Draft night officially marked the beginning of the Phoenix Suns’ 50th Anniversary season, and the franchise opened the year with the unveiling of a new logo moments before the draft itself began.
The Phoenix Suns unveil a new look heading into the 50th season! #SUNSat50 https://t.co/dLLGiGnlN3
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) June 22, 2017
Centrally emblazoned with the franchise’s secondary PHX logo with the fiery bird emerging from a basketball, the image is bordered by a shield that in and of itself boasts strength and courage. As the Super Bowl’s 50th logo departed from the traditional roman numerals, this logo departs from the franchise’s use of numbers to describe the anniversary, as the prior 25th, 30th, and 40th anniversary logo’s used.
As such, FIFTY is brightly (and again, dare I say boldly) headlined up top, while the word ‘SEASONS’ beneath is less prominently used. The word FIFTY is designed very similarly to PHX which helps to tie the image together, although the word lacks the flair that the PHX holds, missing the jagged, wind-swept edges that makes PHX flashy.
Surprisingly so, the use of letters versus numerals actually creates a visual confusion with the spelled out FIFTY. With the natural off-centerdness of the letter Y, the word itself actually seems to sit slightly farther to the viewer’s left providing an unbalanced feel of the entire top of one third of the image. (When the logo first appears in full in the introductory video at the 1:04 mark, it immediately rolls o the viewer’s right. The three-dimensional scope of the logo allows for the Y itself to hide some of the unwanted gap, although as the logo shift back to the viewer’s left, the gap quickly re-appears causing the off-balanced feel to re-appear.
Akin to the 25-year anniversary logo of the 92-93 season, the numerals “68” (the year of the franchise’s first season) and “18” (the end of the 50th season) are placed on either side of the central logo, although are far from prominently displayed. They lack the three-dimensional appearance of ever other aspect within the shield and lack distinction, even though they are probably the most important reference to the franchises history than anything else displayed.
Overall the logo lacks a level of excitement that one might have expected with the introduction of such an important moment in the franchise’s history. Building a shield around a modern logo is far from an exciting look and will presumably be nothing more than an additional of the PHX firebird logo that sits on either side of the court on the left side of each lane.
With the current jerseys a combined homage to the original wild west and subsequent Barkley-era threads that the team wore for it’s first 32 seasons (each of those looks being the majority of the fan-base’s two most beloved uniforms), it would have been nice to have had this logo potentially more resemble the logo of the 92-93 season, or any significant reference to the past, rather than something that lacks any real inventiveness, visual ingenuity, overall creativity, and seems to have been somewhat throw together.
After all, for a total of two full words, two numbers, and one abbreviation, there are four entirely different fonts used. And while the spelling of the word FIFTY is unique as compared to previous anniversary logos, the word is naturally unbalanced, causing a loss of symmetry. What’s worse is that there is nothing about it that reminds fans of the franchises history, nor does it in any way seem to draw their eyes toward the future.
Overall the logo is nice. The shield itself is a decent form that does provide a level of toughness which makes the image feel big and warm. Unfortunately, with it’s overall basic layout, awkward balance, and lack of creativity, there is nothing about this logo that will demand remembrance for fans over the next fifty years, and will eventually fade away as but another logo designed for a special occasion which failed to live up to the importance of the event which it is meant to represent.