Debunking "Leaked" Senators Logo

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I awoke this morning to an inbox littered with emails linking me to the same thing. Apparently someone was claiming to have received the Ottawa Senators' new heritage logo from a Reebok source. One look at it made me laugh.

I had every intention of disregarding it entirely, but the emails and tweets keep coming so I figured I'd be doing a disservice to you, my readers, if I don't explain to you why the logo is a phony. And believe me when I tell you it is.

To see it in its original setting, here's a screenshot from the Tumblr page where it was first posted two days ago. (I'm not linking to the guy's actual page because that's exactly what he wants and people like this don't get my respect. If you really want to find it, you'll find it.)

Fake Senators logo comparisonNow the image itself (right). So many problems... where to begin? I'll make this quick because it's my wife's birthday and I'd rather spend it with her than you guys. 

  • Just from the small sliver of it we can see in the teaser photo released by the Sens, you can clearly tell it's a fake.
  • Top of the shield should be straight and there should be a black outline, even around the red portion of the shield.
  • Arial font? Really? Hello, red flag. Show me a designer who would use Arial in a major sports team identity and I'll show you a hack. Plus, it's clear from the photo that the text is not set in Arial.
  • The black stroke on the upper left side is misaligned (hard to tell in this scaled-down version, but it is).
  • The curved lines of the shield are not smooth at all. Speaking of which, all three of the points of the shield are rounded. That's weak sports logo design.
  • The trademark symbol is a little out of proportion and the logo itself is awkwardly positioned within the image. These may not be deal breakers, but come on.

While we've seen some crappy logos from NHL teams in the past, keep in mind that a team like the Senators is surely spending a huge amount of cash on a major design firm. To suggest they would come out with something you could cobble together in Microsoft Word makes me giggle. A lot.

Hope that settles it. Don't believe everything you see on the Internet. If there are any design professionals reading who want to add their input, please comment away!