What's in a Logo?

When things were still shifting (and who's to say they've stopped?) with regards to conference realignment. Now that the dust is settling, I've been seeing how conferences choose to forge their new identities, most prominently--because they've been the most bombastic about it--the Big Ten. There was plenty of publicity for the Leaders and Legends division names, but a bit less for the new conference logo.

At the left is the old conference logo; I think that there's brilliance in its simplicity. "Ten" as a word, not a number, de-emphasizes its inaccuracy, while the "11" silhouette alludes to the true number of teams in the conference. The thought was that when it came time to revamp the logo, a play on this same them would continue.

And it did... sort of? While it's clear the intent was to go numerical again, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be reading into this. The I is a 1, clearly, but the G is... a 0? a 6? The 0 would be both redundant and inaccurate, while a 6 could be foreshadowing. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.

Of course, it wouldn't be the internet if there weren't a community of folks who think they can do it better and quite frankly, I think many of them are right. I came across this contest on MycroBurst.com where artists put forth their own interpretations of the Big Ten conference logo. Many chose to embed the "12" in the logo, and quite a few did it well. I think this one is my favorite, and I wouldn't be mad at all to see it adopted by the conference. 

My favorite submission, by waqqas

One design in particular set off my drum corps radar, however; I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Big Ten logo submission by Awais

Logo of the Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps, Canton, OH