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CAFL League Redesign (UPDATE: 4/6 Guangzhou Power 7/14/17 )


ZionEagle

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Hey guys! I'm back with another redesign concept. I had been wanting to do a football league overhaul, but I didn't want to do the NFL since there are already so many topics out there covering that, and I'm not sure I can really do any better :P So as I was looking for possible leagues to do, I came across the Chinese Arena Football League. This was a perfect fit for me, a relatively small, new league with terrible logos and less than stellar uniforms. Which essentially means I have a lot to work with and room to get my creative juices flowing.

Anyways, I'm proud to present to you the new CAFL crest!

WGb5xqn.png

Here is their current crest for comparison:

k9KJ1tA.png

I liked the overall shape of the shield, so I kept that. It almost reminds me of the NFL logo. I decided I wanted to make this more...Chinese? I don't think a red, yellow, blue scheme works well, so I just went for the colors of the Chinese flag, which in my opinion, is a beautiful color palette.

I really wanted to keep the China theme here, so I put the country into the shield emblem. I kept the stars, but obviously made it look more like the flag. I had to include football somewhere, and I thought a silhouette would work better here.

 

I've tested out the crest, and it looks really sharp when you put it in different team colors.

Alright, so as you know there are six teams in the league. I will be doing teams in this order:

Dalian Dragon Kings

Beijing Lions

Shenzhen Naja

Guangzhou Power

Qingdao Clipper

Shanghai Skywalkers

 

I will be doing logos and jerseys for each team.

Maybe after I'm done with the main six, you can help me come up with ideas for expansion teams.

 

Thanks for taking a look, and feedback is always appreciated :D 

I'll have the first team up here soon.

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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So as I stated previously, the first team I will be doing is the Dalian Dragon Kings. Here is their current logo:

3W4CKn3.jpg

Out of all of the logos, this one is debatably the best logo, with the exception of the Shenzhen Naja.

Now for my overhaul and TL;DR worthy wall of text :P

Tbpg5NK.png

The first thing you'll notice is that I've eliminated yellow from the color scheme. It didn't really fit well with the electric blue, and there are already two other teams with yellow in them (the most notable one being the Shanghai Skywalkers.) I also chose a dark grey instead of black, since they only utilize grey on their uniforms anyways. So essentially, I've created the Chinese counterpart of the Carolina Panthers :D 

 

For the alternate logo, I decided to go with a full bodied dragon like their old logo had. I tried to keep it as traditional Chinese as possible, while making an effective, modern logo. I don't think they've ever really had kings in China, only emperors, so I figured the crown would be a nice touch. I've also noticed Chinese dragons are sometimes depicted holding a ball, and I thought that would be the perfect place to put a football cameo.

 

The main logo is just for the helmet essentially.

 

I also wanted to keep the "D" somehow, so I included it as a monogram. I also kept the Chinese symbols (which literally translate to Dalian Dragon Kings. Go figure!).

I figure it could be used as a cap logo or on merchandise. Here's my attempt at a wordmark:

7ktOi3p.png

Not great, but it's my first try so I don't think it's too bad.

 

Anyways, moving on to uniforms. The CAFL has a terrible tendency of making their home uniforms monochrome. Here are what their current home unis look like:

d4SUeZ2.jpg

Just stop please. Grey on grey never looks good. Especially when your jerseys aren't that great to begin with.

Their away jerseys are slightly better:

4pEh8Pw.jpg

At least they tried.

OYTQ4VP.png

I know these jerseys might be a little out there, but this league is a little out there, so bear with me :P 

What probably sticks out to you the most is the shoulder sublimation. Keeping with the oriental theme, I thought this subtle scale pattern would be perfect for the dragons. I couldn't figure out what I would have wanted to do with the sleeve stripes, so I went with the pattern. I wanted to keep a similar look that hearkens back to the old jerseys, so that's why I did the grey shoulders. For the home jersey, I'm debating doing grey numbers with a blue outline like the away, but I just stuck with solid blue for now. 

I tried to keep the numbers sleek and simple, and I think it matches the feel of the dragon overall. I'm wondering if I should put numbers on the shoulder patch, but I skipped those for now. I went with a simple solid stripe for the pants and helmet to tie things together. I didn't put ads on the jerseys, because (1) I didn't really have room and (2) I don't know who the sponsors are.

I also didn't include "Dalian" on the front of the jersey, due to the fact I thought it was already a bit cluttered. But I did keep the team name as the nameplate, since every team in this league does that.

 

I'd really love to know your thoughts on this guys. Criticism is welcome!

 

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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This looks awesome. I love the sublimated pattern on the shoulders. It gives the uniforms a nice touch so they don't look plain. I can't wait to see where this goes. Since the Arena Football League has taken a complete nosedive over the last few years, nobody really knows about the CAFL. It's nice to see that these types of leagues are being shown some love on the boards.

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2 minutes ago, willmoen said:

This looks awesome. I love the sublimated pattern on the shoulders. It gives the uniforms a nice touch so they don't look plain. I can't wait to see where this goes. Since the Arena Football League has taken a complete nosedive over the last few years, nobody really knows about the CAFL. It's nice to see that these types of leagues are being shown some love on the boards.

Thank you! I do agree, the uniforms would be rather plain without it.

 

Agreed. I figured it would be nice to take a twist from the usual board concepts and shell out something that hasn't been done before.

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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1 hour ago, ZionEagle said:

So as I stated previously, the first team I will be doing is the Dalian Dragon Kings. Here is their current logo:

3W4CKn3.jpg

Out of all of the logos, this one is debatably the best logo, with the exception of the Shenzhen Naja.

Now for my overhaul and TL;DR worthy wall of text :P

Tbpg5NK.png

The first thing you'll notice is that I've eliminated yellow from the color scheme. It didn't really fit well with the electric blue, and there are already two other teams with yellow in them (the most notable one being the Shanghai Skywalkers.) I also chose a dark grey instead of black, since they only utilize grey on their uniforms anyways. So essentially, I've created the Chinese counterpart of the Carolina Panthers :D 

 

For the alternate logo, I decided to go with a full bodied dragon like their old logo had. I tried to keep it as traditional Chinese as possible, while making an effective, modern logo. I don't think they've ever really had kings in China, only emperors, so I figured the crown would be a nice touch. I've also noticed Chinese dragons are sometimes depicted holding a ball, and I thought that would be the perfect place to put a football cameo.

 

The main logo is just for the helmet essentially.

 

I also wanted to keep the "D" somehow, so I included it as a monogram. I also kept the Chinese symbols (which literally translate to Dalian Dragon Kings. Go figure!).

I figure it could be used as a cap logo or on merchandise. Here's my attempt at a wordmark:

7ktOi3p.png

Not great, but it's my first try so I don't think it's too bad.

 

Anyways, moving on to uniforms. The CAFL has a terrible tendency of making their home uniforms monochrome. Here are what their current home unis look like:

d4SUeZ2.jpg

Just stop please. Grey on grey never looks good. Especially when your jerseys aren't that great to begin with.

Their away jerseys are slightly better:

4pEh8Pw.jpg

At least they tried.

OYTQ4VP.png

I know these jerseys might be a little out there, but this league is a little out there, so bear with me :P 

What probably sticks out to you the most is the shoulder sublimation. Keeping with the oriental theme, I thought this subtle scale pattern would be perfect for the dragons. I couldn't figure out what I would have wanted to do with the sleeve stripes, so I went with the pattern. I wanted to keep a similar look that hearkens back to the old jerseys, so that's why I did the grey shoulders. For the home jersey, I'm debating doing grey numbers with a blue outline like the away, but I just stuck with solid blue for now. 

I tried to keep the numbers sleek and simple, and I think it matches the feel of the dragon overall. I'm wondering if I should put numbers on the shoulder patch, but I skipped those for now. I went with a simple solid stripe for the pants and helmet to tie things together. I didn't put ads on the jerseys, because (1) I didn't really have room and (2) I don't know who the sponsors are.

I also didn't include "Dalian" on the front of the jersey, due to the fact I thought it was already a bit cluttered. But I did keep the team name as the nameplate, since every team in this league does that.

 

I'd really love to know your thoughts on this guys. Criticism is welcome!

 

 

This is definitely one of those threads about almost unknown leagues which brings into play the very best creativity from a designer. I'm looking forward to the next teams (especially the Skywalkers ^_^).

 

Your logo designing skills are excellent and you surely nailed the dragon in its oriental style but I was wondering what program you use for the unis as the template seems a little sloppy, in such a stark contrast with your neat logos. If you use Paint or similar stuffs I'll be happy to customize .sgv templates I have to work well on paint with a good definition as I know that good templates for Paint are quite difficult to get.

      38665609364_bedb96967e_o.png                                                                                        spacer.pngMy Behance                                                                                                   

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1 minute ago, Pulv! said:

 

This is definitely one of those threads about almost unknown leagues which brings into play the very best creativity from a designer. I'm looking forward to the next teams (especially the Skywalkers ^_^).

 

Your logo designing skills are excellent and you surely nailed the dragon in its oriental style but I was wondering what program you use for the unis as the template seems a little sloppy, in such a stark contrast with your neat logos. If you use Paint or similar stuffs I'll be happy to customize .sgv templates I have to work well on paint with a good definition as I know that good templates for Paint are quite difficult to get.

Thank you! I'm pleased to know you like the thread and my work so far. (Oh man, the skywalkers are the ones I'm not looking forward to :P )

 

Yeah, the uniforms definitely need some work. I've never been able to find a template that looks clean. I use paint.net for the main colors, and PowerPoint (the program I make my logos in) for drawing in details. If you could get me a better template I would greatly appreciate it!

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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Oh I love this! The update for Dragonkings are pretty good! 

 

This is a good way in start of doing designs on almost unknown league any where in world. Even though you could do a soccer or basketball league for Pacific Ocean Islands. But this is a great start!

 

 What I am hoping to see are Naja and Power!

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Really good stuff @ZionEagle. Digging this series thus far & standing by for the next team rebrand.  The Dragons set is a total upgrade from their current set by far, the only thing I would say is on your wordmark move the dragon head down completely under the wordmark or enough to where the viewer can still read the team name.  Other than that pretty solid set! As for the league logo that's an upgrade as well, wondering how it would look if the inside of the shield (white area) was just all red with stars to the left & since you have the player silhouette in yellow, move him down & attach it to the bottom yellow border maybe even enlarge him a bit? It may or may not help eliminate some of that white negative space. Just a thought. Keep up the good work.

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14 hours ago, ren69 said:

Really good stuff @ZionEagle. Digging this series thus far & standing by for the next team rebrand.  The Dragons set is a total upgrade from their current set by far, the only thing I would say is on your wordmark move the dragon head down completely under the wordmark or enough to where the viewer can still read the team name.  Other than that pretty solid set! As for the league logo that's an upgrade as well, wondering how it would look if the inside of the shield (white area) was just all red with stars to the left & since you have the player silhouette in yellow, move him down & attach it to the bottom yellow border maybe even enlarge him a bit? It may or may not help eliminate some of that white negative space. Just a thought. Keep up the good work.

I'm really honored that you would even comment on one of my threads, I appreciate the feedback! And I definitely agree on the wordmark. Per your suggestion, here is the new league logo

:TEg9cJn.png

 

Any thoughts? I should be posting the Beijing Lions soon, so stay tuned!

 

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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Appreciate the kind words @ZionEagle. I like it! IMO I think it looks much cleaner & eliminates all that negative space the first one has. Now, if you wanted to keep the state shape as part of the shield an idea for that would be to merge the top portion of the shield with the state. ?It's probably easier for me to just show you with a quick & loose sketch. Now you know what I'm talking about, lol. The idea for the smaller CAFL below is to have it in chinese letters & white. The red outline can be optional or you can even have a double outline so it be shield yellow then white outline & red outer line. Just another idea. I don't want you to feel overwhelmed or obligated in any way to crank out my ideas. They're just simply that (ideas) that may be worth exploring or even help spark some of your own. Looking forward to that Beijing Lions logo.

20170624_194807.jpg

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The Dragons are so good, as always, the rebrand feels so real! Almost like I've seen it multiple times before, that kind of already given awesomeness. You have my attention.

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 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8/      Check Out My: Little Big League MLB ProjectDribbble

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Re Dalian's new letter logo: the hanzi should be written vertically (as is traditional for the Chinese languages, Japanese, and Korean) instead of turned sideways.

 

I think the “ragged edge” CAFL logo is the best of the bunch, and the new Dalian uniforms are good as well.

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Guest darkpiranha

How could you even think of removing Dalian's traditional yellow!  Sacrilege!  It didn't need to be changed.

 

(just kidding. There's always one or two purists who complain that a logo is perfect as is, and doesn't need to be touched.  I'm not one of those people.)

 

No, great stuff so far.  Love what you did with the Dragon Kings and can't wait to see the rest of the league.  

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On 6/24/2017 at 9:38 PM, ren69 said:

Appreciate the kind words @ZionEagle. I like it! IMO I think it looks much cleaner & eliminates all that negative space the first one has. Now, if you wanted to keep the state shape as part of the shield an idea for that would be to merge the top portion of the shield with the state. ?It's probably easier for me to just show you with a quick & loose sketch. Now you know what I'm talking about, lol. The idea for the smaller CAFL below is to have it in chinese letters & white. The red outline can be optional or you can even have a double outline so it be shield yellow then white outline & red outer line. Just another idea. I don't want you to feel overwhelmed or obligated in any way to crank out my ideas. They're just simply that (ideas) that may be worth exploring or even help spark some of your own. Looking forward to that Beijing Lions logo.

20170624_194807.jpg

Thank you for your suggestions and the sketch. I plan to explain myself in this manner.

 

I don't think it would be a good idea to make the shield jagged like that. Mainly because I have these on the jersey collars, and I feel that it would be better to have a symmetrical crest. Not that your concept is bad by any means, I just don't think it would be practical. I hope that makes sense.

On 6/24/2017 at 11:24 PM, Bruins said:

The Dragons are so good, as always, the rebrand feels so real! Almost like I've seen it multiple times before, that kind of already given awesomeness. You have my attention.

Thanks man. I always appreciate your feedback :) 

On 6/25/2017 at 5:23 PM, CJ Miller said:

Re Dalian's new letter logo: the hanzi should be written vertically (as is traditional for the Chinese languages, Japanese, and Korean) instead of turned sideways.

 

I think the “ragged edge” CAFL logo is the best of the bunch, and the new Dalian uniforms are good as well.

Good idea, thank you for bringing that to my attention. Here is the fixed logo:

4i8uuBO.png

On 6/25/2017 at 7:40 PM, darkpiranha said:

How could you even think of removing Dalian's traditional yellow!  Sacrilege!  It didn't need to be changed.

 

(just kidding. There's always one or two purists who complain that a logo is perfect as is, and doesn't need to be touched.  I'm not one of those people.)

 

No, great stuff so far.  Love what you did with the Dragon Kings and can't wait to see the rest of the league.  

I know I know :P I really was wondering if removing the yellow would be a good or bad move, and in the end I decided that since I was moving so far away from the original identity, that it wouldn't be too bad.

Thank you! I'm pleased to know you like it.

 

I'm going to post the Lions now in a separate reply. Thank you all for the feedback so far!

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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BEIJING LIONS:

Next team on the agenda, the champions of the 2016 China Bowl.

Here is their current logo:

KzlK8fm.png

Not the worst I suppose, but it's far from good.

This time around, I was maybe being...a bit lazy :D I didn't think the team really needed any alternates, so I essentially just have a primary:

xUi4tpu.png

For their new primary, I wanted to create something aggressive, yet distinctly oriental. I decided a head on logo would be the best option. I based the face off of the stone lion statues as opposed to the parade float style. I have an unshaded version, because the shaded looked a little busy on the helmets. I also chose yellow as the main color as opposed to white, since I feel that's a stronger color.

gpIVXKs.png

For the wordmark I chose a block font that I thought was more effective and athletic.

Now onto the jerseys.

isx0iKG.jpg

I actually think that there's a pattern of monochrome home jerseys in this league, because every team I've looked up has them. Honestly, it almost seems like the jerseys came from a cookie cutter, the only difference being colors, fonts, and patches. 

This was the only picture I could find of their away unis:

QKYjXiJ.jpg

It appears to me that colored shoulders paired with white is the norm for this league.

znfcxvO.png

(Big thanks to @Pulv! for a cleaner template.) 

Before I start, you know how I said the Dragons were the Carolina Panther jersey equivalent? Well now we have the Steelers :P 

Alrighty, I think I'm taking a huge risk with these uniforms.

The wild striping was inspired by the patterns in the Lions eyebrows. I think this league should go for more original designs as opposed to traditional (even though I might make some teams more traditional, we'll see). I wasn't sure if I should have continued the pattern on the socks, if you guys have any suggestions for that let me know.

Probably the only significant thing you'll notice aside from the striping is the beanie hat thing. I wanted to have some kind of alternate logo, so I made a really simplified version of their current logo.

 

I'd love to know your thoughts as always, the Shenzhen Naja are next!

 

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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You have every right to be "lazy" when your main logo's that good! Shaded is the better variation, mostly because of the dimension it adds to the eye area, and the typeface is exactly what it should be. Another A+

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 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8/      Check Out My: Little Big League MLB ProjectDribbble

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whoa Lions' logo are even better than I had dreamed of! Nice one dude. 

 

How about trying to put in the shaded logo on the helmet and try to add some shades on the uniforms as well? Doesn't hurt to try. Just making a new element of the uniforms

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you all so much for the feedback! I appreciate the continued support. @JMtexan09Thanks for the idea! Do you think a gradient would be an effective way to add highlights to the striping, almost like chrome on the uniform?

Alright, moving on. I present to you the Shenzen Naja!

CXD9pDM.jpg

As far as the logos go in this league, this happens to be one of the best, if not the best, in my opinion. Still, it could use some work.

bxNBf4C.png

I know a lot of you guys were looking forward to this identity. Unfortunately, I don't think this is my best work, as I was struggling with the shading and poses this time around. I don't think it's terrible, but I need to make some tweaks. I went for a more aggressive look for the cobra, while trying to incorporate some elements from the old logo. Oh and, ignore my typo, I knew something was off with the spelling on alternate :P 

You know, one thing I've noticed about this league is that all of the jerseys are severely templated. Basically, if you want to create a jersey for a team, all you have to do for home is go monochrome, place your city name on the front, place a logo on your sleeves, and change the colors.

pC4S8ot.jpg

In my opinion, this makes for some very boring team identities, and I'm sure you'd all agree. I don't know about the budget for this league, but I'd like to imagine they could have been a tad more creative.

And here we have yet another textbook jersey example:

KN85dY3.jpg

Except I'm wondering if Shenzhen actually is using two different shades of green and orange for their away jerseys? It could just be the lighting I suppose.

QTGjnAB.png

And today's uniform is brought to you by Crush soda :P 

I don't know if you'll notice, but my sleeve striping was heavily inspired by the triangle pattern that was incorporated into the old logo. I tried to emulate that look as much as possible. I was debating about whether or not I would continue the patter onto the helmet and/or pants, but in the end I decided a simpler look was more effective. I wanted a rounder font for the numbers, and I ended up settling for the most athletic type font I could find with a bit of a softer edge to it. I'm rather happy with the result. You'll notice that the nameplate font is a little similar to the Detroit Lions' old wordmark. I found that this font, called "Masque" was a fitting, serpent like font, perfect for what I was trying to convey. I wanted to incorporate more brown into the color scheme, so I made the away pants dark brown. I'm not really sold on the look though. The knit team hat features their alternate logo, with an orange football shape in the back to pay homage to the old logo.

 

So with that, I have completed the first three teams!

gvGJKmy.png

I've also heard that CAFL has confirmed the names for two expansion teams, the Shenyang Black Rhinos and the Wuhan Gators. These teams both have logos, I'll have to clip them from a video. If you haven't seen them yet, you can check them out here: 

From the looks of things, the Black Rhinos don't look black at all :D These newer logos seem to take a different direction from the older teams, however more detail isn't necessarily a good thing. I'm hoping their jerseys will be out by the time I finish the main six.

C&C is appreciated, even though I might not be able to edit things until the series is finished.

Guangzhou Power is next!

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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win." ~Vince Lombardi

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