”.
Roger Goodell won’t be the NFL commissioner forever, and whoever replaces him will have the chance to go back to the roots of what made Super Bowl logos fun.
“Someday we’ll look back at that time, shake our heads and be happy it’s over,” Creamer said. “A time will come when there will be a change of direction and the new person in charge will realize that it is better to go back to a different design every year.”
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