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MLB: Project 32 - New Dugout Jackets Added


SFGiants58

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3 hours ago, ItDoesntMatter said:

Says the Krewe fan.

 

I would agree with all of these points, though; I just don't think those two shades of purple work very well with each other, and the mountain purple ends up looking like a reddish-brown up close and is indistinguishable from the main color from far away. A dark gray, green, or maybe even a blue or red to tie into the Colorado theme might work better, or maybe even just ditch the second purple and make the mountains the same color as the rest of the logo. It worked pretty well on the Colorado Day logo.

 

Otherwise, you've done an incredible job on this series so far. There's very little I would change about anything else you've done, and the alternate takes have been especially cool. Nice work.

 

The Krewe wear Purple, Green & Yellow thank you very much ;).

 

I was thinking more along the line of the Milwaukee Bucks old colours for the Rockies tbh. 

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the mountain purple ends up looking like a reddish-brown up close

Purple is a notoriously slippery color in sports photography, for some reason. Sometimes it looks blue. Maybe that's why it's such a bug up Paul Lukas's ass. I don't think the mountain purple looks maroon or brown or whatever. I think it's the right sort of dusty purple for mountains. There's plenty of blue in there.

 

 

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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2 hours ago, KittSmith_95 said:

The Krewe wear Purple, Green & Yellow thank you very much ;).

That still includes purple and green :P.

 

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Purple is a notoriously slippery color in sports photography, for some reason. Sometimes it looks blue. Maybe that's why it's such a bug up Paul Lukas's ass. I don't think the mountain purple looks maroon or brown or whatever. I think it's the right sort of dusty purple for mountains. There's plenty of blue in there.

I may have overstated that a bit, and I definitely agree that it looks good on the mountains. It just loses a lot of its purple-ness when placed next to the brighter purple used in the rest of the set, and looks a lot more maroon-ish in comparison.

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12 hours ago, the admiral said:

I dig the mountain trim on the sleeves. Clever touch. The Sonics numbers work really well with the slab-serif lettering and it's nice to see varsity serif NOBs pop up on a baseball uniform for once considering it's all over the NBA. Most of all, it's good to see the team committed to purple. Like I alluded to a couple days ago, I really hate the entire Rockies brand. It's derivative, conservative, and stale all at once. It's nice to imagine the Rockies starting from square one and winding up with some character for once and not just deciding "we'll wear vests with weird armhole piping" and calling it an update.

 

I'm not sure about the two-tone purple. I think you need to commit to one or the other. I like the more muted purple because it reminds me of the Purple Mountains Majesty crayon from when I was a kid (though maybe it's actually closer to wisteria, also a new Crayola color in the '90s? whatever I don't know) and because it gives the Rockies, forever a team short on design elements to call their own, a near-proprietary team color.

 

The Cubs force the Rockies into a bit of a bind as far as Colorado imagery goes because the Chicago Athletic Club C predates the flag of Colorado itself, and though they're not identical, they're close enough for the Cubs to preclude using royal blue, red, and the C from the flag (in my defensive Cub fan opinion). So here the Rockies have a C to call their own distinct from the Cubs, Indians, Reds, and Twins, which is ideal, but it's not the C from the flag on what's otherwise, explicitly in the case of the alt and implicitly otherwise, a Colorado-flag themed uniform. Would this bother people? I don't know. There's really no perfect way to navigate this; again, the Cubs have more or less checkmated the Rockies out of ever going balls-out on being the Colorado Colorados (and given my dislike for the Texas Texases of the AL West, this is good), but I think your solution is the best one possible: it's a team-specific logo that can be adapted to the state imagery without reaching much. 

 

Thanks! I always liked when the Expos did Varsity Serif NOB's, and I figured the slab-serif would tie the whole look together.

 

I'm not sure about the two-tone purple either. It was a recommendation made when I first posted the concept, and the more I look at it, the more I don't like it. Surprisingly, 2627 C is more of a proprietary color than the muted purple. The muted purple was the Anaheim Ducks' shade. I think it worked pretty well for the Ducks, and the muted look works for the Rocky Mountains. I'm going to offer update options at the end of the post.

 

I didn't know that about the Chicago Athletic Club C being the Cubs' C. I just thought it was an Art Deco/Noveau design (like the Chicago Theatre's marquee). Thanks for that trivia! It was tough trying to keep the Colorado flag C apart from the Cubs' C, but the serif seemed to be the best way to go. It's what keeps the logo balanced enough to invoke the flag without reminding people of the Cubs. I'm glad the Rockies haven't flirted with flag imagery or gone all "Colorado Colorados" in their branding (the current New Jersey Devils showed why that's a horrible idea). The weed tourists should have decided upon a better piece of Colorado iconography.

 

11 hours ago, coco1997 said:

I too am not convinced you need the two-tone purple. It's something I was planning to mention ever since you unveiled the NL West teaser. Everything else about this Rockies redesign is a massive improvement on their current look, though--the new logo, the mountains on the sleeves, and the decision to eliminate black and the pinstripes. 

 

Can't wait to see the Zephyrs (?) for the alternate take!

 

Thanks. I was iffy about the double purple as well, as it only really shows up in the primary logo and the secondary (on a white/gray background). I think you'll like the Zephyrs!

 

8 hours ago, KittSmith_95 said:

I agree about the two-tone purple. I was iffy on it in the teaser, and this confirmed that it doesn't work. I could see two shades of grey working however for those mountains, or if you wanted to go in a unique route, maybe go with Green? Only the Athletics wear green, and they play in the AL. Purple & Green is a unique colour combo & I feel it'd work a lot better. 

 

8 hours ago, ItDoesntMatter said:

Says the Krewe fan.

 

I would agree with all of these points, though; I just don't think those two shades of purple work very well with each other, and the mountain purple ends up looking like a reddish-brown up close and is indistinguishable from the main color from far away. A dark gray, green, or maybe even a blue or red to tie into the Colorado theme might work better, or maybe even just ditch the second purple and make the mountains the same color as the rest of the logo. It worked pretty well on the Colorado Day logo.

 

Otherwise, you've done an incredible job on this series so far. There's very little I would change about anything else you've done, and the alternate takes have been especially cool. Nice work.

 

Thank you! I'm in a bit of a bind with what I want for the Rockies. The mountains have to be purple (purple mountains majesty), while purple also has to be the primary color on white/gray backgrounds. I think I'm going to stick with one purple. I've explored adding two-tone gray, both Kelly and Forest Green, and a bit of powder blue, and none of them fit with my goals for the set. Also, @KittSmith_95, I think you'll like what I've done with the (Sting)Rays and the Marlins/Mariners earlier in the thread. Those teams are decidedly more green than they are at the moment. I think you'll both like the color scheme I have in mind for the Zephs.

 

7 hours ago, Carolingian Steamroller said:

I believe you've got three different purples going actually. There's the dark purple that forms the color of the "C" in the primary, the maroon-ish purple used for the mountains, and a lighter purple (similar to what the Rockies are wearing this year) as the script color on the home wordmark. I think using the lighter purple, rather than the maroon-purple solves any disjointed feeling from the double purple. I think going dark purple and lighter purple works better than shifting into a slightly different hue. 

 

Thanks for spotting the QC error! I forgot to recolor the light purple elements when I exported my images. I thought about flipping the dark and light purple from that first concept, but it just looked too weird to me.

 

I've done some tests with the logo sheet, one in the dark purple and the other in the muted purple!

 

COL_LogoSheetB3.png

 

COL_LogoSheetB2.png

 

I'm leaning towards the muted purple, as I like the way it contrasts with the gray outlines.

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The Cubs alternate take looks really nice, the wordmarks and the inclusion of light blue in particular are astounding. Nice work!

 

As for the Rockies, I really like how they turned out, but I'm with most others in not being a fan of the two-tone purple, at least in the way it was executed. I like that you're going in a different direction than that. If it were up to me, I'd go with the darker purple, but that's mostly because I tend to like bluer shades of purple. This is just a suggestion, but since light blue and green have both been tried many times as accent colors, maybe try going with the dark purple and adding a lavender-type shade? I don't know how well that would work, but it might be a cool color to tint the road uniform to.

 

Great job, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes!

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7 hours ago, MJD7 said:

The Cubs alternate take looks really nice, the wordmarks and the inclusion of light blue in particular are astounding. Nice work!

 

As for the Rockies, I really like how they turned out, but I'm with most others in not being a fan of the two-tone purple, at least in the way it was executed. I like that you're going in a different direction than that. If it were up to me, I'd go with the darker purple, but that's mostly because I tend to like bluer shades of purple. This is just a suggestion, but since light blue and green have both been tried many times as accent colors, maybe try going with the dark purple and adding a lavender-type shade? I don't know how well that would work, but it might be a cool color to tint the road uniform to.

 

Great job, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes!

 

Thanks! I thought about adding a lavender shade or a light purple tint to the road gray, but it stuck out too much. I think I'll try that in a later update, as a bit of an experiment.

 

Anyway, here's the update with the Mountain Purple!

 

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I think that's much better.

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Thanks, guys!

 

It's time for an alternate take!

 

DENVER ZEPHYRS, PT. II - Blue and Green by way of Burlington

 

A couple of months ago, I listened to the Q&A episodes of Basically a Sports Show. In the third episode (about 48-50 mins in), @infrared41 mentioned that Denver's AAA team rebranded as the Zephyrs to gain a "major league" identity. Doing a little research, it turns out that this was true. While I understand the attachment to the traditional Denver Bears name, the Cubs (who had penetrated the market somewhat, due to WGN) would have put the kibosh on it. The 1984-92 Zephyrs identity and Kelly Green/Royal Blue colorway (which lasted until about 2004 in New Orleans) was excellent, and it could have stood on the same footing as the major-league designs of the period. The name was also a strong one, as it was snappy (starts with "Z," has the "Zephs" abbreviation, and isn't too long) and fit with the city. The name came from the Denver Zephyr (run by the Burlington Northern Railroad), a train that ran from Chicago to Denver overnight from the 1930's-70's. While I don't mind "Rockies," "Zephyrs" sounds so much better to me. So, I decided to give it a proper modernization.

 

The colors are Kelly and Royal, with the addition of silver-gray. Since the Denver Zephyr trains were silver-gray, it fit. Besides, those two colors make for classy identities.

 

With the primary logo, I adapted my Rockies primary to fit with the train theme. Using this picture as a source, I drew a Denver Zephyr train to occupy the lower part of the logo (with some simplification). The font is a modified version of Insignia, which gave off an Art Deco vibe while still featuring a few serifs. The font underlines are contrast-colored, to get all three colors in the wordmarks. The cap insignia (with its silver streak in the middle) is the secondary, and the train on its own is the tertiary.

 

V6l7OF3.png

 

The uniforms also modernize the Zeph's identity. Their colorway is Kelly Green-dominant, a unique look in the NL. The scripts feature contrast-colored underlines, and the NOB's (Rawlings Block, like the Orioles) use an inversion of the underline distribution. Uniform striping comes from my Rangers concept, as it worked well with the colors in the set. I modified the Tampa Bay Lightning's number font for this concept, as a modern block font worked better than my attempts to match the number font to the lettering.

 

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The alternates included both green and blue jerseys. The green top features the tertiary, and the blue alternate has blue accessories.

 

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The second set of alternates includes a few "interesting" looks. The first is a blue accessories version of the home uniform. The other one is my attempt to Zephyr-ize the 1952 Denver Bears "strike zone" uniform. I know that the "Z" doesn't look cursive (it's from Beaverton Script, while the rest of the font is modified Fenway Park JF), but cursive Z's aren't all that pretty. 

 

v81GGWz.png

 

While the Rockies are cool and all, Zephyrs would have been amazing. Not only would it have been a nice blow against state names, but it fits with the region and allows for a cool color scheme (in more ways that one). C+C is appreciated!

 

Up next, the Houston Astros!

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Alright... You've done it. This is my favorite series ever. 

 

But this set is fantastic! You probably know that I love the color scheme, and all the uses of the font & railway imagery fit perfectly. I particularly love the look of the Monday home, though I understand the set should probably normally stay primarily green. As for the numbers, I think a modified (or even straight-up) use of the local Broncos' font could work perfectly, as that's what I instantly thought of, and it would look a little thinner than your attempt to match.

 

Looking forward to Houston, should be an interesting one!

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The Zephyr itself could use a few more details, as of right now it looks like a simple illustration of a Train made in MS Paint using whatever images you could find. The car itself needs that depth, otherwise it just blends in & doesn't work as a tertiary logo. But besides that, this look is a Grand Slam. @MJD7 basically said it all for me. I can't wait to see what you're doing with the Stros myself, and knowing you it's gonna come out fantastic. 

new_orleans_krewe_player_sig___qb_donny_

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Yep, this is easily one of my new favorite concepts in this series. I love train iconography, so I knew this was going to be a good one. It's just a gorgeous color scheme and the wordmarks and logos are all very sharp. 

 

I agree with @CanucksFan that the "D" logo would look great on one of the alternates (preferably the blue one) as opposed to using the same "Zephyrs" wordmark on both. Maybe add placket piping and front numbers to make a Zephyr-ized version of your purple Rockies alt?

 

Really can't wait to see Houston. Maybe my most anticipated team in this series!

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10 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

couple of months ago, I listened to the Q&A episodes of Basically a Sports Show. In the third episode (about 48-50 mins in), @infrared41 mentioned that Denver's AAA team rebranded as the Zephyrs to gain a "major league" identity. Doing a little research, it turns out that this was true. 

 

Did you think I made it up? B)

 

BB52Big.jpg

 

 

 

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Terrific! I do mind "Colorado Rockies," I think it's one of the all-around worst brands in the big four leagues, so I'm pleased to see both words in the name replaced as well as everything else bad about the Rockies. It's cool to see a train-themed identity. Is the only other one the Purdue Boilermakers? 

 

The scripts look good, and sidestep a dumb argument I had with myself the other day: what constitutes a "Denver" font? That is to say, if you're going to commit to mountains as part of a Denver sports team identity, what do you do with your type? I know the Broncos used to use Clarendon Bold Condensed, which looked a little bit Western but not as much as, like, the Oklahoma font here, but that's just it: they used to use it and don't anymore because Denver doesn't really feel like an outpost of "the West" anymore now that it's gotten so much bigger and more cosmopolitan. (Personally, when I was in downtown Denver a couple years ago, I thought it felt like Madison without a lake. I went to some neat restaurants on a pedestrian mall and I read a good alternative weekly while being accosted by strung-out homeless people. Also, the airport is in Kansas for some reason.) I thought maybe some kind of Art Deco or Streamline Moderne typography would go well with the Zephyr theme, but they didn't feel right for Denver -- too Chicago/East Coast to me. These remind me of the Broncos new font a little bit, but not quite, and I think it works here. The curved underline is the signature element of the scripts more than the typeface itself.

 

Even though the original Zephyrs used kelly and royal in AAA, I'm not 100% on board (npi) with the idea of them keeping it in the bigs. I think this is mostly because I associate this color scheme with the '80s Hartford Whalers and Dallas Mavericks, teams that looked bad and lost a lot, which made them look even worse. There's also the fact that the Canucks have re-embraced royal and kelly (other way around, too, which helps) and really made it work because it feels so Pacific Northwest. I do know that the Burlington Northern has had lime green as kind of a signature color (the Metra line here that runs through southern DuPage County is just called the BNSF and all their timetables use a pretty bright shade of green), so maybe that could be an option if you really want to commit to that railway and the Denver Zephyr? That could get really loud really fast, though. I like purple and black, I like the shade of eggplant from the Rockies concept, but dominant kelly green with royal blue has had a bad run in sports and I can't get over it.

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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Well the Colorado update is definitely an improvement over their dated look that has worked so well for them over the last generation...and the vintage-looking "mountain purple" on the last update would especially go over well with the fans. The cap logo is also first-rate, and speaks volumes of Colorado with the mountaintops + the unique rectangle at the C's end that evokes the shape of a swung ancient hammer reminiscent of Colorado's mining history. (I know, it may just be the font, but still...)

 

As for the alternate, I also liked that you picked the Zephyrs for an alternate take...Which would have definitely worked for them considering the direction Denver has been going in economically since the rise of the DTC south of downtown. Also, since Colorado is virtually forests and blue skies and lakes every baseball season (as opposed to its traditional snowcaps and loaded ski resorts in the offseason), the color choice also is fitting.

 

Now, onto my hometown Astros. Taking bets on their classic look melded into the form of a shooting star, and wondering about the long-forgotten Buffs for an alternate...

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