West Michigan Whitecaps Draw Inspiration From Detroit Tigers For New Logos

The West Michigan Whitecaps unveiled two new logos this past week and both pay homage to the parent club in their design. As a Grand Rapidian I’m a big fan of the Whitecaps, but I’m not a big fan of these new logos.

The new olde English “WM” will be featured on the road cap and, as Chris Creamer of SportsLogos.net points out, contains a color (orange) that isn’t found anywhere else on a current West Michigan uniform. I don’t think this one would be bad if they scrapped the orange and stuck with the white and blue color palette. The orange makes it feel like they’re forcing the Detroit Tigers reference in an all too literal way. I like the way it looks on this t-shirt, but would prefer to drop the orange for the on-field cap.

I find the wave-tiger thing, however, to be completely awful. The good news is this is a “retail only” logo – so it won’t appear on a hat or a uniform – but I find the orange to blue color transition to be arbitrary and awkward, and the teeth on the face of the wave make it look more like some sort of skeleton or skull. It doesn’t look so bad on this youth t-shirt, but it doesn’t work so well on this youth hat. I’ll be OK so long as this stays on merchandise and away from being used in any sort of official capacity.

The Whitecaps will, apparently, keep the standard “wave” as their main logo and home cap logo.