[Editor’s Note: This morning our own Anthony Emerson is back with Part IV of a new year-end feature: The 2024 Uni Watch Uni Awards. Anthony has tallied your nominees in the best/worst “New Logo” category, and today you can vote for the best and worst new logos for 2024. — PH]
• • • • • 2024 Uni Awards: Best and Worst New Logo Nominees
by Anthony EmersonPerhaps inevitably, there were fewer nominees for this category than any other. So we’ve limited the choices to five, rather than ten, and choices to one, rather than three.
The nominees are…
Best new logo
Portland Hearts of Pine
My own biases aside, the Hearts received a ton of coverage around the world for their brand launch earlier this year.
Toronto Raptors City Edition
Very different from our previous entry, and very unique, as the Raptors’ City Edition logo is inspired by the iconic Vince Carter photo from the 2000 slam dunk contest.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Finally teal returns, albeit not the same shade as before. The new shade does pop quite nicely with the red and black.
Los Angeles Kings
The kind of logo redesign that makes you go “what took you so long?” It’s not identical to the Gretzky-era logo, with some good quality of life upgrades to bring the original into the 21st century.
Anaheim Ducks
Down the I5 into Anaheim, the Kings’ neighbors also introduced a modern twist on a classic.
Worst new logo
RB Omiya Ardija
Red Bull added this Japanese third division side to its stable of clubs, and promptly gave the club a new logo more-or-less matching their other teams, after promising to “respect the club’s name and colors” upon purchasing. To make matters worse, the previous logo was head and shoulders above what Red Bull barfed out.
New York Sirens
I’m not sure what’s going on with the “S”s in “Sirens,” and is the “NY” background supposed to evoke buildings? Or maybe graffiti? It doesn’t work.
Utah HC
You know, it kind of blows my mind that the Hockey Club relocated from Phoenix to Salt Lake City and apparently needs a year (if not more) to determine an identity, while the Avalanche and Hurricanes are still basically using the same logo (let alone identity) introduced just a few months after relocating from Quebec City and Hartford. Regardless, this “placeholder” logo is embarrassing, and easily among the worst in major professional sports.
Los Angeles Clippers
Although I, personally, think this is a definite upgrade over what came before for the Clips, I can see why people dislike it. It’s really busy, with the ship with the basketball lines and the compass (that kind of looks like the crosshairs of a gun) that’s also a C — it’s all too much to be truly effective as a mark.
Ottawa Charge
Is this supposed to be an “O” or a “C”? Both? All I can see is a red toilet seat, unfortunately.
I’m gonna be a hater. The fact that the best new logo competition really has only one originally “new” logo is sad. It’s not even that I don’t like the rest of them. It’s just, how “new” are the rest of them really?
Definitely seems like it was a down year in terms of rebrands and new logos.
Not really, the Clippers and the Valkyries both had good and completely original designs. Yet one is in the worst category and of course the WNBA team isn’t here at all.
The new Clippers logo is in the worst category because it is hot garbage.
This was the most difficult one to get nominees for by far, unfortunately. Even the teams that had major redesigns just came out with rehashed versions of a current or previous logo.
For real. I know it would be a more daunting task, but let’s not pretend minor league baseball and college don’t exist, especially if the field is this bleak in the pros. Plus, the Golden Girls er- Valkyries have a very nice logo, as does the Montreal Victoire. Not to mention some of the CC unis did actually produce nice logos, even if the unis were generally crud.
You can really see the biases of this site when they stuck the clippers logo in the worst category with a bunch of throwbacks in the best lol
The clippers logo is a nice piece of design, for sure. I can say it “doesn’t feel like the clippers” all I want (which is already an odd thing to say about a team with no much of a visual identity to call on), but it is a nice logo in a vacuum.
I would say that other than their SD logo (which is used by their G League team) this is the most clippers logo they’ve had. The last two were lakers-lite and a quick phone in. It may not scream ‘LA’, but it does fit the clippers — especially with the new unis.
The Clippers logo is trying to do too much. A “C”, a compass, a ship, a basketball. A roundel. And at first glance, it looks like a ship caught in a sniper’s crosshairs.
Better than their old NBA Live logo for sure.
The Hearts of Pine crest was my favorite.
The Sirens’ logo does have flaws; the “NY” seems to have been an afterthought. “OH, yeah…we’re from New York.”
But I think the styling of the two Ss is creative and certainly evokes a siren going off.
I agree here and it might be a nod towards visualizing a doppler effect.
I was thinking Sirens in the mythological sense, not the literal sense. Is that what they were going for? Anyway, I never even noticed the NY in the background. I was just too distracted by the SSSirenSSS.
I don’t see why the clippers aren’t in the Best category. It’s a good logo. The minor league soccer team logo should go in whatever category all the minor league baseball logos are.
These awards have been fun. Nice work with these, and with Uniwatch overall!
The Ottawa Charge logo has so many bad anomalies that scream “new Adobe Illustrator user.”
My fault for not submitting nominations, I suppose, but the Minnesota CC set offered two solid new logos (the MN with North Star, and the diving loon), and the Cleveland CC guardian of traffic logo was very nice, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Philly CC “liberty bell skyline” logo, or either of the Tampa Bay CC logos but they got A LOT of love on here despite the responses to the unis in general. The Blue Jays CC hat logo was also very nice and the Toronto Scepters and Montreal Victoire had solid logos, as did the Golden State Valkyries,l (surprised the Tempo didn’t slide into the worst). The Erie Seawolves faixback absolutely killed it, the Rome Emperors and Northwest Arkansas Naturals each came up with multiple killer logos (though unveiled in late 2023, didn’t hit the field until 2024), the Inland Empire 66ers consistently have multiple gorgeous alternate identity logos each season, this one was no exception. But hey, you gotta play to win, right? I didn’t nominate, so there I go.
Not your fault, they chose the time when most people are really busy to do it. Should have waited until January lol. And honestly who chose these selections.
I love the Utah logo and the name of the team.
I wish they would keep it instead some faux story telling once they release the new “brand.”
I’m not defending the UHC logo per se, but it seems like the marketing/branding/logo universe is much different now than it was 25-30 years ago with the Avs and Hurricanes. There were a lot of moving parts over a short amount of time and I’m glad they took a year to really think through the logos.
Best: The Diamondbacks’ A certainly isn’t “new,” but it is a nice dignified understated logo. I like it.
Worst: Toss-up between the Sirens and that Ottawa thing, but my nod goes to the Sirens. All those reverb S things are obnoxious.
I’m sorry I missed the other categories — you know, holidays and all. Can I still vote on them?
I submitted the D-Backs. It’s not “new” but it is the first year this is the primary logo (as per Sports Logos dot net). I love the teal and Sedona red.
Kinda feel like there’s some over-representation of the PWHL when it comes to ‘worsts’.
However it’s not piling on when it comes to the new-look Houston Texans…to omit their new H helmet decal from the Worst Logo category is a huge oversight.
So many bad logos, but picked Utah HC as the worst because they never attempted to do anything at all.
Speaking of new logos are there any new nfl or mlb ones coming up this next year?
Only MLB change is the Athletics minimizing their logo to just the A’s with their move to Sacramento and removing a city/state from their team’s name. NFL, none announced yet, but with playoffs ongoing may be some once we reach the offseason.
I didn’t know that Red Bull took over Omiya Ardijia, destroying their look completely. I bought a jersey of theirs more than a decade ago when they were in the top division and a great crest in orange with a squirrel. A sad change.
The Sirens logo is my pick for worst of these. The Charge logo is pretty bad, but I just see it as someone trying to do a new Flames logo that was botched and subsequently tweaked to be repurposed. The RB logo is just meh, Utah HC’s just a placeholder, and while it is a bit busy, I don’t mind the Clippers’ logo (especially since it’s still a vast improvement over the block LAC logo set).
As for the best new ones, I went with the Raptors one, as it’s at least a creative arrangement of past elements to celebrate an iconic moment for one of their iconic players. I really like the new Kings and Ducks logos, but they are tweaks of older logos, and I’m not really sure they’re necessarily better than those original versions. The Portland logo looks like something that would be put on a flag in the previous century. And finally, I really do not like the Diamondbacks’ current color scheme.