Saturday, July 09, 2016

Review: Nashville NightWatch (AUDL)

Part of the annual series critiquing professional ultimate team logos and nicknames.

Team: Nashville NightWatch

Web: http://nashvillenightwatch.com/ // twitter: @NSH_NightWatch

Representation: City // League: AUDL

Disc within logo?: No. // Ultimate element in team name?: No.

Background: The NightWatch name is meant to epitomize the team owners' "sense of responsibility and vigilance to both the Nashville community and the sport of ultimate as a whole." Nashville unveiled their updated logo in December 2015.

First impression(s) from SLUDGE: The N-shaped red bandana ("N" for the team name and/or the city) looks more like a "Z." Can't unsee the white whale in the watchperson's face.  Ill-shaven is an anagram of Nashville and now - because of the bandana - that characteristic of ye olde profile logo is a mystery in this updated image.

Eli's Eval: This is a marked improvement on their inaugural efforts at a logo. They have gone from high school design to post-grad, but still not 100% professional. The type looks great: a big block of slab characters with an arch, larger first/last letters, city name incorporated at a nice scaled percentage of the team name, and those odd pointy shadow impressions that have been working their way into sports design for the last few years.

The main logo is big and bold and very balanced at small sizes (or from far away). There is a nice use of light and shadow and even a third tone in certain areas to indicate another level of shadow.

Looking at the logo up close there are inconsistent curves and corners, like the bulge on the left side of the handkerchief or the different shape of curve of the hat as it goes behind his head and the divot on the top of the hat, or the hard corners on the top of the hat and the shadow on the right side of the hat. Someone needs to spend another hour or two getting the math right on these vectors and cleaning up all these little inconsistencies.

:Eli's Grades:
Grade: B+
On Logo: B
On Typography: A-

No comments: