Miami Marlins Takes Risk on New Logo – and Failed?

The Miami Marlins has recently unveiled a new logo

The new logo coincided with a change to the team’s name, and their move to a new stadium for the 2012 season.

Incorporating blue, yellow and red-orange, the new logo puts more emphasis on the letter M with the figure of the fish coming out of it. Team owner Jeffrey Loria explains that the redesign was meant to convey the message that the team was all for “the red-orange Miami sunsets and the citrus industry” while the blue represented Miami skies while the yellow connoted the sunshine.

This logo is a long way from the team’s previous one, which featured a depiction of a marlin, along with the team’s old name, Florida Marlins.

While the name change and all the other changes do call for a logo change, it begs the question of whether it was worth changing the logo so drastically. While the new logo speaks of Miami and its beauty, the old logo can give you a powerful image of a baseball team at one glance. The marlin superimposed on a baseball bordered by the team’s name is a great way to introduce the team and what they do.

Also, the new logo is poorly done. Typography is all wrong, with the M’s in Miami all pointed while the top of the A is flattened out. Aesthetically, the new logo looks wrong. On uniforms and other team merchandise, it looks horrible.

This is one of the risks of changing your logo. Not only do you stand a big chance of losing your identity as a brand and a company, but there will always be people who criticize your new logo. The best way to have a new logo is to do it well and do it slowly. Instead of a total revamp, the team management could have gone for just changing the name Florida Marlins in the old logo to Miami Marlins. After that, they could have incorporated other changes slowly over time.