jaha32

I'll get back to the finishing up the Crocodiles but for now here is the next team.

The New York Empire. I have posted an earlier version of this logo on my Behance page quite a few years ago, but I've since simplified it in a few areas in this update. It's pretty self-explanatory - New York is the Empire State and the logo features the Empire State Building. It's somewhat similar to the Knicks in that you're looking upward at the 3D block lettering.

9 hours ago, cLuTcHy said:

Being from Florida people go crazy for the Gators man so even though I understand that this is entirely fictional

if there was ever an expansion franchise for team anywhere in Florida It would be highly unlikely that any Gators licensing would be used. I really like the whole usage of the Crocs/Crocodiles name and even though I know some people might not agree I really like the South Florida Crocodiles it just gives the state of Florida a brand we have never really seen besides the USF Bulls. And I think it would look so beautiful to see the words “South Florida” across a jersey. Also Florida is really into slangs for example “i’m going to a Noles game” “I’m going to a Bucs game” etc so I could definitely see someone saying “I’m going to a Crocs game”

I had similar thoughts about using the name Gators especially once it was pointed out that alligators and crocodiles are mainly associated with Florida only. Fictional or not, the name would always be overshadowed by the university. So after reading your thoughts as a Florida native, it has me leaning back towards Crocodiles/Crocs just because it's less used.  It's almost like the name Gators has few locations left where it'd be both original to that location and still make sense habitat-wise.

In the meantime, while I mull over the name -Miami or South Florida, I hope to have the next team up in a few days.

On 12/24/2021 at 12:02 AM, scottyeagle said:

This may be immaterial if you are moving the team to Jacksonville, but I don't think the inline of the C is adding much when it doesn't appear anywhere else in the branding. Filling it black, in my opinion, doesn't really throw off the color balance and creates a stronger C

In the update above, I got rid of the inline within the "C" and it is converted into an oval now.

_____

Name Options: Gators or Crocodiles?

Jacksonville Gators

Orlando Gators (I'm not sure on Orlando since I want to space it out geographically from the Tampa Thunderhawks) 

Miami Gators

Miami Crocodiles

South Florida Crocodiles

(Using Crocodiles would allow me to convert the black oval into a "C" which I feel is more unique than an oval.)

Here are the updates to the logo.

18 minutes ago, NicDB said:

A "C" can be turned into an "O" quite easily. So maybe Orlando Crocs is something to consider?

I also like the way the gator/croc fits within the “C” so if I go with Orlando it’ll easily convert to an elongated “O”. If I go with Jacksonville (or Miami), I’ll call that shape an oval and not an ”O”. I think it’ll work.

As far as Crocs, I’m not sure people liked that name. Technically Crocodiles don’t live in central-northern Florida (unless you go consider that alligators are crocodilian in science). Then again Tigers don’t live in Detroit and Penguins don’t live in Pittsburgh so I’m not sure what name to go with right now.

I think I’ll move them down to Jacksonville and call them the Gators. Home of the Gator Bowl.

On 12/21/2021 at 2:30 AM, jbird669 said:

Does Carolina have an abundance of Crocodiles? Wouldn't that be more appropriate for Florida? 

Right, they don't have crocodiles but they do have some alligators on the coast so I could change the name to Gators and that'd work, wouldn't it?

_______

Based on the feedback so far, my options are to keep them in Carolina (Raleigh) and call them the Gators or move them to another city where the name Gators would be more fitting. I'm not planning to scrap the gator/crocodile logo because the whole inspiration for this team and half of these USBL teams is to re-create teams I made as a 10-13 year old, often tweaking the names or relocating cities, but still trying to salvage as much of the original as possible. This one is a remake of the fictional Carolina Caimans whose logo contained a double C (see below). Now I don't really like the name Caimans so when updating it, Crocs seemed to be a decent replacement, but maybe not.

Before I move ahead on changing this, which option below do you all think works best?

1) Carolina Gators (I'm biased towards this one since it maintains the original location)

2) Orlando Gators (awfully close to the Tampa team but I don't mind and the C could easily become an O)

3) Jacksonville Gators or some other city

4) New Orleans has alligators I think but already has a team

This is the original Carolina Caimans logo my older brother made for me on Microsoft Paint well over two decades ago. This league had 6 seasons of simulated games, rosters, schedules, logos, jerseys, championships and all that. A few years ago I stumbled upon these old files and over time just for fun I began slowly re-creating a few of the teams which has now evolved into this USBL project.

I like the name Crocs (I think it fits right in there with other shortened names like Bucs, Knicks, Cavs, Mavs, etc..) but was a little iffy on the name simply because of the shoe company. There was a pro basketball team in Australia called the Townsville Crocodiles which I've seen shorted to Crocs.

What do guys think? Does anyone have a preference between these options?

-Carolina Crocs

-Carolina Crocodiles (but it'd likely be shortened to Crocs on the jerseys anyway)

-Carolina Gators

Next up is the Carolina Crocs. This team was originally green and purple (inspired by the '90s era Bucks) but the New Orleans Marauders already use purple and green so I switched it to black and green here, which is an underutilized color combo in my opinion.  This is the first team with a white jersey.

Ten teams down. Ten to go.

Here are the jerseys for the California Fire (along with the same logo again).

The logo has two shades of orange, so for the jerseys I decided to create a gradual sunset mirage vibe with horizontal orange lines. To mix things up a bit, the blue jersey has California written in script. It is almost identical to the lettering on California license plates, but I've sloped it upward.

On 12/7/2021 at 5:44 AM, MDTrey4 said:

This is a really good take on the flaming basketball concept. Excited to see the jerseys

Thanks. I think I should have the jerseys up this weekend. 

1 hour ago, Bomba Tomba said:

A reference to the wildfires common in LA?

Yeah. Not sure if people would really like cheering for a local natural disaster but the U of Miami has the Hurricanes so I think it works here. Could also be a reference to the sunny California weather but mainly I just like the name Fire.

The next team is the California Fire. With the Sacramento Miners abandoning orange for gold, I figured it'd be perfect for this team to fully embrace orange. The blue is meant to represent the Pacific Ocean and offset the bright orange. I had a team in my previous EBA series also called the Fire with a somewhat similar logo in red and yellow. The idea of a basketball in flames is reminiscent of the Miami Heat but the colors here are pretty different.

For now it's just the logo, but jerseys will come.

Glad to hear you all like the new colors for Sacramento. Thanks!

On 12/4/2021 at 6:10 PM, southernbaseballteams2019 said:

I really love the color. I'm do ready for the next one. Keep up the good work!

I've been meaning to get the next team posted, but things keep coming up. At the very least I'll try to get the logo for the next team up in a day or two and then their jerseys can come later.

Here are the updated colors for the Miners. Gold and purple give them a unique color scheme in this league and I like how it turned out. Besides, the other California team has bright colors (orange or red) so this new color scheme will better differentiate them from their in-state rival.

I haven't had a chance to start the next team's jerseys but hopefully I can get that posted sometime soon and keep these going at a good pace.

19 hours ago, Bomba Tomba said:

Nah, keep the light uniform gold.

 

You might even get away with replacing the white with cream on the logo.

Yeah the lighter jersey will likely be gold now that I'm probably going with the new color scheme of option D.

I did try two shades of gold in the logo, but it ended up having a khaki cloth feel to it rather than metallic.

10 hours ago, Dion Jones Jr. said:

What if u were to mix the darker purple with the old gold, do u think that wouldl look nice

That's pretty much what option B is. This is going to lose that Suns vibe you mentioned now that I'm probably changing it to gold but I'm noticing that two colors looks better than three in the logo.

3 hours ago, southernbaseballteams2019 said:

I have some ideas:
San Antonio Gunslingers [Famous for the best wild west]

Toledo Bullfrogs or Hoppers [Toledo is also known as "Frogtown"]

The teams are already set. It's just a matter of me finishing up the jerseys.

__

Any other thoughts on Sacramento's colors? Right now I'm thinking the purple and gold set. The white seems to make them pop more.

Here are some colors options A,B,C,D partially based on the feedback so far. 

Again, this project is basically a re-creation of a fictional league I simulated as a kid between 1994-2000 so although the Sacramento Miners are fictional, in this universe they aren't going ditch their primary color of purple anymore than the Celtics are going to ditch green. There are plenty of other teams in this league with blue but only a couple with purple so I am trying to keep purple here.

My wife likes options C and D.

Option D is growing on me since it has gold to tie in to the gold rush and there will be quite a few more teams with yellow.

Option C reminds me of the Lakers and I don't think that'd go over well in Sacramento but maybe the Lakers don't exist in this universe so...

6 hours ago, NicDB said:

Not really feeling the colors to be honest. They don't feel industrious enough for a team named after the mining industry.

When I think of the California gold rush I think bright yellow/gold flakes and nuggets that one would see when panning for gold. I don't really think of the mining industry. Blue and orange aren't industrial-looking but they seem to work fine for the UTEP Miners.  The purple is staying but if I want to explore color options, I could try gold in place of yellow and orange although it wouldn't be as bright.

I’m not a fan of the wavy top because it throws off the balance. You have these nicely designed facial features but they only take up 40% of the composition and the rest is mainly empty black space.

If you lowered the angle on the swords it would allow you to bring down the word “Raiders” and ultimately shrink the size of the outer shield shape and empty black space. I liked the balance and composition  in your first drafts better actually. 

I went back and added jersey option B for Sacramento. What do you think - upgrade?

There's less yellow in the new version, which is fine since I consider purple and orange to be the primary team colors and yellow is still very present as an accent color in the trimming. I tried yellow as a number outline but the orange numbers looked bloated/blurry with a yellow outline and I wanted to keep things clean.

20 hours ago, MDTrey4 said:

I agree with Bomba Tomba here about the contrast of the numbers on the orange jersey. I also think this set lends itself well to a white uniform. I know you haven't been doing third uniforms but that could be a good light one for Sacramento.

9 hours ago, Bomba Tomba said:

BIG NO. White appears nowhere on the logo, and I like how OP strays away from the tired old tradition that one uniform must always be white. Honestly, I think real life leagues should also follow his example.

I could make a third white jersey, and I do plan on having maybe one or two  teams with one white jersey, but like you said, I’m only making two jerseys for each team so far and to be forced to have one of them white just because it’s tradition, limits the creative options I feel.

I’m thinking of the the Lakers who only wore purple and yellow jerseys for the longest time and it showed that you don’t need white, and then one year (almost 20 years ago) they busted out white jerseys and it was really unusual seeing them in white at first. 

I have no plans to expand to city edition jerseys or anything like that. I’m just focusing on each team’s core identity right now.

10 hours ago, Dion Jones Jr. said:

I really like this one, it's gives me a very nice Suns vibe but more simpler, looks great as per usual

I had the same thought too once I saw these finished up.

8 hours ago, Bomba Tomba said:

The yellow numbers get lost in the orange if you ask me

I thought the lack of color contrast on those numbers might be an issue. My goal was to keep the color distribution somewhat consistent between each set. I’ll see what it looks like with some colors switched around.

I went back and inserted a different wordmark to the 14ers gray jersey. The gray and blue sets now both have the same mountain logo on the front top.

The Sacramento Miners are the next team and they're named after the gold rush that hit California in the mid 19th century. This is again based on a team I created as a kid which contained the letter S over a basketball in purple and orange (it may remind some of the last Sonics logo).

As I made logos over the years, I became more interested in using geometric precision and shapes when possible, and consistent line width to make the logos easier on the eyes. I think this logo is a good example. The spacing between the letters in Miners is the same width as the lines on the ball, and the vertical line on the ball flows seamlessly between the N and E in Miners. The head of the axe flows around the same circular contour of the outer S. Also the axe handles are positioned at the same angle as the ends of the S. The result is that everything locks together.

Jersey Option A

Jersey Option B

On 11/10/2021 at 3:29 PM, NicDB said:

I like the Rocky Mountain name as long as Utah doesn't have  team. Because typically the Denver/Colorado team is the de facto home team for that entire reason.

 

14ers is a solid identity for the reasons you named. Kind of ties them to Colorado, yet doesn't alienate the rest of the rocky states. But for some reason I really love Rocky Mountain Altitude. Sounds very basketball to me.

Utah won’t have a team so this Rocky Mountain team will likely be the only team in the Mountain time zone aside from Arizona. For now I’ll stick with the 14ers name. If some other nickname, like Altitude, grows on me in time I’ll consider it but I’ve already planned the names and still like 14ers.
 

What constitutes a good team name is subjective anyway. Are Phillies or Mets even real words? How about 76ers? SuperSonics is an adjective with an ‘s’ slapped on the end, and it’s a great name. Nuggets, Cubs, Pistons, Packers, Phillies, Padres are all unique but if we weren’t familiar with them we’d think they’re strange. Familiarity makes them work…even Utah Jazz which makes no sense.

Rocky Mountain Altitude is the only other name I can think of at the moment, but 14ers sounds much more authentic to me since it uniquely represents this location, whereas Hilltoppers sounds like a generic high school or D3 program, and Mountaineers is decent but predictable. I'm not really sure why this name doesn't work (it's much better than the awkward Delaware 87ers) so I may have to come back to this one later and see if I change my mind.