Oilpressure

When I was in college about a hundred years ago, I majored in marketing. Being an eighteen year-old, I knew I was clueless at the time regarding what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Both of my older brothers knew from an early age that they wanted to be mechanical engineers. That’s what they majored in, and that’s what their careers were in. My future seemed a little more vague.

Friends convinced me that marketing was the way to go. I envisioned myself sitting around a corporate board room bouncing marketing ideas off of my fellow co-workers – a scene not too far removed from Don Draper and the gang in Mad Men. I assumed I would be the brains behind corporate slogans, tag lines and most importantly – logos.

I am now more than forty years removed from getting my degree and that scenario that I envisioned, has never played out – not once.

While my career path has taken a few twists and turns along the way, and I rarely even use my marketing degree these days – I still find myself interested in the design of logos and how some have become iconic and some fall way short.

The right logo is priceless. Once you hit on the right logo, it should never be messed with. All my life, a glance at twin golden-arches announced McDonald’s. The Nike swoosh has no writing. It is about as simple as it gets, but everyone knows what company it represents. An Apple with a bite out of it? That’s another iconic logo.

I was reminded how important logos are this week, when Vanderbilt University introduced a re-branding. Effectively immediately, all branding, including sports teams, helmets and apparel will be replacing the popular logo that has been in place for over fifteen years, with something that has not been received well at all. Since about 2005, Vanderbilt’s primary logo was what they called the Star-V. They have suddenly decided to go with a gold, and non-descript V.

Although I live in Nashville, where Vanderbilt is located – I’m not a fan of Vanderbilt. I grew up a Tennessee fan, and that is where I spent my entire college career. Quite honestly, I’m having fun listening to the uproar among Vanderbilt fans. Tennessee’s Power-T is so beloved with fans, there is no danger in it ever being changed, because as we know – Change is Bad.

Listening to all of this reminded me of a mild uproar among IndyCar fans, in particular – fans of the Indianapolis 500 – a little over a decade ago. The famous Wing & Wheel logo of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has evolved since its inception at the very beginning days of The Speedway. When I was a kid, a version of the Wing & Wheel with very tall flags graced the cover of every program.

But they also used a more traditional version for baseball caps, etc. This more traditional version lasted for most of my life through 2008.

For decades, a glance was all you needed to know what this logo represented. The writing is there to tell you, but race fans don’t need that. They can tell. Granted, it is not as widely recognizable in certain parts of the world as McDonald’s, Nike or Apple, but among race fans around the globe – this was all you needed to see.

The beginning of the Centennial Era was in 2009. For three years, all IMS correspondence, apparel, souvenirs either featured the Centennial Logo (below) or that particular year’s specific race (i.e the 2010 Indianapolis 500 or the 2009 Brickyard 400, etc). This was not my favorite logo, but it harkened back to the days of yesteryear and I knew it was short-term, so I put up with it.

But when the Centennial Era was over following the 2011 Indianapolis 500, we were introduced to a new logo. It wasn’t a major remake, by any means. It was called an update with minor tweaks to freshen it up. The most noticeable changes were making the tire wider with a more squared-off edge, and for some reason – changing the direction of the tire.

Knowing how much I despise change, you can imagine my reaction. I griped on Twitter, Facebook and even wrote a post about it. I tweeted my complaints to Trackside one night and Curt and Kevin both shot me down and explained why this kind of stuff doesn’t matter. But to me, it did.

Looking back, they were probably right. I bought polos, sweatshirts, jackets and coffee cups with the new updated Wing & Wheel. I never give it any thought whatsoever. Whenever I wear older clothing with the old logo – I’ll admit it does look a little old fashioned. Then again, I’m old fashioned. I just pass it off as vintage, whenever I wear the old logo.

That’s why I’m enjoying hearing the local Vanderbilt fans have a complete meltdown over the loss of their beloved Star-V, and replacing it with some generic V. A group Vanderbilt hired in Boston, not the Boston Consulting Group, claims that this new logo was two years in the making. I think I could have come up with their new logo in about fifteen minutes and charged a small percentage of what they probably charged. But I can’t help but laugh at the outrage I’m hearing from Vandy fans over the change of their logo.

Don’t get me wrong, I still despise change – especially when it involves the Indianapolis 500. I can live with a few tweaks here and there of the iconic Wig & Wheel about a decade ago, but this current logo probably needs to outlive me. I can’t imagine having someone a third of my age, who knows nothing of the Indianapolis 500, to be given the task of completely remaking the Wing & Wheel. Once is enough in my lifetime.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on March 25, 2022 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.