Allen Americans unveil evolved logo set

There was nothing wrong with the logos of the ECHL’s Allen Americans. In fact, designer Joe Bosack, who created the new logos the team recently unveiled, described their previous brand as a “very good identity.”

“It just needed a little bit of maintenance,” Bosack said. “The project was two-fold: Improving the performance of their existing logos— making them better for small embroidery and digital applications, and then filling in some of the holes that they did not have in their identity—word marks and additional secondary elements.”

The team’s decision to update the logos is part of a philosophy that is meant to keep the brand current without waiting for it to be out of date and then having to completely rebrand.

“I’m a believer that strong brand identity should be a living thing,” Bosack said. “You should go in and adjust as necessary.”

To that end, the team unveiled six new logos, some of them slightly revised versions of existing marks and some of them entirely new. Of the six new marks, the new primary logo (on the right above) is closest to its predecessor (left).

“It’s all in the details,” Bosack said, “simple symmetry that we adjusted, adjusting line weights to make them a little bit bolder and a little bit easier to use.”

Two new alternate marks include a roundel and a standalone star-A. The roundel, which functions as a standalone piece because it includes the team’s full name, introduces one important element that may change with the team’s fortunes. The four stars represent the team’s four championships, which they won in 2013 and 2014 when the Americans were in the now-defunct Central Hockey Legacy and 2015 and 2016 in their first two seasons in the ECHL. The team’s brand is meant to expand to include more stars as the team wins championships.

The biggest addition to the team’s identity is a series of word marks featuring a custom typeface created by Bosack—one of which includes those (for now) four stars.

“It was really about taking a very good logo and making that logo better, and filling in some holes,” Bosack said. “And the holes were word marks. They didn’t have any word marks.”

The Americans, whose 2019–2020 schedule was canceled on March 12, are not done yet—they plan to unveil more logos in 2021 before they (hopefully) begin play again in April.