Updating the Logo
One brand that we’ve had the pleasure to work with for a number of years is Athletic Championships. Athletic Championships is a brand of cheer and dance competitions that are as high-energy as they are full of fun.
Each year brings a new season for Athletic Championships, and each year we become involved in producing banners, ads, forms—you name it—to set the look and feel for the year. As a part of last year’s efforts, we also refreshed the Athletic Championships logo.
The previous logo (shown below), while well intentioned, wasn’t communicating the premium experience provided by Athletic Championships. In addition, it was hard to read and couldn’t be easily reproduced in one color. By simply rearranging and tweaking some of the elements, we were able to fix these problems and align the logo with the premium quality of their brand.
Also, by moving the “A” symbol above the words instead of behind, the “A” is empowered to stand on its own and become a true symbol of the brand. Although a seemingly small change, it has laid the groundwork for allowing this brand to expand and blossom in the past two years.
Expanding Applications
Below are a few samples of the early applications of the new Athletic logo. In the year the logo was changed, it was applied it to banners, large event displays, registration forms, name tags and a myriad of other things.
The ability of the logo to be rendered in white on top of colorful and vibrant imagery has been taken advantage of in the pieces we created.
Going Big Time
For this year’s season, Athletic Championships asked us to create a new backdrop for their live events. As you can see below, the backdrops they were using still featured the old logo and lacked the visual punch and energy of the performances going on in front of it. Bouncing ideas back and for with Athletic Championships, we pushed the logo even farther, adding dimensionality to allow it to come alive in a futuristic space scene radiating with energy beams.
To top it off, the finished background was 120 feet wide—talk about visual punch! We couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out; there is even talk of adding LED lighting to it in the future. All of this would not have been possible without the improvements we made last year to the logo. It just goes to show the importance and value of building your brand on a strong visual foundation.
As a parting shot, check out this video of the backdrop in action:
