SALT LAKE CITY — Fans across Utah are still rejoicing over the new name for the state's NHL team, the Utah Mammoth.
The branding of the Mammoth, from the logo to the colors to the merchandise, has generated significant buzz among hockey's newest fanbase.
Ryan and Ashley Smith, along with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, revealed the total design on May 7, and ever since, everyone wants a piece.
Creating the team's visual identity is no small task, in fact one might call it a "mammoth" undertaking (Don't worry — this won’t be the last pun).
"We sit down and we think, what do we want to be about?" said Ben Barnes, the senior brand director for the Utah Mammoth.
He and his team are the ones responsible for the new branding, and surprisingly in the 21st century, he starts somewhere old school.
"The basis is always usually just an idea on paper," Barnes said. "Don't know, maybe I'm just old school, but paper's where I always start. It's really quick sketches, go. Really quick sketches, go.”
The team started well before the official name was picked, creating designs for all of the potentials.
Once Mammoth fell into place, though, they say the process flowed very smoothly since mammoths have a lot to do with Utah.
WATCH: Utah's hockey team name finalist: What do mammoths have to do with Utah?
"In that initial sketch phase, it's not just primary mark. It's anything Utah Mammoth — anything that comes to your mind, you put out there," Barnes said. "You need something on the front of the jersey. You need something on the shoulders. You need something on the helmet. There's lots of different touch points."
The designers incorporated several Utah-specific elements into the logo to give it a sense of place and ultimately start to weave the story of the Mammoth.
"Part of making a logo that feels like it belongs to us and isn't just random," Barnes said. "Giving it a sense of place.”
Just look at the primary logo: if you haven’t spotted it already, there’s a hidden outline of the state of Utah, along with a “M” (for Mammoth, of course) as an Easter egg.
The mountains themselves are meant to feel like the Mammoth is almost formed out of them, much as Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front also feel as if they are forged right out of the mountain
“So we knew that mountains were important, to give you a sense of being in Utah,” Barnes said.
Other hidden features include the tusk, the way it's shaped makes a letter “U,” which is highlighted in the team's secondary logo.
While Barnes acknowledges the challenge of knowing when a design is truly complete, the team felt confident in their direction.
"We felt like we were on the right path, like this is going to be it," Barnes said.
So, you’ve got all the logos down, exported, and sent off, the next step is knowing how to release it.
"We were saying, finally, we are Utah Mammoth," Chris George said.
George is the senior creative services director for the Utah Mammoth, taking on the task of crafting a story around the brand.
"It has a foundation that a lot of us can rally around, and so that was what was really fun," George said.
You’ve probably seen this video by now, with several MILLION views on day ONE. This video was George’s vision along with his team.
"The opportunity to take it from a 2D form to into real life, as well as 3D, was always a challenge," George said. "We were fortunate enough to find a really cool cave about four hours from here that was large enough to, you know, pretend that a mammoth could potentially come out of it."
Interestingly, the team made a deliberate choice in their reveal video, not to reveal or show the Mammoth itself.
George said this in part came from another team, the Seattle Kraken. The Mammoth team met with them and took a page out of their book since you don’t really see the Kraken either.
All of this work going into helping fans use their imagination and see a part of themselves in the new team identity.
"Yeah, I mean, seeing the reception of fans, you know, having over 3 million views, I think in the first 30 minutes, was pretty astounding," George said.
"Anytime you do anything like this, you're a little nervous. You're putting something that you've created out there, and not just something that you created, something that represents the organization you work for," Barnes said.
I asked Barnes in closing about what it meant for him to design a brand that will ultimately face off against some of the most established teams in the world such as the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, or Chicago Blackhawks.
He simply said he is proud to be able to do so, and while our team only has one year of history compared to the ice age that the Canadiens have been around (told you wouldn’t be the last one), the Utah Mammoth's history will come, and with it, the same revering feeling toward their identity.
"People don't rally around a logo. They rally around like, what it represents for them," Barnes said.
Bottom line, with all of this new pomp and circumstance around the brand, make no mistake: the team is committed to creating an authentic Utah experience through and through.
"We're not designing what we want. We're designing what we feel like resonates with the fans," Barnes said. “It’s something that's unique, that feels like it belongs, uniquely to Utah.”
