The 30 Worst Sports Logos of All Time: #12

As my boy 'Moo and I were sitting through our training class, he turned me on to a website called LogoShak that has a remarkably extensive collection of logos from sports teams and events. Since I needed something new for the blog (and because November has 30 days), I decided to list the 30 worst sports logos of all time. I designated 'Moo as creative director of the project since he a.) found the site before I did, b.) has a good eye for a bad logo, and c.) agreed to go through half of the logos on the site so that I didn't have to spend even more time than I already do with unproductive exercises. I will be listing one per day for the next 30 days. There was no strict criteria; it just had to look ugly. Sometimes the logos were too busy, some of them had terrible color schemes, and some were just way too plain. Regardless, we tried to put together list of the all-time worst for your enjoyment (or displeasure, whichever). Let's keep this train rolling...

#12 - UC-Santa Barbara Gauchos

UC-Santa Barbara seems like a fair enough institution. I've heard good things about their academic programs, and everybody has to like the uniqueness of a the nickname "Gauchos". For the record, a gaucho is a South American cowboy. So let's say that we changed the name of UCSB to "Cowboys" just for the purposes of this exercise. Would the above logo then make any sense to you? No. So don't try to give them the benefit of the doubt just because they have a chic nickname. This is just a bad logo; no two ways about it. The random sun in the upper-right corner, the faceless gaucho who only has eyes, the fact the that 'u' in "gauchos" looks like a second 'a', the blue ellipse in the background that serves no purpose other than to hide the faceless gaucho; I mean, there are a number of problems here. It'd be one thing if I were grading on a curve since their nickname was so creative, but I'm not. I just want a solid logo that doesn't look embarrassing to everyone associated with the university. Imagine if you were proud of your Gauchos and you had to show this to someone who didn't know a thing about the school. How big of a letdown would that be for them to see this? Come on, UCSB, you're better than that. Give one of your art students some of that hippie lettuce and see if they can't crank out something better.

~~ Lank