50 Years of the Hockey Mask

Fifty years ago this month, goaltender Jacques Plante took a stick to the face. It was pretty much just a day at the office for goaltenders of that era. But not for Jacques. The Montreal Canadiens' goaltender refused to skate again unless he was able to wear a mask. Since at the time there were no hockey mask designers, he came up with the structure himself (at left). Soon after, others followed.

Those early hockey masks look like crude cousins to today's über-polished, air-brushed designs, but along the way there have been some innovative designs and eye-catching paint schemes. Some of the more bad-ass masks incorporate the logomark of the teams, often in an intimidating manner:

Left: Philadelphia Flyers' Wayne Stephenson; right: Quebec Nordiques' Don McLeod


Team-for-team, our own Washington Capitals match up with anyone. Throughout the late '70s and early '80s, there was a unwavering patriotic bent to the Caps' masks, no doubt fueled by bicentennial fever. Old glory has never as good as when it was mantled across Bernie Wolf's cranium. And how about Wayne Stephenson's Peter Criss-esque design? (Could it have been inspired by KISS' 1979 visit to the Cap Centre?) For pure Americana-on-steroids, you can't beat the Caps' golden era:

Clockwise from top left: Wayne Stephenson ('80-'81); Gary Inness ('79-'81); Bernie Wolf ('78-'79); Gary Smith ('77-'78)

Everyday Low Standards

WalMart is legendary for keeping their expenses lean. Take their "greeters". Legend has it that Sam Walton was too cheap to pay for security guards at his stores, so he enlisted the help of retirees to work for peanuts as doormen. The wisdom was that shoppers are a lot less prone to shoplifting when they have to walk out past a smiling grandmother.

Unfortunately their parsimony seeps into every corner of their business, including their brand identity. The WalMart logo has undergone a few facelifts in its time, most recently in 2008 (top left). What was once a logo with some spirit and regional character (bottom left) has morphed into the lifeless, uninspired blahdom it is today. I understand not wanting to pay a lot for something, but how many design students would jump at the chance to submit designs for a WalMart logo? How about a design competition for WalMart employees to come up with something? Certainly some submission would be better than the dreck they ended up with.

The annals of logo design are filled with successful design work done on a shoestring. Nike's logo was done by a student for a paltry $35.00. Or one can dismiss altogether the idea of paying, as Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell did when he took a page from the Sam Walton handbook. Security guard and amateur artist Frederick Bouchat submitted his own design concept to the Ravens (right), only to be stiff-armed by Modell. From Wikipedia:

Bouchat had submitted his design to the Maryland Stadium Authority by fax after learning that Baltimore was to acquire an NFL team. He was not credited for the design when the logo was announced. Bouchat sued the team, claiming to be the designer of the emblem; representatives of the team asserted that the image had been designed independently. The court ruled in favor of Bouchat, noting that team owner Modell had access to Bouchat's work.

So c'mon Walmart, you can come up with something better. Heck, at the very least steal something better. It won't cost you anything. Or perhaps the readers of this blog have some ideas...