Graphic designers weigh in on Los Angeles Chargers logo

Social media wasn’t kind to the new Los Angeles Chargers logo, but how do professional graphic designers feel about it?

Emotions were running high on Thursday morning when the San Diego Chargers announced that they were moving to Los Angeles. While the city of San Diego was upset to lose its NFL franchise, the rest of the country was much more focused on the team’s new logo.

Twitter users everywhere (including myself) were quick to judge the Los Angeles Chargers when the unveiled their brand new logo. After so much negative feedback, the Chargers were quick to come out and tell Liz Habib from FOX 11 Los Angeles that image was not their new logo, but was instead strictly meant for marketing purposes during Thursday’s events.

Whether that’s really the case or not, we at FanSided decided to find out why people reacted so negatively to the new logo by talking to graphic designers around the country. These graphic designers also shared their thoughts on the logo and the process that goes into designing something like this.

Omid Mousaei, the founder of Mad Mind Studios in Los Angeles, felt the same way that a lot of people did after initially seeing the logo.

“It’s too close to the Dodgers logo. Even the shade of blue is too similar,” Omid said. “Something like this feels like it could take 15-30 minutes to design. It definitely feels uninspired.”

That wasn’t necessarily the consensus from the other graphic designers that FanSided spoke with.

“It could take me an hour if someone told me to give a L and an A with a lightning bolt,” said Brad Miller from Brad Miller Design. “It could also take 100 hours, especially if the client was an NFL franchise.” 

Brad is based in Chicago and explained that logo design is a process. He understands that people are quick to react to something that seems easy to do on the surface, but knows that they likely put plenty of time into coming up with this logo.

“To me, it feels [kind of] throwback. I like it. It’s the kind of things that could last,” Brad said. “It’s pretty easy to have a negative opinion on something. I remember when Big Ten logo came out and all of the negative reaction. I think that time has shown that it’s a good logo.”

Jeff Yas, a graphic designer based out of Brooklyn agreed that the logo looks similar to the Dodgers logo, but at the same time he was much more positive about it.

“It feels pretty badass,” Jeff said. “There’s a lot of energy to it. It evokes almost a superhero feel because of the flatness of the letter and the bolt.”

As a professional graphic designer, Jeff has always naturally been drawn to NFL logos like those of the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys. They may not be the most complex designs, but Jeff points out that these logos are brands, and the Cowboys star is on a level with the Nike swoosh in terms of brand awareness.

“This [Chargers] logo is already recognizable,” Jeff said. “There are a lot of commercial applications to it. Heck, I’d wear this logo on a t-shirt.”

That simplicity is important, and as Michael Krisher from Logo Design NYC points out, that weren’t a lot of directions that the Chargers could go with a new logo, and it would take a lot of resources to create a new logo.

“How many different ways can you make a lightning bolt?” Michael said. “I don’t know if I’d waste money trying to reinvent the wheel.”

Having been born and raised in Los Angeles before moving to San Diego, Storm Brain Lead Creative Director Blake Nolan has mixed feelings about the logo change, but feels that they should do as much as possible to create a new image in a new city.

“They’re burning a bridge here, so they should consider burning it all the way,” Blake said of redesign. “You need to do something to break away visually from the area. I wouldn’t mind seeing them move away from the lightning bolt.”

As far as the negativity surrounding the new logo, Blake doesn’t feel like this is anything we haven’t seen before.

“I think you tend to see this [negative reaction] when any high profile brand makes a shift,” Blake said. “We saw the same thing with the new Instagram logo. I think for the amount of people that are negative about something, there’s probably just as many who like it but are being quiet about it.”

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As far as the negativity is concerned, Ryan Gravador from ThatsGravy Designs feels that it is mostly due to so many fans being upset about the team relocating.

“A big reason for a lot of the negativity is probably just because of the team leaving the city,” Ryan told FanSided. “I think that negativity is starting to spill over into the logo.”

The internet can be a pretty negative place, and while a lot of people on social media continue to make fun of the Chargers’ new logo, most of the graphic designers think that it is a step in the right direction. Now it will be up to the Chargers to determine whether or not they want to use this logo in the long run.