The Iconography of THL's Logo

By JediNinja
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This latest piece in our 30 for 30 series is shorter than others, but equally important to THL's vast history. The current THL logo is a core part of the league's identity, so telling the story of its inspiration is critical. JediNinja, the original founder of THL, gives us a thorough walkthrough on every part of the logo, showing that every symbol featured has a deeper meaning.
- Marty

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​At a point in our history, we were worried about running afoul of Blizzard’s lawyers (the same time we became Team Hearth Legends), so we decided to retire the original Valeera logo created by Necrohavoc due to the potential of infringement on Blizzard’s IP or a professional sports league’s logo.
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​I got to work creating a new one and wanted to emulate my favorite logos that have some meaningful iconography. Ultimately, I decided on the playing card theme, which means a specific aspect ratio, corner radius, and white border. Instead of the complicated adornment usually seen on playing cards, I used a simpler three-panel design that would better scale to small icon-like sizes.  Red and blue colors were used as a reference to our previous logo colors, and the font for “THL” at the center was chosen for no reason other than its simplicity.
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​On the top I wanted to add something to represent the competition and victory. I considered a trophy but didn’t like how the shape fit so eventually I settled on a crown. The crown ties back to the playing card theme but also symbolizes victory, in that champions are “crowned”. There is no special meaning to the design of the crown. Though it may look like a mustache or beard to some, it only looks the way it does because that was an easy design to execute in Powerpoint.
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On the bottom I added a pattern of five hexagons. The hexagon shape is a reference to the Hearthstone legend rank symbol (or rank badge in general), and five of them represent the original number of players on a THL team.
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In addition to the logo, I created a banner image in the form of a pennant, with variations on the symbols in the logo. Go THL!