An observation about logos.

I was thinking about the logos of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. You know, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League. It occurred to me that the logos of MLB and the NBA both feature the silhouette of a player in red, white and blue, while the NHL and NFL logos are both in the shape of shields.





The MLB and NBA logos are both blue on the left, red on the right, and show a white outline of a man playing each respective sport in the middle. In the NBA's case, Jerry West's likeness is represented. These sports' logos are extremely similar but very different than those of the NHL and NFL. Those logos both take the form of a shield and prominently feature the league's initials, much more so than MLB (which doesn't feature the league's name within the logo itself) or the NBA (whose logo focuses more on the silhouette than the small initials).

So, why are the leagues' logos split down the middle in this way? Well, hockey and football are full-contact sports, while baseball and basketball are only limited-contact. I'm not sure if this actually had anything to do with the design of the logos, but it's interesting that they worked out that way. Perhaps the shield motif signifies that players wear a great deal of protective padding in hockey and football.

Who knows? I thought it was interesting to think about, though.