Evil Geniuses Logo Rebrand Controversy
We’ve had a mixed-bag of esport orgs rebranding this year, from NRG’s puzzling change to a logo looking like something out of Small Soldiers to Splyce and Clutch Gaming’s rebrandings to MAD Lions and Dignitas respectively.
While these have been met with a mix of positive and negative responses from the community, none has been so loathed as the recent rebrand by long-time org Evil Geniuses, who last Thursday revealed their new branding for 2020. The new logo consists of the team’s name spelled out in full with a deep pointed “V” in the “Evil” part and looks less like a brand image of an esports team and more that of a new tv series.
Community and Original Owner Response
The community reaction to the revealed brand change was mostly negative and mocking, with many criticizing Evil Geniuses for doing away with their iconic disk logo and lighter color scheme for something many see as uninspired and generic.
R6 caster Interro responded with shock at the news stating, “You had one of the best logos in all of esports. Why? Why change it,” while Halo news journalist Moses FPS described it as, “generic and boring.”
While the hate was already high upon the initial unveiling, it was only made worse after the team’s original owner Alex Garfield, who took to Twitter expressing his disappointment with how the org’s new owners seem to have forgotten their history and where the team came from, stating,
“Clearly, some people have forgotten how and why Evil Geniuses came to be in the first place, and even more clearly, the story of how and why it came to be where it is now has gone silent for far too long.
It’s on me for being foolish enough in 2014 to sell my company to somebody who told me that an exit would mean empowerment and not negation, but that doesn’t excuse any of the things that happened subsequently, and it certainly doesn’t excuse people having selective memories about those things and even trying to sweep them under the rug.
Especially those who are currently tasked with safeguarding the brand and its legacy.”
The heavy criticism from the org’s original owner hit hard at EG, no more so than for current CGO Phillip Aram, who responded to Garfield apologizing for messing up the rebranding, noting that,
“It’s not every day that your personal hero puts you on blast for the world to see. So please forgive me for the time it took to find the words for you. Here’s a tweetstorm I hope you and all EG fans will read:
Alex, I love you, and I (more than anyone who carries the EG name now) fucked up the delivery. You may not own EG anymore, but you’ll always have some ownership of it to me and to everyone. You, and all our fans who hold their own part of EG in their hearts, felt a lot of anguish when we rolled out something that took you by surprise in a way that had everything to do with what was missing and not what was unveiled.
I’m super proud of what we unveiled for the record. I stand for it so hard, and our team is excited to tell new stories with this look & feel. That crest though, that big beautiful roundish EG symbol, means a whole lot to us all, and when we went through this brand refresh process over the last year we figured out everything but that crest in a timely manner.
We hoped the world would be excited by the fresh fun things and let us keep tinkering in quiet on the last piece we still needed for the puzzle, but we messed up and didn’t let anybody know it was still in the EG lab for testing—not buried in the backyard for good. Bad on us, but mostly bad on me as the person who was entrusted by you to help carry this legacy on some years ago.
I’m sorry we gave you and all the fans a heart attack, but to be totally clear the crest is coming back. Once we are done refining it. I’d love nothing more than to show you, Alex, what we’re working on and get feedback from you, the guy who built this company from the ground-up, to help us get it across the finish line right before unveiling it to the public.
Last, I hope to hell that it will soon be time for everything that transpired over the last six-plus years to come to light. We can’t go back and undo the past, but the world deserves to know how and why your esports team was on the cusp of world domination one day and turned into a comeback story the next.
Thank you for still giving a shit, Mr. Garfield. From you and the fans, I’ll take disappointment over apathy every day of the week. We’re gonna keep trying to earn that tough love every day.”
The news of the old Evil Geniuses logo coming back after a modernized touch-up is certain to excite long-term fans of the org, though whether or not it lives up to their expectations is the question on everyone’s mind right now, and all eyes will be on how the org handles one of esports most iconic logos in the coming weeks and months as the redesign finishes up.
Either way, this whole controversy is sure to be a lesson to established orgs with a long history looking to shake-up their brand to be careful about how they handle it, less they upset their long-term fans and old members.
We’ll continue to keep you all updated as more information on the redesigned Evil Geniuses logo comes to light over the coming weeks.
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