2/15/2020
Great Lakes Lightning Sprints
EVOLUTION OF A LOGO
Merrill, MI – Designing a logo is fun stuff! The logo you design will be the identity of the organization and what gives people their first impression of the group they’re dealing with! With that being said, we have decided to make the round Great Lakes Sprints Logo our new combined series logo.
When we started Great Lakes Super Sprints in the fall of 2015, we went to work on our first logo. The Oval shape was the initial winner, arching the letters GLSS across the top of a winged sprint car. Initially we felt it was also important to list the states that we were planning on running in, so we listed them in the logo. We also played with the back grounds and settled on a brushed aluminum look with bolt heads securing the border around the logo. We also played with various colors until we settled on the blue design.
During our first season, there was a fair amount of feed back about different looks. Believe it or not, one of the biggest things brought up was that our car didn’t have a number on it! So we set out to develop a more compact Logo!
If we were going to make a new logo, we wanted something that could fit in a circle or a square. We didn’t think it was important to list the states we race in on the new logo, but we were sure to put a number on the car. Contrary to popular belief that we used the 16 in honor of Coldwater native, Ryan Ruhl, we did not (sorry Ryan). We used 16 since it was the inaugural season of GLSS! Instead of the bolt heads, we used stars to accent the arch around the logo. Then we put GLSS in the middle belt with Great Lakes Super Sprints underneath it.
The new GLSS logo was introduced after some experimenting with colors in the spring of 2017…in time for the racing season. The logo has been well received and we liked it so much, that when we formed Great Lakes Lighting Sprints, we adapted the over all design with some obvious changes. We changed the date on the car to 20, we changed GLSS to GLLS and added a solid bolt of lighting down the middle with 1,000 cc under the middle belt, representing the size of motor we run. This logo turned out great and ties our brand together nicely.
When we acquired Michigan Traditional Sprints last fall, we wanted to keep as much the same as we could, but still show a new identity. That was a simple fix, by replacing the M with GL and we added our name under the initials instead of sprint series. It turned out recognizable and similar to the previous MTS Logo, but had a new feel to it.
With having all 3 sprint series now, we needed to develop a new logo for social media, advertising and official shirts that incorporated all 3 groups under Great Lakes Sprints. We developed a few layouts and put them out on Facebook and Twitter for votes. After looking at the comments and what logos fans liked, we went back and made some adjustments and put the new ones out for a vote last Thursday. Hands down, the round logo was the winner by 3 to 1 over the next highest vote getter.
The round design was pirated from the owner of GLS. Specialty Fuels & Logistics has been supporting sprint car racing for over 10 years and their logo can be seen on many sprint cars in the tri-state area with the www.needmethanol.com website on the logo! Knowing how popular that circle logo was, we used that design to make the new Great Lakes Sprints logo. As it turned out the new design brought in over 57% of the total votes. So the new round logo will be the primary logo for the Great Lakes Sprint family of sprints. The square one and the rectangular ones with the checker board will be used periodically and were also favorites.
The checkerboard logo was well received, but we decided against it as our image, because of the busyness of the checkerboard. In a lot of applications it will not be a clean looking logo for us. However it will be used in certain situations because we agree that it does catch your eyes and looks racey!!!
Thank you to our fans and tracks that we visit for your input and comments to help guide us through this process. We’re excited about the 2020 season and your input and participation has been greatly appreciated. We did try to listen and make adjustments according to what you told us! We’re pretty pleased with the finished product and we will have the round and square logos available for your vehicles at all of our races!
Please support our sponsors so they will continue to support us in doing what we love to do!
GREAT LAKES SUPER SPRINTS
• PERFIT/ENGINE PRO
• ARP (Automotive Racing Group)
• Kistler Engines/Kistler Racing Parts
• Engler Machine and Tool
• Campbell Performance
• Beacon & Bridge Markets
• Addvance Heating and Cooling
• Midland Steel
GREAT LAKES TRADITIONAL SPRINTS
• PERFIT/ENGINE PRO
• COMP CAMS
• ROCKET HEADERS
GREAT LAKES LIGHTNING SPRINTS
• MAXIMA RACING OILS
• CHANEY CREEK CONSTRUCTION, INC.
• ENGLER MACHINE AND TOOL
Article Credit: GLSS Staff
Submitted By: Barry Marlow
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