Happy 15th Birthday to the Nickname "Wild"

On January 22, 1998, Minnesota's NHL expansion franchise announced their nickname and released their first logo!  The name "Wild" was announced, beating out Blue Ox, Freeze, Northern Lights, Voyageurs  and White Bears. The colors of Forest Green, Iron Range Red, and Harvest Gold, which are still used today. An unveiling took place at Aldrich Arena in Maplewood to show off the name and logo of Minnesota's new franchise.

Interestingly enough, the current primary logo was nowhere to be seen. The primary logo that was initially released was a script logo, featuring "Wild" in green with gold and red outlines. The logo that eventually showed up on the jerseys as a sleeve patch featured the script logo over a roundel that featured the words "Minnesota" and "NHL Hockey."

These logos were used for Minnesota until the 2000/20001 NHL season when the Wild finally took the ice. At this point the current primary logo, the bear head depicting a wilderness scene, was introduced. It donned the front of the inaugural jerseys.

The Wild are yet to make any changes to their primary logo. While several alternate logos and scripts have been developed, the bear head logo remains the primary symbol of the Minnesota Wild.


Just for fun, here are some cool shots of the old shoulder patch I took from my green jersey:

Monday News & Notes

Unfortunately I don't have a full blog post for you all today. I do, however, have a few things to share.

Graphics Collection From ColorWerx

It's exactly what it sounds like. ColorWerx posted a collection of Minnesota Wild graphics on his blog. It's his collection of color-optimized graphics (he puts a lot of time into this and does an incredible job), which is pretty cool if you're into that kind of thing. It's his work, so I'll just post the link to his blog post:

ColorWerx: Minnesota Wild Graphics

More Concepts on the Way

News relating to the logos and uniforms of the Minnesota Wild only comes so often. Now that the season is underway, news will most likely be harder to come by for awhile. This means I will be posting more concepts that are sent in. I have a handful that have already been sent in that are ready to post, I'm hoping to get a few more. Remember to email your concepts to wildaboutdesign@hotmail.com!

I will also add that with the assumed lack of news coming our way I plan to explore some other options for the blog. If I am able to gain enough interest, another Concept Contest will be put together. There are also plans for some jersey critiques and other fun things.


Remember, keep your stick on the ice!

What Could Have Been...

On the Wild's website, there is a slide show of some designs for the potential team in Minnesota, had Wild not been chosen as the name. We have long known about the names up for voting, but this is the first we've seen of any designs. The final names were Blue Ox, Freeze, Northern Lights, Voyageurs, White Bears, and, of course, Wild. Obviously Wild was the chosen name, but the others certainly had potential. All of them fit in nicely with the state of Minnesota. Let's take a look at those...missed opportunities.

Blue Ox:




Freeze:




Northern Lights:




Voyageurs:




White Bears:




After seeing these, I am glad they went with Wild. The Northern Lights had some nice tributes to the North Stars, that could have been pretty cool.

This Day in History

On this day, January 22, in 1998, the NHL's Minnesota franchise selected the name 'Wild'. The Minnesota Wild would begin play in the 2000/2001 NHL season.

Here are a few excerpts from articles written around the time of the unveiling:

Nice touch, the new Minnesota franchise calling a news conference to unveil its new name — Wild — and logo and including Neal Broten in the ceremony. If anyone has done more for hockey in Minnesota than Broten, name him.

But on to the logo, described as iron range red, forest green, harvest gold and Minnesota wheat. Was Minnesota wheat in your box of Crayolas? The Wild, by the way, beat out the Polars, Voyageurs and Blue Ox in fan balloting.

Excerpt from article published in Deseret News


When Minnesota's NHL expansion franchise announced in January 1998 that it would be called the Wild, the obvious question was, "What's a 'Wild?'" The team's response: "Whatever you want it to be."

The Wild's home sweater, unveiled Thursday at the Roseville Skating Center, is dominated by the head of a beast that might be a bear. Or maybe it's a mountain lion? A wolf? A very angry gopher? Who really knows?

And again, that's precisely the point.

"It's a wild picture," chief executive officer Jac Sperling explained. "People will see what they want to see. It's intended to be a wild animal."

Excerpt from article published in Star Tribune


Pretty cool!

It Has Begun

The 2010/2011 NHL season is here! The Minnesota Wild opened today against the Carolina Hurricanes in Helsinki. But I'm not here to tell you about the game. Rather, I have two bits of logo/uniform related news to share with you. First off, the Wild wore special patches for the game. The 2010 NHL Premiere Logo was on the right chest for both teams today.



Also, the Wild did something different with their helmets today. They wore the 3rd jersey helmets with their home jerseys. Hopefully, this is a permanent move. The script logo replaces the circle logo on the green helmets. I did the same thing in my NHL 2012 project, and I really hope the Wild stick with this.





Enjoy the NHL season!

New Wordmarks Released

I mentioned way beck in the early days of this blog that the Wild would be getting rid of their original wordmark logo. And now they have released some new wordmarks. A nod to the past elements, looks good to me.



By the way, here is the original wordmark, no longer in use:

Adding on to the Bear Head Logo

We all know the Wild's awesome primary logo, the bear head with a cool nature scene inside. Have you ever wondered about the rest of the bear's body? Mark Crosby has. In fact, he made a pretty cool concept with that idea. Crosby sent in the cool logo posted above, a continued version of the Wild's bear logo. I think he did an excellent job. Cool logo!

10th Anniversary Logo for Wild

I recently came across the logo that will be used for the Wild's 1oth season next year. Not too bad!