Logolympiad 2015 Portfolio

[officeglenn]

So I just wrapped up the second phase of my Provinces Project, which I'm still hoping to get some good C&C on, but I also wanted to put my entries for this year's Logolympiad out there to see if there's anything I can improve on and learn from those.

The Logolympiad is a great competition, don't get me wrong, but it's tough to get feedback as you go along, and sometimes concepts need a little more explanation, which you can't really provide.

Here goes nothin' ...

EVENT 1: ALTERNATE LOGO (Silver Medal)

It seems like folks in Brooklyn like their "BKLYN" script logos, so that was a natural starting point. The basketball lines came from the Nets' primary logo, and the stars from their alternate jerseys. I tried a bunch of different fonts for "NETS BASKETBALL" but this one looked nicest and jived best with the existing Nets' identity.

EVENT 2: TIME WARP (Bronze Medal)

When I was looking at the uniforms of NHL teams that joined in the 1967 expansion, it was the Minnesota North Stars that really jumped out at me. So I took a lot of inspiration from them. Blcok letter, drop shadow, added element, angular shapes. I wanted the striping on the sleeves, socks and hem to mimic the pattern in the wing attached to the A, and to be a bit oversized like a lot of things were then.

EVENT 3: WORDMARK

By this point, with two medals under my belt, I was thinking, 'Easy peasy — I'm gonna clean up this year!' But the wordmark event brought me crashing back down to earth, I guess. I thought this was a strong entry but I wound up fourth. There are a few intricate details here — maybe too many — and it was a good lesson in how one small thing can affect everything else. Add a drop shadow? Sure. But now I've got factor that in when doing the outlines. That sort of thing. The spears and the triangle filled in empty space around "LOS ANGELES", but maybe they hindered more than they helped.

EVENT 4: SPORTING EVENT

This one, I'll admit, I may have been blinded by one element too much. I started out Googling bike wheels as a starting point and tracing one out. Then I thought about putting the autumn colours in the spokes to make the patterns inside look almost like leaves. I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked that part so much that I didn't build a whole lot around it. I made the rest of the GIRO lettering from scratch so that it would match up, especially the inline, but I could have done more with the rest of it.

EVENT 5: FANTASY TEAM

Even though it didn't win a medal, this has got to my favourite entry in the competition and one of my favourite concepts ever. But it's also an example of how an idea can get lost without context. As one commenter in the voting thread pointed out, this is filled with Hamlet references; once I saw Denmark was one of the countries allowed, I knew I wanted to go in this direction. Here's how the references break down:

• NAME: Kronborg Slot is the name of the actual royal castle in Denmark that became known as Elsinore (an anglicized version of Helsingør, the city the team would be based in) in the play

• SKULL: The "Alas! Poor Yorick" gravedigging scene

• TOWER: A silhouette of the trumpeter's tower at Kronborg, which also fit nicely as the nose and teeth

• SWORD: For the multiple revenge stabbings in the play

• QUILL: A nod to Shakespreare himself

• CROSS: The Danish flag

• SHAPE: The shape of the crest itself, with the points, is a nod to the layout of the grounds at Kronborg Slot

• SPONSOR: Danish Crown is a meat-packing company in Denmark, but considering the Danish crown is what everyone is fighting over in Hamlet, it was a perfect fit

• NAMES: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters in Hamlet

• NUMBERS: Together they form 1616, the year Shakespeare died

I'll put my other five entries in another post ...

[officeglenn]

EVENT 6: ANNIVERSARY PATCH

Looking at events that could be commemorated in this event, the only one that sparked any kind of idea was the 10th anniversary of Real Salt Lake in MLS. I found a vector version of their logo online and started tearing it apart so I could put it back together. I used the Geared Slab typeface because it was tall enough to fill the shield but also tapered a bit at the end, matching the aesthetic of the team's actual crest.

EVENT 7: COMPANY LOGO (Bronze Medal)

The basic shape of this logo was something I noodled with much earlier in the competition and decided to save specifically for this event. But I was struggling to get the text in there until I flipped it horizontally, giving me some space to put some italicized text in.

EVENT 8: CROSSOVER

I honestly thought I would do much better with this one than I actually did. When I saw this particular Eagles wordmark, I thought it would work great for baseball, and the angle of the eagle head matched perfectly to do sort of a Blue Jays-type thing on the front. I did up a couple other versions of the coloured jersey, but green was always the frontrunner. I didn't create any new baseball-centric logos like some did because I thought they weren't really needed for the Eagles, and that part of the challenge would be taking the football logos and adapting them to baseball rather than creating all-new stuff.

EVENT 9: LEAGUE LOGO

Another finish just outside the medals, IIRC. I found the font I wanted to use for "WHA" and I did the bevel effect around the edges, but then I had the darndest time trying to figure out what to put around it. I went with the double roundel to sort of mimic atlas or globe graphics that use two circles to show both sides of the planet at once. I thought green might be a unique colour to use rather than red-white-blue, but I think quite a few other people had the same idea.

EVENT 10: ALTERNATE UNIFORM

A team in Scotland? How could I resist doing tartan? But it was a real bear to try and recreate tartan in Illustrator. At one point, I had the tartan going over the whole of the shoulders and sleeves, plus the tartan pattern was bigger and Illustrator could barely function from the file size. But I pared things down, added the solid sleeves for a bit of grounding, and had something I thought looked pretty good. Kind of a mix of the Ottawa Redblacks and the Montreal Alouettes. The font, I realize, is a bit blocky, but I thought it worked pretty well.

OK, let me have it ...

[pwm0204]

Man you got robbed for the fantasy team concept . Those Hamlet references were on point, plus that skull with the landmark within it...

[ZionEagle]

I really like the company logo. Much better than mine I just couldn't think of ideas I guess.

Your wordmark was great too. Don't know why it didn't score higher tbh.

[OmegaRed]

Hey man, I really liked your entries. You had some really solid ideas.

Here was my take on them.

Event 1 - ALT LOGO

I think I voted yours for silver. But it was worthy of a gold. It was one of the few entries that was actually an alt primary. Most of the ones entered were either secondary or tertiary logos. My take on an alt primary is that it should contain the team name and the city which you had and your design was great. It had a nice old school feel to it.

Event 2 - TIME WARP

I believe you actually got a silver for this one, not a bronze. I think the design is cool... the colours though were too close to the North Stars. Might have been cool if the wing was attached to the top of the A. Maybe coming off the serif at the top.

Event 3 - WORDMARK

Here, I think your wordmark is well executed, but doesn't look like an NFL franchise. It looks a little more like a sign for a store. If you didn't have the extra borders and maybe if the spear went through the entire wordmark you would be in the right direction.

Event 4 - SPORTING EVENT

This again, is well executed. Visually, I think "Di Lombardia" needed to come down in size ever so slightly so the the G and O overhang Di Lombardia. I could definitely have seen this getting a medal. There were some really great entries for this event.

Event 5 - FANTASY TEAM

It's clear that you had a lot of fun with this one. I loved the unis and I thought that the crest was cool even though it was not a conventional soccer crest. Something I learned from this competition, is that you have to design for the crowd sometimes. If something will need explanation, it generally won't work. But a cool concept none the less.

Event 6 - ANNIVERSARY PATCH

There were some entries throughout the competition that I could not believe didn't medal. This was one of them. I voted this one for gold. It was by far one of my favourite entries. Very well done!

Event 7 - COMPANY LOGO

This event was one where being literal helps. A lot of people used the graphic of the molecule but I think yours was one of the better iterations. The graphic alone would be cool on collateral. My only suggestion would be to explore some other font options.

Event 8 - CROSSOVER

I think this could have been pushed a little further. It works, but I guess my feeling was that it was a little expected. I got the bluejays reference on the white jersey. On the green jersey, personally I've never been a fan of jerseys that have the number bottom left and the logo on the top right (as seen when facing the jersey front). I've just always found that a little off. But that's just me. The execution overall is quite nice.

Event 9 - LEAGUE LOGO

For this one, I felt like the more successful versions were the ones that showcased 'hockey' as opposed to 'world'. Hockey is what needs to stand out. This particular execution had a bit of a bank feel and it had to do with the font, colours and the generic world icon.

Event 10 - ALT UNIFORM

I immediately saw the Redblacks ref. I thought this should have received a medal. You took this one and ran with it. The tartan works well. I think a blue helmet might have played into this concept a bit better. I felt this entry was one of the more unique ones. It went over the top...and for an alt uniform that's usually good.

Great work overall man!

[jrcollis714]

I love the wordmark one, and I thought fantasy team got a gold because of the expert references. Huh. Anyway, all of these are solid, and its a shame the good start couldn't stay strong.

[Dan O'Mac]

As far as the crossover goes, it was hard to narrow it down. At one step to get it down closer to three, my personal preference regarding logos and wordmarks (not on the same uni) made me eliminate that one.

[Kokka]

Big thumps up for your Anaheim concept, could really see this beeing their actual logo in an alternate timeline.

That WHA league logo is great as well, especially the monochrome. Just the one lower right corner of the "A" bugs me a little.