Los Angeles Kings concept

[elliott]

Hi, I haven't posted a concept in ages and want to get the creative juices flowing this summer, so here's a concept that's been sitting on my computer for a long time. Finally finished it (after the initial logos starting in summer of 2012 haha) so I'm excited to see what y'all think.

Identity is rebranded, focusing on the bold new crest logo. New font as well. Probably the biggest focus of the rebrand is to put the Kings back in purple. Watching the back to back series of LA-SJ and LA-ANA has proved to show the Pacific division needs a little more variety with so much black. This would fix that problem. Colors are purple, a very dark purple that isn't quite black, and two-tone metallic vegas gold.

The roundel logo uses the new "LA" lettermark at it's core, with accents that mimic the shine of a crown along with jewels. There's also a "throwaway" california flag logo, I don't know how I feel about it because it didn't show up in the envisioned uniforms, but it could be a fun marketing campaign to claim california for the kings.

Jerseys design is centered around strong angular stripes in the home and road, and an extension of this motif in to the alternate, which is unbalanced and inspired by the wild burger king alternates. The subtle star with the diagonal sash on the front is in the upper left corner, mimicking the CA state flag again. Anyways, now I'll stop talking and hope for some comments!

[Brass]

elliott, you always provide some excellent concepts, so it's great to see your name back in this section. For the kit, I love it. Only thing that's bugging me is the "LA" secondary mark. It's great, but for some reason, it screams "New Orleans" before it even whispers "Los Angeles."

[DanOtis]

Great concept! I totally love the color scheme. It looks very royal! Also a great number font.

Some minor tweaks I think you should think about:

Logo:

The crown logo needs a little clean-up at the bottom. The shapes under the gold just don't look as fluent as the rest. If you fix that it is a wonderful primary. Here I think the color scheme wins big time. One of the most majestic vector crowns I have seen so far.

Jerseys:

Home: That purple makes me want to look at it all the time. While I like the striping on the sides I do not like it that much on the sleeves as it would form a 'V' and I don't see a reason for that. Perhaps just add some degrees to have a more classic striping there. Also would love to see the pattern as a classic horizontal waist striping.

I also think that the crown logo is a bit too large.

For the pants I don't know if an all purple look should really get a call. I think that some contrast with the dark purple for the pants and the helmet would be better. But I'm not sure because - have I said that I love that purple that you chose?

Away: Great as well. Just the crown which is also a bit too large.

The third might be a bit fancy but in a very classy way.

By the way - it also is a great template that you did.

All the best wishes.

Daniel

[chickenfish13]

Good stuff Elliott, as always. The primary is really well rendered, and the jerseys look great. It almost seems like the LA lettermark doesn't quite fit in with the style of the crown, or the numerals. Maybe almost too light or playful? However, it does look really good on the Alternate jersey, which I really dig. The colour scheme is great too, I love the Kings in purple. Looking forward to you posting some more.

[JayJaxon]

What I like about the 'LA' secondary is it doesn't follow the same old "The bottom of the L must be used as the crossbar of the A" standard. I think it stands out as different because the numbers and lettering are not following the same rules. The numbers and letters look like they belong to a different logo set than the 'LA' but I still love it. Great job on this.

[tBBP]

Definitely the best original Kings concept in recent memory...considering the source, that's also no suprise.

Colors: The double purple is all kinds of win. Some team somewhere really needs to try that in real life. That paired with the metallic gold and white just hammers home the "royal" theme.

Logos: definitely one of the better crown logos I've seen overall. I can see the perspective you were going for at the bottom...but it really isn't needed in this application, plus that giant white blob is annoyingly distracting. I say eliminate it, and let the base of that crown form the bottom shape of the logo from a full-frontal perspective--it would definitely add a bit more dynamism. As JJ3 mentioned, nice to see a different take on the LA lockup. That said...the curl on the descender of the A could use a little fine-tuning--right now it's a bit too fat. Also, the capital of the A looks just a tad bit off...look at the capital of your "L" and you may see what I'm talking about. That roundel secondary is just awesome...I don't know if you pulled inspiration for that sash and star from the LA Galaxy or not, but regardless it's a great way to build and flesh out the visual brand here. That said...it looks like you darkened both purples in there. I'd make the sash your base purple...that highlight purple will separate it from the lower arc old your roundel if you were worried about the sash bleeding into it since they're both the same color. And while I like the idea of your California flag alternate...it really isn't needed here.

Uniforms...again, love the idea of it. Since it looks like diagonals are an essential element of the brand here, the stripes work fine here. Just one thing: on the purple sweaters, I'd make the main stripe the darker purple, in keeping with the double - purple theme. (The stripe that's purple on your white sweaters is the one I'm talking about here.) I think this would look better with darker purple pants (They're called "breezers", right?). That third sweater is a thing of beauty...evokes the notorious Burger King sweaters in a much more attractive way.

I'm not really feeling the little Vikings-esque type treatment on your scripts and numbers there...just seems really unnecessary to me. Seems like the base font you used should work well enough. And speaking of that, if you can somehow fashion a number set based on the forms of your LA lockup specifically for your third jerseys, I think that would really put it over the top.

Overall...great stuff here. Couple tweaks here and here to really fine-tune this will do a lot of good, I believe.

(Additional off - topic note: do you have an online portfolio set up yet? If not you definitely should set one up...look into Behance.net if you're interested...it's free.)

[elliott]

Brass, I appreciate the compliment, this concept was originally inspired when I was in Europe in the summer 2 years ago, I saw some really interesting typefaces in Prague and some of the strong serifs and unexpected changes in thickness in those fonts made me think it would be perfect for a team going for a "royal" vibe. It does end up looking New Orleans - ish in the "LA". Obviously the jersey numerals look different. I attempted to replicate the font of the "LA" logo a while back for the number font-- Never could get it to look right, the numbers looked fine individually but when two were combined, the interaction was weird. I'll try to dig up that draft of the concept (this design has clearly been a long time in the making haha, I always messed with it for fun in free time, but got frustrated and shelved it on probably 10 different occasions).

Dan, thanks for the feedback, I think that playing with the lines of the white shape near the bottom of the crown are necessary, and also changing the color to the lighter purple shade would make it less jarring.

Chickenfish, thank you, I think you're right that there are some disconnects between different elements of the concept. Coming up with a proper custom typeface for the numbers, kind of like i was talking about above, would definitely help that problem.

Buc, I always loved your recommendations in years past, and this time is no different! Thanks for the thorough analysis. Some thinning out of some of the thicker areas of the "LA" mark is a good idea. I didn't really use the Galaxy as inspiration for this but it is quite possible that some of the elements turned out similarly, I wanted to put the star on the roundel logo to the left of the sash to once again hearken back to the california flag and it's leftward placement of the star. Agree with you on the lightening of the purple on the roundel sash, it should remain consistent. I guess the concept of a diagonal sash stripe like this has always fascinated me in terms of hockey because of the way that soccer teams use it so effectively, so I'm happy with the positive feedback for the alternate jersey. And, as Dan mentioned as well, the darker purple breezers could help, realistically, if they were to go back to purple, wearing it from head to toe would be a little overwhelming.

(To your off topic note, I'm currently in the process of setting up behance/dribbble, as well as revamping my portfolio site, as I'm looking to advance my professional career as a designer post- college graduation. That's all happening in the next couple weeks while applying to jobs too. I'll PM ya if I have any questions, Buc)

I'll make some changes to this concept and post them soon! Also looking to post some more concepts this summer whenever inspiration or boredom hits! Got a few ideas for y'all.

In the meantime I'd love to get some more comments and discussion going! Thanks, concepts forum! (I've missed y'all. Used to post here all the time.)

[Lights Out]

I like the concept overall, but the design of the home and road seems more appropriate for the Penguins than the Kings.

[wildwing64]

As ever, you do an amazing job at the presentation of your work.

I like the idea of a double purple look for the Kings, although there's not really enough of the dark purple on the home uniform and it sorta gets lost. Like Buc said, making the main stripe the darker purple would help to strengthen this jersey.

The primary logo is miles better than their existing crown. Bold and detailed without throwing in too much detail. The sun jewel at the top is pretty cool. The crown is somewhat top heavy, but the big hexagon jewel at the bottom is doing a fine job of drawing my focus there instead. On that note, I'm pleased to say I had a harder time seeing only a face like I do with the existing mark

[jrvegeeta]

I really like this concept. The presentation is top notch and very easy to follow. Nice touch on adding purple in - which is considered to be the color of royalty. Love the primary logo and the "California Republic" logo (very unique and outside of the box for sports).

The "LA" logo seems to fit better with a city like New Orleans. Still, it's nicely done and could still work anyway.

For the most part, I like the uniforms. The away jersey is the most complete one and looks great. The home jersey, while solid, doesn't seem to have enough contrast IMO (adding a bit more white or gold would be nice). The 3rd jersey is really outside of the box, but in a good way. The lighter purple "sash" is a very nice touch. The sleeves are a bit confusing as they don't seem to match each other, but it's not really that bad - just different.

Not sure how I feel about getting rid of black. It's been a staple of the franchise for a while, so some fans may object to it. Still, this may be one of the few designs where someone could get away with such a thing.

Overall, great design