Radom: Interlocked, intertwined, interesting logos
From SABR member Todd Radom at ToddRadom.com on October 3, 2017:
I’ve been fascinated by letterforms of all kinds, especially sports letterforms, for as long as I can remember. While sports uniform lettering is undoubtably a great and worthy thing, ligatures (or monograms, if you will,) hold special appeal for me. There’s an art to conveying a powerful message via a minimal number of elements, and a real challenge in creating a readable piece of art without the benefit of iconography. Take two letters, place them atop one another, then start to move them around. Too much noodling and legibility can easily give way to hieroglyphics.
Think of interlocking sports letters and several prominent ones immediately come to mind. Baseball’s New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals, Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina from the college ranks, for instance. For some reason, basketball has never done this well. Nor has hockey—with the very notable exception of the Montréal Canadiens’ classic crest. Football has a few examples to be sure, but helmet designs were, for the most part, a product of the early 1960s, an era when consumers demanded iconography and a break from tradition.
Decorative elements on baseball uniforms, including ligatures, flourished in the years immediately following the Civil War. The Rockford (Illinois) and Cleveland Forest City clubs both wore interlocking “FC” ligatures—Rockford is depicted at left, Cleveland at right.
Read the full article here: https://www.toddradom.com/blog/5380
Originally published: October 3, 2017. Last Updated: October 3, 2017.