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chestnutz

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Posts posted by chestnutz

  1. The WFL logo update is wonderful, reads so much better following the same curve as the latitude lines. Great stuff!

     

    nice work on the Houston update as well, I think this is much cleaner. And no worries about the east/west thing, before I moved to Texas a few years ago I never would’ve thought about it, but if I’ve learned anything it’s that Texans take their identity verrrry seriously haha. Luckily your secondary concept still works either way!

  2. Great topic! I knew very little about the WFL before this, so it's been interesting to see your takes on them!

     

    I'm going to give some feedback here (I hope it doesn't sound too harsh, but just giving my thoughts!)

     

    WFL logo - I'm not sure this is an improvement on the original (which, I think is freaking perfect already, so kind of an impossible task). You made it have more depth with the curved latitude lines, but the football is still flat as the laces are completely straight, which, if you're trying to give it the same roundedness as the globe, they would be more curved. The laces area also quite thin, I see they're the same width as the latitude lines but I think they could all be thickened for better legibility from a distance. Lastly, the shape of the football is a bit oblong and looks more like a rugby ball (maybe it's the rounded edges).

     

    Birmingham - I really like your secondary, and the changes to the primary are nice (if a bit detailed). Only thing I'm not a fan of is the lighter blue shading in the logo, it gives off a very Web 2.0 look.

     

    Chicago - This is a case where I actually dig the added depth to the logo, the flames feel slightly modernized but still keeps what makes the original so great. 60's and 70's logos are my absolute favorite, so it's a bit tough to improve on them IMO. I do think you could lose some of the detail in your version (namely the added facemask bars like above the eyes, and the very tiny flames coming out of the ears are unnecessary). Simple is better, and you want to avoid things looking too cluttered. Secondary is great!

     

    Detroit - Really appreciate what you were going for with the "d". I think your latest version is the closest yet, but I'm still not sure about some of the details, or where the yellow and red accent lines overlap. Also not sure about flipping the logo on its side on the helmet - I think that kind of defeats the purpose of making it a "d" in the first place if the primary way people will see it is rotated. Love the more simplified tire marks on the sleeves in your latest version though, great touch.

     

    Houston - Again this is a toughie, because I really love the original logo in all its 70's glory. Couple of thoughts - I think your version would again benefit from simplifying it and following what the original does re: state outline - straighter lines with a lot less jagged points. As it is now, the "h" is pretty funky, with it jutting out to the left randomly and the bottom following the jagged border while the top of the letter is completely straight. Getting rid of a lot of that state outline detail would help logofy it. For the secondary, I'm not sure what the two points coming out the top of the "T" are, I think you could lose them. I do love the inspo taken from the TX flag for that beveled look, great idea. Lastly, I think using the "western" part of the state as inspo in anything Houston would be a big mistake - HTX is East Texas and proud - it'd be like using a SoCal element for a team in Sacramento.

     

    Anyways, I don't expect you to go back and change any of your previous concepts just based on my feedback, but some things to perhaps keep in mind going forward! This is a really cool series and it's great seeing how open you are to feedback, so I'm stoked to see more!

    • Like 1
  3. On 5/17/2023 at 3:47 PM, jdavidev said:

    An all-Rochester concept thread? Have I been wishing really hard lately?

     

    Love it all, the Red Wings especially. The faster they can get away from the big chicken logo and wear something more respectable, the better. And yours is gorgeous.

     

    The Amerks is great, through I was never a fan of the triangle/sticks logo.

     lol the ROC never gets the attention it (maybe?) deserves! The Wings brand has been frustrating for as long as I can remember! Never wanted to wear their gear even as a kid haha

     

    1 hour ago, OchentaYOcho88 said:

    Every one of the Flower City logos are amazing.

    Your presentation is so charming too, really really like looking at these. Beautiful. 

     Thanks so much! It was a fun challenge coming up with different branded ways to do the flower

  4. Okay last one...it's another lacrosse team, yay! The Rochester Knighthawks have been around since 95, playing indoors (vs the Rattlers outdoor) in the winter at the same spot as the Amerks, the Blue Cross Arena. They've been a pretty successful franchise, and were certainly the most popular lax team in the area.

     

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    They sadly rebranded away from the purple and teal recently into a very meh military green (though their R monogram is nice). For my concept, the primary logo is a super simplified monoline version of their old diagonal/diving hawk. I wanted to parallel that same kind of motion in the logo. For the rest, I focused in on the "knight" (sword), the "night" (moon), and the "hawk" (bird!), so ya know, I've got all the bases covered lol.

     

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    The home uniform takes inspiration from their classic NY Rangers-esque lettering going down the jersey. It's too much of a classic to stray from, but put my own spin on things with the black and teal stripes throughout. The Flower City roundel uses feathers and is actually the only one in the series with 6 pedals - I kind of liked the snowflake look to signify that they were Rochester's winter lax team. The team usually used teal for their alternate jerseys, but I wanted to go all in on black and make them hawks of the (k)night!

     

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    And here is that black uni in action!

     

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    And with that, the series is finished! Thanks for stopping by throughout y'all, any comments or feedback would be much appreciated!

    • Like 5
  5. Next up, the AHL's Rochester Americans.

     

    Quite a storied franchise in the AHL and still pretty popular in the city (though not as much in the past), the Amerks have hardly touched their brand since their founding in 1956. As such, this set strays the least from their established branding out of all the teams in this series. 

     

    It's a whole lot of stars and stripes! Here's a look at the inspiration behind the set. I did my own take on modernizing (or retrofying?) their primary script and crest, as well as taking inspiration from a short-lived alternate featuring two hockey sticks that form the top of a star. 

     

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    A few alternate logos and explorations of the brand:

     

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    And the full set, featuring more brand exploration and the uniforms. Pretty simple, playing into the red and white stripes and blue stars theme as one would expect. The Flower City roundel for this set obviously uses a star to represent the flower, with the blue background petals looking closest to the actual City of Rochester logo in the entire series, and with a simplified puck in the middle.

     

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    Lastly, a little Amerk modeling the away uniform!

     

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    • Like 5
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  6. Next up, the Rochester Raging Rhinos.

     

    I'm sure many of you know the history of the Rhinos in Rochester, but here's a refresher in case you don't: founded in 1996, the Rhinos were THE team in Rochester at the turn of the century, and growing up they were my favorite games to go to in town. They packed the stadium and dominated their league, even winning the US Open Cup in '99, becoming the first and still only non-MLS team to do so (which is represented in my concept by a star above the badge). 

     

    Sadly they hit some rough times, and along with their financial and ownership issues, have always had a crisis of identity, first dropping the "Raging" from the name, and then going full rebrand a few years back with the Jamie Vardy-led ownership into Rochester NYFC. So I brought back the Raging Rhinos, embracing the cheesiness of American naming systems. 

     

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    For this set, I was inspired by those late 90's looks, the stripes at home and yellow shirt away were always my favorites. I took inspiration from their classic, super 90's ball-in-horn logo, with a super simplified retro take. A full bodied is also used, again drawing inspo from their rebranded logo of the 2000s. These serve as the two primary logos.

     

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    Some additional lockups here, with full text, the Flower City badge, and a wordmark.

     

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    And here's the full set including the uniforms. Again pretty simple and about as classy as a team with the name Raging Rhinos can be I think!spacer.png

     

    Lastly, our little guys modeling the kits!

     

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    Thanks for lookin!

    • Like 7
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  7. Moving onto the next team, the Rochester Rattlers.

     

    The Rattlers were one of the founding members of Major League Lacrosse in 2001. They were a decently big deal back in the day when I was a kid (though not compared to the winter-league Knighthawks), as western NY loves their lacrosse. I don't actually know that much about lax, so this was fun to research a bit, particularly how the uniforms work. They never really had a good identity though, as the logos were extremely dated. They moved onto Dallas a few years ago, which is a shame, but I brought 'em back for this project!

     

    First up are the main logos, just a bunch of snake variations. As you'll see in the set, I opted for a diamond/hexagon pattern motif throughout the identity.

     

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    Then we've got the Flower City badge, which might be my favorite of the bunch. And the wordmarks, one super simple ROC on the away jersey and a full Rattlers for the home. Lots of rattlesnake rattlers throughout!

     

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    Here is the full set together, including the uniforms. Relatively simple, again just repeating that diamond/hexagon pattern as trim. The helmet features the striking snake wrapping into the bottom.

     

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    And of course, gotta model the uniform!

     

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    • Like 4
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  8. Hey y'all, I'm back with a project I've been cooking up on and off for several years. And I finally had some time to finish it up!

     

    This is a rebranding project for 5 of my hometown teams from Rochester, NY. They're very mid-century, simple (and hopefully timeless) designs that fly in the face of what usually comes to mind when you think of minor league branding.

     

    First up, the Rochester Red Wings.

     

    Y'all may remember nearly 3 years ago (!!!) when I first posted this. Since then, I've kept some ideas and redone others, but as a whole the concept is largely the same. The Wings are the oldest continuously operating non-major sports team in America, starting in 1899. Yet in the 90's, they went full on black-for-blacks-sake, and it's always crushed me, even as a kid going to games. So we're doing away with ALL black, all colors except for RED, and trying to give them a classic look that befits a team of its age.

     

    I'll start off with some of the inspiration behind the logos, uniforms, and overall brand.

     

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    As you'll see throughout the series, I've come up with a lot of logos for each team, and while there are ones that are more "primary", I haven't really gone and specified primary/secondary/tertiary, etc. Just kind of throwing all my ideas at the wall really.

     

    That said, here are the main logos. A flying ball in profile that makes a subtle R, serving primarily as the cap logo, and another ball & wings logo that's inspired by the Times Square Building in downtown, probably the city's most iconic skyline landmark that you can see from the ballpark, with its giant steel "wings of progress."

     

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    This little grid showcases most of the assets, including the home and away uniforms. They both take inspiration from the team's classic mid-century uniforms, going for a super 60s/70s look.

     

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    A couple of roundels here. For each team in the series I've made a "Flower City" badge to pay homage to the city's logo and nickname. And if there was a tertiary logo, it would be this little homeplate bird, because what's a Red Wings team brand without an actual bird.

     

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    And lastly, showing off the home uniform is a little baseball card boy, because I couldn't help add some illustration in there.

     

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    Cheers, hope y'all dig it! I'll probably post a new team every few days or so.

    • Like 3
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  9. Great stuff as always man, you always put a lot of thought into your designs, and such a cool idea! Man I used to spend days in OOTP, would've spent longer had I realized I could create my own teams. Indiana is probably my favorite, love that I monogram with the racing stripes. And thanks for using navy and orange for NY, wish all teams would.

     

    I agree with above that the tribal design could work great as sleeve accents as well (but that's just because I can't get enough of that pattern, put it on everything!)

     

    I love the blue jersey for Texas. Only nitpick would be that the T is veering closely into looking like an "I" with horns, since the horns are separated by the stroke. I think it'd read better if you got rid of that and just let the horns run into the "I" bar.

    • Like 1
  10. 10 hours ago, weirdguyace said:

    I've been an off-and-on lurker on SportsLogos since about 2008 and the purple ATX on the white home plate and the roundel are two of the slickest designs I've *ever* seen here. Unbelievably cool! Definitely hoping to see more from you.

     

    Thanks so much! Always interested to hear which logos people are most drawn to, since I usually just throw every idea I have at the board and can't edit myself lol. Thanks for comin out of lurking to let me know! Ah man how time flies...I started here in 2007 as well!

  11. Looks fun! Love the colors. I will say, I wish there was a bit more clownish features or logos going on though, with such a great name! As it stands there's nothing really separating it from any other team mascot.

     

    And if I could give a quick tip on interlocking monograms - they usually work best and look more dynamic when you alternate which letter is on top (like you're knitting, under then over), rather than be completely symmetrical in which one is on top.

     

    Here's a really quick mockup just to help explain that a little better:

     

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  12. 4 hours ago, johne9109 said:

    I LOVE the aesthetic of your concpt. I would love to see more concepts done like this. You're branding here is great as well; logos, colors everything great job

    Much appreciated! I stopped doing sports branding projects for a while to focus on illustration, so now I try to incorporate that into my branding stuff. Glad you dig it!

     

    On 4/1/2023 at 8:43 PM, Burgmania said:

    Sign me up for merch.  Best use of 'bats' since the CHL's (and now NA3HL's) Austin Ice Bats.

    Haha thanks! May end up making some hats some day, we'll see. I don't know if it competes with the beauty that is the Ice Bats logo though.

     

    8 hours ago, PERRIN said:

    I absolutely adore this concept. Your retro style is incredibly charming on its own, but this logo package is absolutely stellar and the colors work super well with each other. Amazing job across the board, easily one of my favorite MLB expansion concepts I've ever seen. Really hope to see more concepts from you soon, I can't get enough of your work.

    Cheers man, that's so nice to hear. Glad to know there's an audience for this specific era of sports branding haha, mid-century = best century. Got a series in this vein I'll hopefully share soon, but I can only bring myself to work on it like one day a month, so it's uh taken a while lol

    • Like 1
  13. 43 minutes ago, coco1997 said:

    I love this concept! Your logos are really clever and well done, in particular the roundel and cap “A.” I’m a sucker for any animal themed identity, and I love the double meaning of the team name. I’m also a big fan of the off-white home uniform and the dusty brownish gray color of the road set.


    For the baseball bat logo, I would make the “Bats” lettering within the bat white/cream so it reads a little better against the black. And realistically, I don’t think I’d want two purple & black teams in MLB (all the more reason the Rockies should switch to purple and green) but on its own merits, this color scheme works great for your concept. 


    thanks! Love animal brands too and try to mostly do those now that I think about it haha. And I also usually pick cream, I just hate pure white and like the natural look of it in my designs - but also think any team would look better in it! Get what you’re saying about the lack of contrast - hypothetically these designs would be easy to recolored to fit any background or usage, but I just kinda liked the darkness of the purple on black. And who are the Rockies? Colorado has a team? 😉 

     

    21 hours ago, jmoe12 said:

    That roundel logo is outstanding, great work all around!

    cheers! That was actually the one I was least sure about, but a baseball team needs a roundel!

     

    12 hours ago, Megildur said:

    I love this! The style is certainly different than a lot of concepts here, which really adds to its uniqueness. My favorite little detail is the bats crossing the t's in the word marks. Make more of these? Please?

    yeah that was a real a-ha moment I thought of early on in my sketching, fits too well to pass up! Thanks a bunch, I do have a big project in this style I’ve been working on and off for a couple years on, hope to share it soon!

     

    10 hours ago, Bomba Tomba said:

    YES. GENIUS. Everything from the name to the colors to the logos.

     

    Put me down for one each of those caps, plus maybe some shirts with the logos on them.

    Thank you! Haha I really want to make some hats, and walk around austin making people think “uhh, who?”

    • Like 2
  14. Howdy y'all! I'm back with another little concept, after coming up with this idea that's so obvious it's stupid. But, the world needs more silly names!

     

    Austin is famous for it's urban bat population, and well, baseball has bats too. If you've seen my concepts before, you know I'm big into mid-century, very simple designs, so that's what I've done here for the Bats. (sidenote: curse the selfish Batman for ruining bat icons for everyone else). 

     

    I went with purple for several reasons. It fits the night/bat theme very well, there's a dearth of it in pro sports, the city is known for it's "violet crown" sunsets, and it would round out Austin sports teams' use of secondary colors (Longhorns - orange, Austin FC - green), adding to it's secondary/weird feel!

     

    The tuscan font fits really well I think, using the same circular cutout shapes as a bats wings, and hitting the southern/Texas aesthetic.

     

    And finally, for the alternate jersey (City edition?), we went with a violet crown theme that could hopefully make for some fun and good looking rivalry matchups with Houston and their famous sunset jersey.

     

    Cheers, thanks for looking!

     

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    • Like 12
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  15. 3 hours ago, Sidney said:

    Thank you very much, it means a lot. 

    The panther logo was really difficult to finalize. As you saw I've came up a long way, to end up with that result. 

     

    For the Raiders, you're talking about the helmet buckle?

     

    Ahh! My bad, I was misremembering. I meant the ball at the end of the sword hilt. That half moon is just so much thinner than any other detail.

     

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    • Like 1
  16. This is great. That latest Tigers logo is perfect, one of the best ideas and executions I've seen in a while.

     

    Really dig the Panther too, loved seeing you work through it and fine tune things along the way to get that shape down (this goes for all the concepts). It's the tiniest things with proportions and shapes when doing animals to make them look like the actual subject, and you ended up nailing it.

     

    Raiders one is spot on. Loved your uniform illustration too. If I'm being nitpicky I'd say lose the little hole details on the helmet - they're the smallest detail you have in the logo compared to all the other accents, so it throws off the consistency I think.

     

    Good stuff Sid!

     

    • Love 1
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