Seattle Emeralds NBA expansion concept

[the_dragon]

Hi everybody,

Here's a concept I originally made for uni that I've tweaked minorly since then in terms of presentation. Basically the story is branding an expansion team in Seattle, using the idea of a new history for the franchise and mixing the Supersonics history with a new look. It's the first real concept Ive fully gone through with in terms of sport branding and I want to keep practicing. Theres a couple of things like season ticket packaging I didnt include because I didnt know how to present it as well. Anyway comments of any nature are appreciated. Cheers.

[wonderbread]

Your uni has yellow on the shorts but not the jersey. Work yellow into the jersey and it would be better. Also it looks way to much like the celtics right now, create a design that is completely their own and couldn't be confused with any other team in the league. Get creative with the design, try putting a diamond pattern on the uni or something that when you look at it it immediately says emeralds, or seatle, like the side panel on New Orleans jerseys that looks like the light posts around the city.

[Shadojoker]

Marketing and such looks great but lack of yellow on jersey looks like Celtics, italicize cursive script looks similar to Clippers. Try a different cursive font or font altogether or add yellow outline to the script. Logo looks great multicolor but everything else looks monochromatic.

Court execution looks plain (lack of secondary logos, lack of yellow again, and not enough complimentary things to make it POP). GOOD start though.

[(probably)notabandwagonfan]

Make the logo workmarks match (or at least close to match) the jersey wordmarks. There is no excuse for a pro team to have their logo wordmark not match any of their jersey wordmarks. (Looking at you Jazz and Cavs). Also, what the others two said, it is way to retro for an expansion team and nothing about the uniforms say Emeralds to me. I really like your presentation though.

[Clintau24]

I agree with what's said above. The marketing stand point is really great. I like the logo, the colors, and all that. The uniform was extremely bland. Something needs to be done to those.

[Kosmomiles]

The secondary logo reminds me of a Little League World Series team hat.

[Mod]

yes. good presentation, just more yellow on the home jerseys

[DenardJames]

Looks great, but the court and billboards are a little bland. What did you use to make this?

[mbannon92]

The presentation is really good, but the actual identity is very inconsistent. You have four different fonts among the three logos, and then the jersey wordmarks are scripts. The primary has white text and green seams on the basketball, while the alternate has yellow text and white seams on the basketball. The secondary has a black drop shadow, even though neither black nor drop shadows appear in the other two logos.

Moving on from the inconsistencies, I agree that the uniforms and court are a little boring. Take some inspiration from Sonics unis of the past, like the pictures at the beginning of the presentation. Further, I would use just one or two shades of green, and make them look more like an emerald green. Emeralds are bright and more of a bluish green, whereas your greens are duller and more brownish.

That may seem harsh, but your presentation shows that you have some skill, at least with the technical aspects of the programs. (Which can be hard to find around here!) Keep working at the concept, and it has the potential to turn out great!

[Jordy_shore]

One of the stadium posters is seriously just the event calendar for perth arena

[the_dragon]

One of the stadium posters is seriously just the event calendar for perth arena

I didnt make that obviously, I just took the photo there and only had one poster

[DenardJames]

What did you use to make the uniforms, court and logo(s)?

[upperV03]

I'm pretty sure that people in seattle wouldnt approve of having an nba team In their city not named supersonics.

[Guest]

Hockey team named emeralds? Possibly (like totems and metros better). But a basketball team not named Sonics, don't know if I could get behind that! Well rendered but I'll echo the statements of others of it being too bland.

[GeauxColonels]

The presentation is really good, but the actual identity is very inconsistent. You have four different fonts among the three logos, and then the jersey wordmarks are scripts. The primary has white text and green seams on the basketball, while the alternate has yellow text and white seams on the basketball. The secondary has a black drop shadow, even though neither black nor drop shadows appear in the other two logos.

Moving on from the inconsistencies, I agree that the uniforms and court are a little boring. Take some inspiration from Sonics unis of the past, like the pictures at the beginning of the presentation. Further, I would use just one or two shades of green, and make them look more like an emerald green. Emeralds are bright and more of a bluish green, whereas your greens are duller and more brownish.

That may seem harsh, but your presentation shows that you have some skill, at least with the technical aspects of the programs. (Which can be hard to find around here!) Keep working at the concept, and it has the potential to turn out great!

I've been meaning to comment on this concept since it was originally posted and never got around to it. mbannon hit a lot of the points I was going to make. The logos by themselves aren't bad. But, when packaged together it's a pretty inconsistent brand. The primary, alternate and secondary logos are completely different from one another. I don't get the use of the script text on the jerseys...why not go with that block font used in the primary? Also with the greens, you definitely should limit the # of shades.

Regarding the unis and court, I don't mind the "boring" or "bland" look since I think you were going with a more simplified style. But that doesn't match with the primary or secondary logos. The presentation is great, the execution and design of the logos needs some work though. I hope you take everyone's comments and rework this. I think it has great potential.

Oh, and I wouldn't personally listen to everyone insisting that the team HAS to be called the "Sonics." I don't agree with that. In reality would that be the most likely name? Sure. But this is a concept series. Your concept series. Go with the name that you want.

[OnWis97]

I think the primary logo is tremendous and would instantly be a top-10 primary.

I'll echo the need for more yellow on the jersey.

[the_dragon]

Hey thanks for all the feedback. First of all it was made as part of a university assignment where I wasnt allowed to use an existing team, also using a different name helped me to create the whole identity from scratch anyway, so thats why I didnt use the Sonics. Anyway I think theres definitely a few inconsistencies, I still wasnt really sure what to change with the logos apart from a few minor tweaks to keep them more consistant. I also forgot to even post the away uni so Ive added that and changed the wordmarks as well as increased the yellow usage to move away from any celtics comparisons hopefully.

@DenardJames I made it with illustrator

[Conrad.]

I'd go with different numbering than the Cavs already use.

also, i'd like to see everything done with the same treatment of the "SE" alt logo. the type treatment is very nice and it would look great used elsewhere.

[wonderbread]

The road uniform wouldn't work when looking at it from the side. You would see the light green just stop and not continue to the back, on the front you should bring the light green further up so its like a yoke. You should also continue that design on to the homes as well. You should also have the yellow side panel on the road jerseys as well. Also the road numbers should be yellow to contrast with the jersey.

[DenardJames]

Hey thanks for all the feedback. First of all it was made as part of a university assignment where I wasnt allowed to use an existing team, also using a different name helped me to create the whole identity from scratch anyway, so thats why I didnt use the Sonics. Anyway I think theres definitely a few inconsistencies, I still wasnt really sure what to change with the logos apart from a few minor tweaks to keep them more consistant. I also forgot to even post the away uni so Ive added that and changed the wordmarks as well as increased the yellow usage to move away from any celtics comparisons hopefully.

@DenardJames I made it with illustrator

Thank you sir! And this court/these uniforms are much better. Great work