PORTLAND, Maine (WGAN) The Maine Mariners taking another step towards the 2018 season opener Wednesday, unveiling their primary logo to fans.
The logo, designed by Big Room Studios, features a white letter M alongside a blue and green trident that forms Maine’s state abbreviation.
“So after trying a few things, I actually had it straight up, it was kind of in the middle of the ‘M’ but I was spinning it around in Illustrator and I was like ‘that makes a pretty cool “E”‘ so it makes ‘ME’ in Maine pretty well,” said Justin Varberakis.
Fans seemed pleased with the design, which is vastly different from the original Mariners logo.
“I love this logo better than the original, to be honest,” said Chris McDonald. “The trident and the little ‘M’ and the hidden Maine looking logo sticks out more.”
“I like the logo,” said Joe Distasio, adding, “I’m glad they got the ‘M’ back. I wish it was more original, have the ship logo or the wheel and everything.”
Verberakis says he looked at lots of different designs before he settled on the trident.
“I threw trident in there just because as I was doing research it was just an icon,” he said. “It just kept coming up and I just thought it was a strong kind of tough icon that could relate to hockey or felt like it would fit well.”
As for the colors, Verberakis says that too was about trying different things.
“I think I tried like maybe 20 options, 20 color pallets and then the green and blue just felt good and the guys were pretty happy with it.”
VP of Business Operations for the Mariners Adam Goldberg definitely was happy.
“I love it,” he said, speaking about the logo. “I really feel like it’s a logo I’ve never seen, it doesn’t remind me of anything else. It’s not just a plain logo, there’s a story behind it.”
That story includes more hidden designs relating to Maine, like a pine tree at the center point of the trident, the shade of a lighthouse in the M and Maine’s Dirigo star on the trident.
“We wanted to avoid ‘cartoony,’ we wanted to avoid any human or animal imagery,” said Goldberg. “We wanted to just have sort of a callback to old time hockey like the Bruins or the Flyers where its just a simple letter or item imagery.”
The Mariners only unveiled their team name a few months ago, which created a slight time crunch for Big Room Studios to complete the design. Verberakis says the more people involved in the creative process, the slower it typically goes, but he says the Mariners organization was on the ball.
“They just made things go fast. When we needed feedback, they got it to us and we jumped on that feedback and kept refining things. It was pretty smooth. So hopefully folks like it,” he added with a laugh.
“We also designed the website for the Portland Pirates, so we’re not new to hockey per se,” said Liam Sullivan from Big Room Studios. “So a lot of that influence helped going into this process to speed it up. But like Justin was saying, communication is key and these guys are excellent communicators.”
The next big item on the agenda for the Mariners is a town hall they’ll be hosting in December. Goldberg says they’re really looking for fans to tell them what they want.
“I’ve been working in minor league sports for over 11 years now and you always run into fans on the concourse with various ideas, thoughts, questions and I would have loved to hear those a little bit earlier so we could actually act upon it. So if we can get some ideas and thoughts about what they care about, what matters to them in December, then we’ll have some time to really implement those ideas.”
The team is still nearly a year away from their first season in Portland, but fans don’t have to wait to get their tickets.
“Right now our full season tickets are on sale through a deposit,” said Goldberg. “we released those prices a couple weeks ago. In the near future, we’ll be releasing half seasons and the flex ticket packages.”
In the meantime, fans can check out the team’s new website, marinersofmaine.com, where apparel with the newly release logo is available.
