No shortage of branding for NHL All-Star Weekend
/The 2015 NHL All-Star Game takes place on Sunday. But it's more than just a game. It's an entire weekend of festivities put on by the league and the host city which, this year, is Columbus.
The whole thing, it turns out, is a dream for lovers of logos too. More than a dozen unique designs represent and promote the many events surrounding the All-Stars. The primary logo you see above is merely the tip of the iceberg. Keep scrolling for the rest of the iceberg.
This year's game is being sponsored by Honda, so in recent weeks a version of the mark turned up containing the automaker's logo.
Then for the NHL's French-speaking fans, there's another one.
All-Star logos are used in many different ways, so you've got to have options. Say you just need a simple, horizontal wordmark. They've got you covered.
And let's not forget the francophones.
Maybe including the host city is still too much detail for you. Can we go simpler? You bet.
There's a French version of that too, but you get the picture by now.
And we're still just talking about the game with all these logos. Don't forget that there's an entire weekend the league is promoting. So there's a logo for that.
Check that. Two logos.
Since the debut of the new All-Star format in 2011, NHL All-Star Weekend kicks off Friday night with the NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft in which the players are split into two teams.
Interestingly, very little about the Fantasy Draft logo has changed since its inception in 2011. Colors have been adjusted, the star in the center stylized, and the sponsor has varied, but the overall design — typeface included — has remained.
It actually causes this mark stand out in a bad way from the rest of this package. It doesn't help that the Draft Kings logo sticks out like a sore thumb with that color scheme. Ouch.
What else? Apparently there's something special about Saturday so it gets a custom logo.
Or two. (We should know that by now.)
Oh and it seems a version of those little sticks and stars can be their own thing too.
Exciting stuff. But no All-Star Saturday is complete without a good old Skills Competition.
And that little shooting puck at the bottom also does its own thing.
Yeah, we're not even close to being done. NHL All-Star Weekend usually involves a special fan experience called NHL Fan Fair — so that means another logo.
If that's not enough, there's an All-Star Winter Park open all weekend featuring a giant snow slide and an outdoor ice rink. Sounds cold. (The forecast low for Sunday is 18° so...)
That pretty much does it, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out a few other minor icons and insignia used throughout the weekend for promotional items and merchandise.
Anyone else starting to feel like the NHL All-Star Game is a bit over-branded?
UPDATE · Jan 24 · 12:05 AM · Almost forgot one! New to the All-Star proceedings this season is the first ever NHL Mascot Showdown. Team mascots from around the league will split into two teams and actually play a short game before the Skills Competition.
And of course there's a logo.
It's very cartoony, but that's kind of the point.
Have you spotted any other logos I may have overlooked?
UPDATE · Jan 24 · 9:10 AM · Ha, yeah I thought we were done. Who was I kidding?
Earlier I said All-Star Weekend kicks off on Friday night with the Fantasy Draft. But in fact, it begins in the afternoon with NHL Media Day where journalists hobnob with the players.
The logo is plastered all over the wall behind the media tables.
Another All-Star-related event that took place this morning to open "All-Star Saturday" was the All-Star 5K Race. And naturally, that gets a special logo.
Through all the excitement of the weekend, I forgot about a logo that was used quite a lot during the lead-up to the big weekend. The all-important NHL All-Star Fan Vote!
And don't forget about the horizontal version.
There was even a subset of fan voting which including selecting a player for the Breakaway Challenge at the Skills Competition. So there's a Breakaway Challenge Fan Vote logo.
That's all I have to add at the moment, but I'm not ready to say that's everything. Let me know if you guys spot anymore All-Star logos not included here.