Tricky Sports Logos

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

There was an article in The Wall Street Journal today about the guy who designed the logo for Major League Baseball.  It’s a classic logo that has been imitated by a number of other sports, including the NBA and the PGA Tour.

One of the things so appealing about the MLB logo is that it’s possible to view the batter as being either right-handed or left-handed, depending on your point of view.  This got me thinking about other logos that have more going on than might immediately meet the eye.

Consider, for example, the old Milwaukee Brewers “ball-glove” logo:

A lot of people don’t realize that this isn’t just a ball-glove picture, but “secreted” within the logo are the letters “m” and “b”, for Milwaukee Brewers.  The Montreal Expos had a similar idea:

This creation actually contains an “e”, “M”, and “b” (standing for Expos de Montréal Baseball).  To say most people didn’t catch on to that would probably be an understatement.

Here is the logo for another franchise that moved.  Here it’s a little easier to see the “H” and “W”, representing the Hartford Whalers:

Finally, this one is a visual trick of a different kind.  No logo ever confused me more than the old Atlanta Hawks logo, which to me seemed to be something out of a Pac-Man arcade game:

I “get” it now, but I still think it’s a terrible logo.

There are a lot more “hidden meaning” sports logos out there, of course.  (The Big 10 logo with the hidden “11” comes to mind.)

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