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| Roanoke Express | 15 |
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Roanoke is definitely one of the
nominees for the "most improved logo of 2002-03" award, and probably the
winner. Last year, their logo was a silly little combination of green and
purple (I think they actually called it "grape") which featured a bulldog.
They used that logo for five years, and I never did figure out what on
earth a bulldog has to do with "express". Couldn't it at least have been a
greyhound or saluki -- you know, a breed which actually runs fast? The only
way I can see anything "express" about a bulldog is if it has diarrhea.But the new logo is pretty cool. There's a star in the background to represent Roanoke being "the Star City" (I'm not sure why they're called "the Star City", but they are, and they have a big lit-up star placed on a nearby mountain to prove it), and the main feature of the logo is, get this, a locomotive. Imagine that! What a great idea! I know that sounds sarcastic, but it's intended as genuine encouragement. After all, their last logo proves they need it.
The only real downside to the logo is that the second "s" in "Express" turns into a hockey stick that swoops under the rest of the word. I'm not certain why certain teams feel they absolutely have to put some kind of hockey reference in the logo, but I will concede that if you insist on doing that, this is a good way to go about it.
But would you believe this thing is
anthropomorphized? It's so subtle that I almost didn't notice it, but if
you look closely, you'll see that the locomotive has eyes. This isn't as
bad as the original logo (it also featured a locomotive coming out of a
star, but this one had a mouth, and even worse is the fact that it was
clenching a puck in its teeth), but it's still fairly horrifying.
Nonetheless, the anthropomorphization is subtle enough that I actually
think the logo is pretty cool. It's probably going to wind up being the
only logo to get both the Anthropomorphization penalty and the Cool-Logo
bonus. And while it's a bit silly, I like the way the word "Express" has
little lines coming out of it like a character in a comic strip that's
supposed to be moving real fast. That's a nice touch.
Finally, I like the color scheme. Black has been overused a lot in recent years, but this is a locomotive, for crying out loud. Of course it's black. Adding red and grey to the mix is a nice, basic color scheme that looks strong. It certainly looks better than green and "grape", that's for damn sure.
Final Score: 15 points.
Penalties: Singular, 6 pts; Anthropomorphization, 10 pts; Name-Logo, 2
pts; Equip-Logo, 5 pts.
Bonuses: Cool-Logo, -5 pts; Local, -3 pts.