Wednesday, January 14, 2009

HERE’S A BETTER LOGO IDEA.

I have not wanted to talk about the amateurish embarrassment that is the Commemorative Inaugural Year Of Citi Field Sleeve Patch, because Paul Lukas already said everything there was to say about it, much better than I could say it.

I mean, what could I say? That I deliberately didn’t buy a Santana jersey last year because I was going to buy one for the first year of Citi Field, but now I’m starting to scramble on eBay to find a 2008 jersey because there’s no way I’ll pay money for that? That the Mets haven’t had decent creative since 2005? That their entire visual identity (aside from the core logo) has been not just a joke, but absolutely ridiculous for a Major League Baseball team?

The Mets play baseball in the advertising capital of the world.  Some of the greatest visual designers in the world live here. And given the internet, the Mets could choose to work with ANY DESIGNER IN THE WORLD.  Visual identity is not cheap, but it should be a no-brainer cost of doing business for a professional baseball team.

And yet, the Mets have consistently had creative that looks like it was executed by a 13 year old who’s learning Photoshop for the first time.

Today, I got an email from a Mets fan named David Dolinsky.

I designed my own ideas for the Inaugural logo since it got such bad press. I was wondering if you could post them and see if the fans like mine better. Maybe they’ll use mine instead.

Well, what do you think?

Yes, David is a professional designer and has been doing this for years. He’s not a sports designer specifically, just a long-time Mets fan. If he could come up with this, why couldn’t the Mets?