Let’s talk about the Tri-City Dust Devils brand™
I bought some Staten Island Pizza Rats gear today.
As a Dust Devils fan, I sighed.
If only.
I would absolutely love to wear some gear from my local team, but as a brand-sensitive™ person, I just hurt when I look at how great so many minor league logos are and then look at the Dust Devils.
Yes, you’ve got me: the Dust Devils branding is marginally better than that of the Tri-City Posse who the Dust Devils replaced in 2000.
But, I mean, the whole “posse” business never made sense in the first place. I don’t even think the Tri-Cities is old enough to have ever had either a sheriff’s posse *or* unironic inverted handlebar mustaches.
But all around minor league baseball, you’ll find fascinating, funny branding with character. The Dust Devils’ Northwest league rivals include a whole host of teams with great logos: The Hilsboro Hops, Eugene Emeralds, and Everett Aquasox are all first-class.
On Sunday I went to a Walla Walla Sweets amateur summer league game and marveled at their gorgeous uniforms, quality logo mascot, and stunningly perfect script.
I mean, their “W2” logo I’m not sold on at all, But the Walla Walla Sweets branding is outstanding—especially for amateurs! (Okay, the *designers* were clearly professionals and it’s just the players who are amateur.)
And that script on those jerseys? Omg.
As a lifetime Tri-Cities resident, I have to say it feels pretty classic for the Tri-Cities to be overshadowed once again by our cooler Walla Walla neighbors. Walla Walla’s reputation in many things far surpasses the much larger Tri-Cities—food, culture, history, walkability, great downtown, wineries.
But baseball branding? Say it ain’t so!
It’s so. And if things are ever going to get better, we’ve gotta just be honest.
So, um… Dust Devils, it’s time for some realtalk about your brand™.
Now, I’m not the only one with a bit of a low opinion of the Dust Devils brand. In fact, searching for “worst logo in minor league baseball” ends up coincidentally turning up several results that mention the Dust Devils:
- “One of the worst logos in my opinion was the Tri-City Dust Devils,” starts this message thread (though in fairness, I’m not sure the alternatives proposed there are an overwhelming improvement).
- This site ranks minor league baseball logos by cumulative ranking vote by users. Of the 61 logos listed, the Dust Devils logo is ranked dead last.
- This post pulls no punches: “Yo, WTF actually is this? Best guess, the local newspaper held a “Design Our New Team’s Logo!” contest and ONLY allowed children under 12 with MS Paint as mandatory, restrictive guidelines.”
So, while I feel like I’m maybe being a little harsh on my hometown team, I’ve gotta say, I think the consensus is it’s deserved.
Of course, let’s certainly be grateful the Dust Devils aren’t following the Tri-Cities official branding or we’d be looking at the Tr! City Dust Dev!ls!
And I’ll absolutely admit that the uniform colors all play together better than the logo colors, and this alternate logo from 2012 is somewhere between acceptable and good.
But that official logo itself?
Ouch.
It’s just begging to be berated in a caption contest.
- “If you kids don’t knock it off, I SWEAR I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND.”
- “Don’t mess with T̵e̶x̶a̶s̶ hoola-hooping North America”
- “Great. I stepped in Slinky.”
- “I’m a genie in a bottle, baby, you gotta put me inside a dryer hose the right way.”
- “Ughhhhh. Who farted?”
I don’t know what that face is about. I don’t know what the hoola hoops are. I don’t know why it is, indeed, shaped like North America. It’s way too complex, and way not enough (intentional) levity for something so literal.
It could be much, much, much better.
I’m not sold on the typeface, but I definitely think Rene Sanchez is on to something with the logo character in her Dust Devils logo remix here.
So—please, Dust Devils, I’m just going to beg you to follow the advice of Michael Jackson in his classic, Man in the Mirror:
If you wanna make the world
a better place
take a look at yourself
and make a change
