Upper Deck’s Corporate Logo Evolves
As Company Nears 20th Anniversary
New trademark will appear on all sports & entertainment products
 |
Carlsbad, CA (January 2008) – The Upper Deck Company, the authentication pioneer in the sports trading card market, has announced that it is changing its corporate logo to better reflect the company’s varied line of sports and entertainment trading cards and collectibles. The decision coincides with the company’s fast-approaching, 20-year anniversary, thus ushering in a new era for the industry’s most prolific trading card manufacturer. The first product to boast the new logo will be Upper Deck’s 2008 Series 1 Baseball release.
“Not wanting to diminish our brand promise of authenticity, superior content, innovation and quality, we knew there was a visual legacy associated with our mark that we did not want to walk away from,” said Martin Welling, Upper Deck’s vice president of Creative Services. “We determined very early in the process that several visual cues needed to be retained; the assignment was more of updating and not replacing.”
The trademark green diamond has been modernized to sport a new blue background and dimensional drop shadows. With so many different product lines and levels of consumer cost, Upper Deck needed a new logo that was adaptable to each.
“The new logo preserves the substantial equity of the brand without distancing ourselves from our roots,” added Louise Curcio, Upper Deck’s vice president of Marketing.
Upper Deck is no stranger to making bold industry moves. After releasing its original baseball trading card product in 1989 – headlined by the Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card (# 1) and the use of anti-counterfeit holograms on every single card – Upper Deck quickly became the first trading card manufacturer to secure official league licenses in every major sport: baseball, basketball, football and hockey. It was also the first trading card company to sign exclusive contracts with high-profile athletes to serve as company spokespersons. Some of those headliners have included Michael Jordan, Ken Griffey Jr., LeBron James and Tiger Woods.
Having established itself as the world’s best-known creator of authentic sports collectibles, and since its product portfolio now includes properties like “Yu-Gi-Oh!” and “World of Warcraft,” Upper Deck officials decided it was time to update its identity. And while it considered using outside resources, the company turned to its own in-house designers to deliver the new look.
Said Welling: “Specifically, we wanted to accomplish three things: make our branding more contemporary; make our mark more legible to improve our presence at retail; and to make our logo more prominent so that it stood out against our competitors.”
And most importantly, it unifies the company’s sports, entertainment and collectibles business groups under one mark.
Founded in 1988, Upper Deck is a global sports and entertainment-publishing company that delivers a robust portfolio of products for sports and entertainment collectors alike. For more information, visit www.upperdeck.com or www.upperdeckstore.com.
