Anybody who grew up in Michigan or who follows the NFL is familiar with the logo above and all of the baggage attached to it. It’s the logo of the Detroit Lions, a once-proud franchise whose 2008–2009 season was the worst in NFL history. From the Ford family’s disastrous ownership to bad management decisions to bad luck, the Lions are in the midst of putting together the worst decade in the history of any NFL franchise.

You can’t fire the owners (unfortunately), but you can make a lot of other changes. Along with management changes (several of which weren’t really much of a change) and a lot of personnel changes, the Lions have decided to scrap the old-style Detroit Lions logo (above) and replace it with this:

Sorry for the small size, but it’s the best I could find. As you can see, the basic shape of the Lion is still the same, but they’ve added in some nice broad strokes to give the logo a little more motion. They’ve also sharpened up the Lion’s face, adding an eye and making the snarl more pronounced. It certainly looks a lot tougher and more menacing—now let’s wait to see if the team matches up to the logo.

Overall, I like the logo change. I’m pleased that even though this is a big change for them, the didn’t go too far. I’m glad they kept the Honolulu blue, as well. I know that some fans don’t like the blue very much and don’t think it’s a very tough-looking color, but it is one of the classic NFL logos. Keeping your traditions intact while giving your franchise a contemporary look is a good way to go about rebranding.

In addition to the logo, they have replaced the old, western-style “LIONS” logotype with this:

I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it. The old type was really, really dated and always looked out of place to me. This fits in with the new logo and it has a little more motion to it. It’s fine.

My only regret in this is that I didn’t write about it last week when I first saw a leaked version of the logo. It wasn’t the exact logo, but it was pretty close. Had I written about this then, it would be a little more timely. This is still pretty fresh news, but next time I won’t sit on the news for a week.

Yesterday was the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Bay City. Don’t even ask why the parade was on Sunday, the 22nd. I can’t make sense of half of the stuff that goes on in Bay City. Anyway, as part of the parade, United States Senator Debbie Stabenow came to town to walk in the parade.

I was in Brewtopia last week and Aaron Bolt—the proprietor and genteman purveyor of fine coffees—told me that Senator Stabenow was going to come to the coffee shop after the parade for a meet-and-greet with the public. I was planning on shooting the parade anyway so I planned on coming to the coffee shop to get a few photos of the Senator in hopes of maybe getting a good shot to include on the studio Wall of Fame (along with Lance Parrish, Tommy Lasorda and Ryne Sandberg).

I figured the place was going to be wall-to-wall because, after all, who wouldn’t jump at a chance to meet a sitting U.S. Senator? You may not know this about me, but I am a bit of a political junkie. I used to do some work for a U.S. Congressman (he who shall not be named), but couldn’t enjoy the work because his politics were…um…only slightly left of the Kaiser. So the chance to take photos of and maybe meet a politician who I have a lot of respect for was a pretty great opportunity. 

As it turns out, while I was shooting the parade I ran into my friend Terry King, who was also taking photos. I mentioned that Senator Stabenow was going to be at Brewtopia so he came along to shoot some photos, too. I’m used to being behind the lens and don’t really care much about having my photo taken. Even when I got to hang out with Tommy Lasorda, for example, I didn’t bother him for a photo together. I’ve had the good fortune to meet a lot of interesting and well-known people and athletes and the only two I have ever had a photo taken with are Senator Stabenow and Gordie Howe. Running into Terry was just good luck, though, because it gave me a chance to have my photo taken with the Senator. 

We talked a little bit about Bay City and about her hometown of Clare and we touched on Michigan State basketball. We only talked for a few minutes, but it was really a great honor and I’m grateful to the Senator and her staff for taking the time to come to Bay City. I’m also thankful that Aaron let me know the Senator was going to be at Brewtopia. And to round out my Gratitude Trinity, thanks to Terry for taking the photos and getting them to me.

Also, here’s an interesting fact…did you know that it is Constitutionally forbidden to appear taller than a member of the U.S. Senate? The Senator is standing on a six-inch platform they keep handy so that she appears taller and more powerful. Okay…I made all of that up. I’m just not very tall.

Progress.

Hard to read? Click on comic to see full-size version. 

I ran across this comic online today. It’s from Penny Arcade. I looked online for rules regarding reposting their comic, but couldn’t find anything. I couldn’t find an FAQ that forbid reposting of their content, so in hopes that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, I am posting it here.

Please visit their site and buy lots of stuff from them.

It’s awards season. In the past five weeks or so, we’ve seen the Grammys, Independent Spirit and Academy Awards shows all come and go. I didn’t win anything.

Awards aren’t limited to the entertainment industry, though. There is also a local award called the Ruby Award. It goes out to like a dozen or so local people who are all making significant contributions to the community. I didn’t get one of those, either. And I never will because it’s only for people under 40 and since I am turning 40 in about a month, this was the last year that I would have been eligible. Shut out of the Ruby Awards? Was it because I don’t make a significant contribution or am I just not under 40 enough? I guess we’ll never know.

On top of all of these awards which I will not be winning, there are graphic design and advertising awards—hundreds of them, maybe even thousands—and I won’t be winning any of them, either. 

Do I feel bad about it? No, not really. I just got thinking about it because almost every day I get another mailer from another organization reminding me of the deadline to enter a design in this contest or that. Some of the awards are legit—I’m looking at you Clio, Addy and Communication Arts—and some are not. Well, it isn’t that they aren’t legit, but many of them come from organizations you have never heard of before. And every year there are more and more of them. They are like award factories.

The business of charging people to enter design competitions in return for an award is becoming a very big business. It’s starting to remind me of the Who’s Who scam…you get a free listing in Who’s Who in Animal Husbandry or whatever. And for just $15 you can include a photo. $25 more and you get a copy of the book. It’s the pay-to-play aspect that I don’t care for.

If you go to many designers’ sites, you will to see them trotting out their awards. And I don’t blame them, they’ve earned the awards. Moreover, they paid for them. With entry fees running $85 and sometimes more, it gets expensive pretty quickly. That’s part of why you see the bigger agencies winning more awards—they can absorb that cost in their overhead because it’s a much smaller percentage of their monthly budget. Even a couple of entries a month would be a big chunk for us—realistically the $150 covers my electric and internet bills for a month. 

Don’t get me wrong, trophies are nice to look at, but does anybody really pay attention? If you go to a large ad agency, one of the first things you see when you walk in the front door is the trophy case. At Integer we had a big case filled with Addys and Clios and so forth. It makes for a nice show if you’re doing the dog-and-pony, but does anybody really know what these trophies are? Maybe I will go to the thrift store and buy a bunch of old bowling trophies and just put them up on display in the studio.

I only mention any of this because if you are looking to hire an award-winning designer, I’m not your guy. 989 Design is a small studio and there are just the two of us working here. It’s not like a few entries is going to break the bank, but I don’t see that the benefit outweighs the cost. What’s the best thing that happens when you win an award? You get the respect of your peers, which would be nice, but I don’t really need that sort of approval, except from my clients. And I suppose that if someone were hiring a designer based on how many awards they’ve won, they probably aren’t the right fit for 989 Design. Seems a little uptight and that’s just not our style.

I’d rather just keep doing good work and doing our best to keep our overhead low. Our goal isn’t to be a cheap design studio because that isn’t what we are, but keeping our overhead low gives us a little flexibility when it comes to pricing our projects.

If a no-cost competition comes along, maybe we will send something in. In fact, now that I think about it, I have entered one design competition in my career. It was a no-cost-to-enter competition sponsored by a paper manufacturer. I have never printed on a particular stock just to be able to enter a competition, but I happened to use the right stock and I was really proud of how it came out. A few months later I received a package in the mail that informed me that I was, in fact, not a winner. I thought maybe I’d get an honorable mention or something, but not even that. I remember being really disappointed about it, too. 

Regarding the image above: I did not draw or create the bottle cap image. I came across it years ago and was not able to find the original source of the art. I wish I had because I’d like to give credit where credit is due, but I guess I’ll just have to settle for not taking credit for someone else’s work.