Philosophers as Baseball Logos
The Philosophy department at UAlbany is fielding its own intramural softball team. Because of this, I wanted to come up with a design for a team shirt. The natural starting point for such a shirt would be the Baltimore Orioles' "smiling bird" logo. While I am an Astros fan, I have always loved this logo. It is the only logo that looks like he's having a good time. Most graphic depictions of mascots or sports logos look angry or fierce. Meanwhile, the smiling bird is having a good time. I think this might only be possible in baseball. It is hard to imagine a happy football mascot or smiling football logo. The Baltimore Orioles' smiling bird is just good clean fun.
From here, I made a handful of versions of the logo featuring the faces of what I thought might be some of the most visually recognizable philosophers. Given that the logo is wearing wearing a hat, it is hard to depict iconic hair. That pretty much just gives you the face to work with, and since it is supposed to look consistent with the smiling bird's minimal design, having iconic facial hair is the obvious starting point. Unfortunately these design constraints limit us to mostly men (and really only the subset that have facial hair, and really only the subset of that group whose facial hair is distinctive).
Of course, in line with it being a team of all philosophers, instead of deciding on one logo as a team, we ended up all choosing different logos for our shirts. Hopefully the design is consistent enough that we look like a team while still allowing for some self-expression. Anyway, here they are:
Of course, in line with it being a team of all philosophers, instead of deciding on one logo as a team, we ended up all choosing different logos for our shirts. Hopefully the design is consistent enough that we look like a team while still allowing for some self-expression. Anyway, here they are:
Nietzsche:
Descartes:
Socrates:
Davis:
