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	Grand Rapids Griffins	-5
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Posted 2003 February 11

It's always a bit trickier to critique a logo when it involves a mythological creature. There just aren't as many things you can look at for mythological creatures. Is it the wrong color? Is it in a pose that those animals would never make? Does it have anatomical features those animals lack? Who knows? I know that lions aren't purple and grey, but can I say whether griffins are truly...er, what is that color, anyway?

In fact, the Griffins could put a big, toothy grin on the griffin's head, and I wouldn't be in a position to say "this isn't correct because griffin's don't have teeth!" I'd just be setting myself up for a nasty e-mail asking if I'd ever seen one. Of course I haven't seen one -- I've never done hallucinogenic drugs.

Still, I have to admire the job the Griffins did on this one. They really had a free ride to put all sort of goofy features on their logo, and they resisted at every turn. A griffin is supposed to look like a lion's body with an eagle's head and wings, and that's what this thing looks like. The head really does look like an eagle's head, and the body really does look like a lion's body. The only real quibble I can find is that real lions don't have an opposable thumb on their paws. But even there, they had the decency to make it look lion-like instead of sticking human hands on the thing.

(And I'm not 100% positive lions don't have an opposable toe. I'm mostly certain, because no other cat does. But I like to double-check these things by looking the creature up in my wife's National Audubon Society field guides. None of the pictures of lions show their paws very well. I suppose it was a bit much to hope for a lion posed approximately the same way as the griffin in the logo. After all, any photographer who had an opportunity to get a good shot of that pose probably did not have the opportunity to get away from the lion, return home, and turn the film into his editor. So I'll have to live with being 99% certain.)

So all in all, this is really a textbook example of how to make a logo. There's really not much more to say on the matter.

As for the name: Well, I like it, too. Even though alliteration is a penalty in the BLF, it doesn't really bother me much. And the idea of naming a team after mythological creatures is kind of cool. I really wish someone would name a team the Manticores, but Griffins is fine.

Final Score: -5 points.
Penalties: Alliteration, 2 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts.
Bonuses: Cool-Name, -4 pts; Cool-Logo, -5 pts.