Last week, while I was on my way north, aka off the first world grid, a bunch of stuff happened on Earth: Amy Winehouse died, some crazy Norwegian killed a bunch of people and the Winnipeg Jets finally got a visual identity. Because Foogos is a lighthearted site, you can Google news and opinions on the weekend’s morbid events. And since I’m bound to recreate this new Jets logo out of food at some point, I figured I might as well give my two cents on it.

THE PRIMARY MARK: True North, the owners of the Jets, give themselves a nod with the stylized compass pointing north. It’s a little pretentious, but at least its subtle. I like the overall simplicity of the concept, but I’m not feeling the reality of a jet superimposed over the maple leaf, mostly because it looks like a jumble, and nothing stands out. If anything, it reminds me of when I was younger and didn’t want to eat my mashed potatoes and lima beans, so I mixed them all together in a heaping mess spread around the plate.

THE ALTERNATE MARK:This is pretty much an ideal alternate mark, probably because it looks like a real air force shoulder patch. For argument’s sake, let’s assume this is too busy. We can do without the words “WINNIPEG JETS” and the hockey sticks. The winged leaf would look even more militaristic.

I think this would have been a cooler shoulder patch.

To go along with the military/air force theme, after the initial patch is adhered to the shoulder, hypothetically speaking, for every subsequent Stanley Cup the Jets win (after their 2nd) they could add another set of wings. The Islanders do it with the alternating color bars on their shoulders.THE WORDMARK: I can see why some might love the primary mark, and I admit I’m being nitpicky in any critique of the nice alternate, but this wordmark is not great by any measure. Let’s pretend for a second that the positioning of word and leaf, the style of the leaf and the overall color scheme of all the art doesn’t make you wanna pop a Molson.

The leaf is oddly placed, and almost looks like some crazy, artsy way of utilizing an apostrophe. The “JETS” word looks… weird. It’s like someone used four different font sizes, because none of these letters match up. In relation to the capital “J,” only the “T” seems to be in scale. It can’t decide whether it’s a cursive font or not, either. Look at the joint between “T” and “S.” No one’s script would make that about-face. The “E” is too bulky, like a beachball sandwiched in a word. I think this is a pretty crummy visual but that’s just me.

What do you think about the Jets’ new identity? Let me know in the comments section of this blog, or over at the official Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages.