Rebranding the MLB: Part 7

[elliott]

SEA | TB | BAL | MIA | ATL

ANA

******Statement on last concept*******

I feel like I have reached a certain degree of an impasse (sp?) with the Angels. Personally, I want a straight-up red identity. Something simple that can be recognized like the Red Wings or Celtics. But, I have heard to use an accent color, whether it be yellow, light blue, navy, or silver. I like to listen to your comments because I value them, so I added a touch of yellow, but I don't like it. I really don't. I tried adding it to the wordmarks, to see if that might make it a little better in the overall sense of things, but I still didn't like it. You could barely see the outline, it just made the wordmark look more blurry. So, for the previous reasons, I have decided to suspend my work on the concept, and move on, with the high probability of going back at some point. I'm sure you will understand. It is hard to move forward when you, as the designer, don't like the direction it is going. So I will explore more possibilities and update it in the future.

Until then, I wanted to move on.

In the past week, I have been concentrating on baseball, consequently, I have finished a few rebrands. I keep promising the Mets for some reason, because I have ideas on the way I want it to looks, but when I try to work it out, both sketching and in Illustrator, it isn't looking right, and I scrap it. So, maybe Mets soon, but now I'm going with the Rockies, with the Indians and Pirates probably in the next few weeks or so.

Goals for the Rockies:

-Keep purple, but brighten up the color scheme by ditching black and bringing in a light and bright color to complement it, sky blue. Also I think it is a lighter shade of purple, the current one is more blue, I'm not positive, but just by looking at it, it appears that way to me. I didn't compare.

-Expand the simple mountain that they use now. I went for an unsymmetrical looking peak, but I think that's ok because no mountains are actually completely symmetrical, they are of course random.

-Work with the theme of the Colorado flag. The real flag is navy with the white stripe running through, I changed it to purple for obvious reasons, and I based the patch off the C with a circle in the middle on the flag, it is just the C from the wordmark, simplified, with a mountain in the middle instead. The primary logo keeps the theme, with the purple backdrop of the wordmark meant to be the top purple stripe.

-Also expand the idea of the detail in the middle of the lettering, like they use now, just make it way cleaner, with more of a Memphis Grizzlies style. The main function of the gray is to provide the detail in the middle. The cap logo continues this theme, with my version of the interlocking CR. The other cap logo takes the C+mountain from the patch, featured on the alternate and bp caps.

-Keep the purple pinstripes, but apply it to both home and road, making a unique identity based around purple. The road jersey becomes even more unique with the light blue and purple striping. I elected to not use any gray as a base color for the pants or jersey, using light blue the same way.

Sorry for the extremely long post but I had a lot to talk about. Hopefully you like this one. I think it has the potential to get better, maybe it's not quite there, but I still think it's a better option than the bland crap they currently wear. I know this is posted only 4 days after my last rebrand, but keep in mind I did put a lot of effort into it, and it's not just a quick idea with no thought put into it.

C+C is greatly appreciated!

[JayJaxon]

I like it, but I am not a fan of the pinstripes. I know it goes with the Rockies but as simple as the design is, it looks too busy. I would experiment with taking the pinstripes out and putting the uniform number on the front.

I love the numbers and the wordmark. I'm also a fan of the cap logo.

I like your primary, but the flag you have under the word 'Rockies' kinda looks out of place. Everything else looks great.

Other than what I have stated, I think it's a solid set and I wouldn't have thought the Rockies could pull off light blue before I saw this. Great job!

[Saintsfan]

Quickly on the Angels I think I have figured out my problem with the wings. They look kind of sinister, more like Dragons wings, or the wings on those flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz, than Angels wings, to me.

Onto the Rockies, personally I sort of like the black in the Rockies color scheme. Also I am not a fan of pinstripes, unless you are the NY Yankees. (incidentally surely the BP pants would also be striped if the other pants all were? But all of those things having been said, these look pretty good. I'd like to see the blue in the logos being more blue, though I quite like the pale blue roads.

[CAB]

I think it was a very good idea to put light blue into their color scheme and lighten it up a little and the primary looks good except for the two stripes at the bottom, which seem somewhat out of place. I know you were trying to incorporate the Colorado flag, but I don't think it works on the primary. The two cap logos look good and so does the script. I think it was a good choice to keep the pinstripes, because they work pretty well for the Rockies. The sky blue on the roads isn't a bad idea, but I'm not sure how good it would look in action. Overall, this is another great concept from you, Elliott.

[karby65]

Looks like the concept from the Expansion throwbacks about a month or 2 ago (Rockies from the 70's and 80's). Looks lousy and too clutttered like thee 70's and 80's.

[cappital92]

The interlocking CR looks like an R scratching it's head. If you made the C taller, I think it'd fix the problem.

[oo_nrb]

I like it, but I am not a fan of the pinstripes. I know it goes with the Rockies but as simple as the design is, it looks too busy. I would experiment with taking the pinstripes out and putting the uniform number on the front.

I love the numbers and the wordmark. I'm also a fan of the cap logo.

I like your primary, but the flag you have under the word 'Rockies' kinda looks out of place. Everything else looks great.

Other than what I have stated, I think it's a solid set and I wouldn't have thought the Rockies could pull off light blue before I saw this. Great job!

I agree with all of this. When I was reading your post at first, I was a bit incredulous (dropping black? adding sky blue?) but I think you pulled it off well (especially the alternate cap logo). The stripes under the primary don't really work, though, and I think you do need to extend the C on the regular cap logo a bit (as someone above me said). I've never been a fan of pinstripes, and I'd love to see the Rockies ditch it, but you can't do much about my personal tastes, and they work well here .

Interesting that everyone wants to incorporate blue into the Rockies unis...they're currently the only professional team in Denver that doesn't have some shade of blue (and we've got 2 teams using sky blue now, the Nugs and the Rapids).

[NinthAfterNen]

This is probably just a personal tic, but I don't really like the combination of that vivid purple and bright blue. Maybe darken the purple a bit? For the flag patch, I'd switch the colors of the stripes and the C. For the hat logo, the interlocking CR looks fine, but C behind the mountains looks really neat and I'd like to see the C in the style used in the rest of the identity. And finally for the unis, I'd make the pinstripes thinner and stretch onto the placket, the gap just looks weird. I like the idea of adding blue to the color scheme as it really gives Denver sports a united identity.

[heernumurr]

I love your rendering of the mountains, I think it would make a great logo on it's own, or perhaps incorporated within a circular C. In my mind this would make for a great, iconic primary logo.

[dgnmrwrw]

Very interesting Rockies set, elliott. I like that you're really trying some different things in this series. No offense to anyone else, but many of the other dozen or so MLB redesigns floating around right now don't seem to have a lot of inspiration or thought behind them.

I think you've got a lot of really good ideas that need some tweaking to come together. I like the color change. Personally, I like the purple/black/silver combo (if they'd emphasize purple), but your purple/blue/silver combo fits the area, fits the name, is visually appealing, is unique, and accomplishes your goal of brightening them up. So good job.

I like the new version of the mountains, but I would change the way the blue is 'highlighting' the mountains. Right now, it's hitting both right and left, when really one side should be highlighted and the other left in shadow. And on the primary, I would lose the 'flag' beneath the type. It's a little forced, and it's not really working. All I'm seeing that as is thick blocks of color, not a flag.

I really want that 'C/R' cap logo to work, but with the top of the 'C' terminating right where it does, I see an 'O' tucked behind an 'R.' I understand wanting to link the bottom of the 'C' with the short cross stroke on the 'R,' so maybe tweak the 'R' so that stroke can be higher, which will elevate and separate the 'C.'

I like the idea behind the flag logo, especially as a patch. But I would simplify it--lose the mountain, and just go with a 'C,' like the flag itself has. But instead of the simple blue 'C,' I'd use the stylized multi-outlined 'C' from the cap.

Uniforms are fine. My only complaint is the blue road uni, which I think looks bad by default. But that's just my personal taste concerning colored roads in baseball. In general, this is good work that could be made great with some refinement.

[elliott]

Ok, addressing some things..

@jay: I don't really see how such a simple pinstripe design can be busy, but do you think it would be better if the pinstripes were thinner?

@saintsfan: do you really think the Yankees are the only team that can have pinstripes? Considering the Astros, Rockies, Twins, Mets, and Marlins wear them, I don't necessarily think it is a taboo, and since these are purple, they are more unique.

@karby: sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about.

@dgmnrwrw: Ok, you have some very nice suggestions there. The reason for the light blue highlights on both sides is so it sorta makes your eye converge on the center, but I will try what you said. I think the difference between this series and other threads is that most of the others are recolors, really.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what specifically to do under the Rockies in the primary?

I will work on an update. Thanks for all of the comments.

[Crash]

I'm not a fan of the light blue, but that's just personal taste and I respect the idea. The only real problem I have with this set is the shape of the "C". The patch doesn't look like the flag to be because the C is completely the wrong shape. I've lived in Colorado all my life and still that patch didn't bring the flag to mind until you'd explained it. If you went for a more circular C, I think that would fix it, though you may have to drop a purple outline around the C, as well. It sort of gets lost against the white. I also think that the more circular C would look better behind the mountains on the cap.

And maybe this is just personal taste, but I'd like to see you drop the "CR" logo entirely. If not, your version doesn't really look much like a C interlocking with an R right now, mostly because the C doesn't look like a C.

[eRay]

First of all, I vote for changing all the Silver to Light Blue. You are using it only to inline the letters and numbers, and your new Light Blue could be used just as easily. I think the wordmarks and numbers need a larger Purple area, too. Right now they seem to have too much Silver. I really dig Purple/Light Blue and have been hoping to use it somewhere but it only fits on a couple teams. Its a great combo.

For the primary I would drop the flag idea and just leave it like that. For the cap logo I actually like what you have and it works for me, but if you can make the others happy I'm sure it would look fine too. I love the other cap logo as is. Beautiful. The uniforms look great minus too much Silver and the flag on the sleeve. The flag just looks really weird to me. I like the idea of it, and I like the C-Mountain, but it just doesn't work IMO. Can't tell you much more than that. I'd just use the C-Mountain on the sleeves. Keep the pinstripes and keep the Light Blue jerseys. Both are unique and would look great on the field. Also, for the BP hat I would try having just the mountains on the front. AKA, drop the C. I like it for the Alternate, but on the BP you can be a little more crazy. I think the mountains would look great taking up the front of a cap. They are so well rendered that you have to show them off! Anyway, nice job as always, and keep it up.

[elliott]

I dropped the flag from the primary, tweaked the cap logo, and added just the mountain as another patch.

I plan on putting the mountain on the arm of the jersey update.

Also thanks eray for your comments, they were pretty helpful.

Any thoughts before I update the jerseys? FYI, I'm keeping the pinstripes. Sorry to the people that don't like it. But it's really one of my favorite motifs here, and I think it makes these unis unique, and I can't bring myself to drop them.

[w00tness]

The primary logo definitely looks way better - great job! I don't mind the pinstripes at all, either; they look very nice. I think you should "round out" the "C" in the "CR" cap logo, though. I think it would look better that way. And also, maybe remove some of the grey, and replace it with the blue - actually, remove all of it.

[CAB]

I don't have very many problems with this at all. The cap looks better, but I'm not sure how it would look to have the bottom of the C coming out of the top of the R. That might work, although it could make it too tall. The logo sheet looks much better and I'm excited to see what the unis look like now.

[JayJaxon]

I like the updated primary. And yea, I really don't know why I don't like the pinstripes on this set. Maybe 'busy' wasn't the right word to describe it. But perhaps if they were thinner, it would work out a little better.

[kewp80]

First off, I must say that I love the sky blue, but not on the away jerseys. While unique, yes, it's just... a little weird. That and plus I always hated the light blue away's from the 70's and 80's, which included my beloved Cards. I gotta say that the pinstripes don't bother me at all though, and personally think should be left alone.

One more thing that does bother me on the jerseys are the white numbers with the gray inside. I would go with maybe light blue numbers with white or gray inside. That being said, however, I agree with eRay when he says drop the gray inlines, since that's the only place it's used.

Moving on to the logos, I think the wordmarks and primary cap logo look great, except for the gray inline as already stated. The like the other cap logo, but the one thing that bothers me about it is how the mountains are just floating on top of the C. I'd like to see if you can incorporate them more. I also think you can get rid of the flag patch, the mountains by themselves would work great.

Now the primary logo. Your rendering of the mountains is great, but the wordmark below them looks a little off to me. Where the C, K, and I come together looks off, and choppy above the K and I. Very small, but I'm kinda picky and a perfectionist when it comes to my own work.

All and all very good work here. I also must say that I can definitely tell that your design skills have improved greatly since you've been here, and that has been the real treat. Keep up the awesome work.

[mania]

Something that eRay was absolutely right about, and I think the newest logo set brought it out to me more than it was before, is just how unnecessary silver is. It just muddles up the wordmark, replacing the inline with one of the two main colors or just eliminating the inline altogether would look much better, Elliot.

[elliott]

Update #2

Ok a few tweaks to the logos, and then the jerseys are a little different, too.

-Dropped gray completely

-Dropped the flag patch

-The number detail is a little different now

-Mountain logo is the new arm patch

-BP pants are pinstriped

-The new BP hat has the mountain logo

Well, I'll be posting the Indians soon enough, we will see if you guys will like it. Should be interesting.