Logo Critique
- Introduction
The Toronto Raptors are a Canadian professional basketball team based in Toronto. The Raptors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league’s Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. With the help of their former star player Kawhi Leanord, they won the NBA championship in 2019 for the first time in team history. Since then, “We The North” has become a battle cry for this team and all of its fans. Because of this, in 2020 the organization decided to make yet another change to their logo in order to better represent the attitude and identity of the basketball team.
2. History and Original Logo Designs
Before the Toronto Raptors began to play in 1995, they needed to formulate a brand identity and logo. At the time, John Bitove was the owner of the organization and had a heavy influence on the name and creation of the logo for the team. Because of his and his families love for the “Jurassic Park” movies, he decided that the organization should be centered around the “Fierce” and “Terrifying” raptors that play a huge role in the first film. Creative Director Tom O’Grady worked side by side John Bitove to design the original logo for the Toronto Raptors.
After many different iterations of this take, they finally decided the original Tom O’Grady drew was the best course of action for the team.
The purple seen in the Raptors first logo was chosen because it seemed to be a “Hip and in” color of the time. They then quickly decided to illustrate the raptor as being red in order to represent Canada without using a maple leaf illustration.
1995/96 – 2007/08 logo
3. Most Recent Logo Change
After the 2019/20 NBA season, the Toronto Raptors released a statement claiming they were once again making adjustments to their logo and uniforms. Focusing on the “We The North” slogan, the organization made minor changes to their logo that ended up being very impactful.
2015/16 – 2019/20 logo
2020/21 – present logo
As you can see in the illustrations above, the logo changed its outermost circular ring from red to white and the inner claw-torn ball from grey to red. Along with this, they darkened the inner black color which helped make the “Toronto Raptors” type really pop off the page and attract the eye more. The new logo represents that “attitude and will are an important part of our identity system.” This was proven impactful by removing all unnecessary factors of the logo, such as the color grey and thick red outer line, in order to provide a new logo that “your adult aesthetic senses will likely be pleased” with.
4. My Thoughts
Initially, I felt as if the simplification and deletion of the original raptor design was dangerous in that they were removing a key visual element that had long represented the organization and its values. I personally was a huge fan of the original because it was so unique compared to any other team logo that was in the NBA.
After they made the change in 2015/16, I was disappointed because the logo had now been simplified down to its core and in my opinion lacked visual elements that attracted the attention of the eye. In their press statement, the organization loosely said it was time to grow up and get ready for the new Toronto Raptors, which I can see is what they were trying to do with the logo. However, I did not feel as if I was looking at a new Toronto Raptors logo until the changes made in 2020.
2015/16 logo change
The new logo now feels to me as if I am looking at a professional organization that has strong characteristics and is respected in its community. I think I feel this way because they have taken their core values such as representing the north (Canada) and the fierceness of the team and its fans and put it all into one subtle but effective design. Making the inner claw-torn ball red was brilliant in that it not only went back to the original red raptor logo, but it also represented Canada and “We The North” much better than the original grey color. Making the inner black color darker was perfect because it immediately attracts the eye of the viewer much more effectively.
2020/21 – present logo change
5. Conclusion
After my analysis of the logo change, I find that I truly enjoy and appreciate the 2020/21 logo. I think it is professional, clean, and is effective in representing the organization. The latest logo change was a great step forward for the organization and it created a truly unique and impactful design that I believe will be the face of the team for years to come.
