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Swing And A Miss: Iconography Overtakes Name Change As Cleveland Baseball Fan's Ire

LET'S TABLE THE name change for the moment. Most of us are coming to terms with it; some are even embracing it as an upgrade. We'll also gloss right past the worst roll out in the history of sports branding: website domains weren't checked.  

Existing trademarks clearly weren't checked. The structural integrity of the stadium's colonnade was clearly not checked. Hey, that's one way to get City Hall to pass your $225M facility upgrade proposal.

The entire package is disjointed, bordering on bipolar. It's trying to be four different things all at once, none of which are Art Deco  artistic style of the new moniker's inspiration.  

There is a mystique to Major League Baseball. It has been around for so long; nothing about it looks kitsch. That's the willing job of Minor League Baseball. Yet here is a "C" in a font that feels more appropriate in an alphabet book for my three year-old: "C" is for clown. Throw a rainbow wig on that new cinched version and tell me you can't see an anthropomorphic birthday performer. 


I'm not saying I have the answer, but I know what we've seen ain't it. Sure, there's a ball in the fairway with our group's first drive, but you know it can be improved upon so easily. 

The fact that I couldn't put all three into a single square image and have it look visually presentable is half my point. Where is the center on such a sprawled out mess? Is it the center of the baseball and the wings are treated as a sidecar? Put it in a circle in certain standings/scorebug apps or trading cards and it looks even worse. Allllll that negative space wasted over there to the left. 

An arrangement of fonts that would make you think this was a ransom note clipped from a magazine.

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