raysox

I'm back! I did start to do more exploration Friday, and here's what some of the stuff I came up looked like. I think D is the only one that may have legs, it makes the vertical line on the W stand out less, and gives a little bit of perspective on the letters. It does kind of give me Mountain Dew vibes though Here is my take on @burgundy's suggestion to be asymmetrical. I studied the old logo and think they may have tried to hide a MW in a four peak range. I think this is SUPER interesting, but may be too abstract for it's own good. But I felt good enough to try it in team colors.

Hey, 30 minutes was mostly due to having no development process, just opening Illustrator with an idea and hardly experimenting. Don't let the time dissuade you! @dsaline97 was so kind to photoshop it on a jersey. I'll try the diamond in some revisions but i think having no wasted space makes it stronger You know, that's interesting. I never noticed that the mountains on the original logo were uneven, or even MW shaped. I think the mountains on that logo are the only redeeming quality of the logo (Civic Bold and Copperplate all in one place!) I'm unsure about how it'll look, but the W has bothered me in the version I posted. Gonna play around with the idea today.

This kind of blew up on twitter but check this out Obviously my thinking was making an MW in the shape of a mountain. Inspired by the Big XII's bold look with easy variation for team colors. The M definitely fits better to the shape, but I played around with making it as symmetrical as I could without compromising either letter. Would love to hear thoughts!

hell of a year to have a 23-7 lead entering the 4th quarter be your 3rd worst loss on the season

I'm not going to follow the league next year because I already loved and lost with spring football (RIP to the AAF). But that being said.... 2023 looks way better than 2020 aesthetically to me. I feel like the logo updates were overall an improvement (save the Guardians and Arlington which feels more like an alt logo), but the uniforms stand out as better to me. My immediate reaction was the Roughnecks little notches in the shoulder yoke and dismissed the whole set. But looking through here, I found myself saying "oh that's not too bad, maybe even good" to San Antonio, Seattle, DC, and Las Vegas. I still have issues with the XFL relaunching with the same name but having no continuous identity (like, name Vegas the Outlaws what's stopping you?), but I genuinely feel like we've seen worse in bigger professional leagues

Did someone say box lacrosse stadium series?

Not sure I agree with everything in your post but I really like this group of teams

Problem: the Conference USA is being picked apart and tries to serve a need that the American Athletic Conference and Sunbelt already does better - occupy the broadest reaches of the Southeast Solution: a second tier conference for the Plains region in the way the MAC and Mountain West acts for the Big Ten and Pac 12 New Mexico State UTEP Tulsa Arkansas State North Texas Texas State Sam Houston State Louisiana Tech Louisiana Rice Little rivalry pods of NMSU/UTEP, Rice/Sam Houston, Tulsa/ArkSt, Louisiana schools, North Texas/Texas State (ignore that half of these schools are going to the American conference, i'll let them take San Antonio because they fit the characteristics of other schools in that conference. We'll trade them for Tulsa. Also trade FIU to the Sun Belt and open WKU and MTSU to the highest bidder)

As promised, here is all the other city's version of my Grey Cup logo, featuring a light version with some color accent highlights that I felt looked really neat.

The white heritage for the Argos may be my favorite of the entire series. Only small note is the Argos boat helmet sticker can face forward since the A is symmetrical. But like, if that's the only gripe you did extremely well.

They're all good but Track Town is soooooo good. Great job, man.

Completely understand. I started with the version on dark then worked backwards. I felt like a stroke on the text was not working, but positioned to capitalize on the lighting on the right side of the trophy gave enough of a contrast. Yeah so essentially the Final Four system vs the Super Bowl. I think there is a way to incorporate the unique city flavor, but you'd kind of fall into the trap of repeating ideas like the Calgary example. Same with down here and how out of town branding agencies treat everything New Orleans. However the Final Four is probably the strongest year over year brand in my opinion. Crazy how they've been so consistent over men's and women's finals. I might explore that at a later date but I may or may not have flipped every city in this style so I can post in a day or two.

The Canadian Football League's Grey Cup was last weekend. The Toronto Argonauts stopped a three-peat by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in a game that featured blocked field goals on each of the last two possessions. It was a very good game. The league rebranded a decade ago to one of the worst logos a league has in professional sports in my opinion. It's completely lifeless, bad font, and empty. This was during the renaissance of leagues moving away from graphic logos to more of a standardize logo set. Corporate. Working with what I have, I think the current set of Grey Cup logos are as bad as their league logo. It feels like there's 7 things crammed into one small logo. Say what you want about the Super Bowl, but the logo FEELS like a big deal because it gives you all the information you need without wasted effort elsewhere. Same with the Stanley Cup logo, both of which allow for some personality with team or city colors. I don't think they can really go back to the logo execution from 2007-2011 either. That style seems to have been phased out, but also the league and the host cities are small. After a while, what are you going to do with Edmonton's logo? So that's my parameters. Make it say Grey Cup, make it feel like a big deal, show the trophy, and have some local coloring to make it different. Here's what I made. For each city there is a light and dark logo, with the difference being the COUPE GREY CUP text having a little bit of color on it when applicable. I started with the trophy illustration, but had to rethink it's application when I couldn't escape my love of this font. I nearly went with a block font but I feel like this is more modern, especially paired with the bevels. Originally I had every single dark version have colored highlights, but I felt like the greyscale text looked better paired with red/yellow/orange. I took a cue from a mid-decade Grey Cup logo with the sliced maple leaf above the text, which was perfect for housing the game number.

American here, casual fan at best but watch the league when I can - especially the playoffs. I was on the CFL subreddit last night after the Grey Cup, and something I saw brought up a few times is the way the league markets itself. I'm aware of the league having front office issues, and overall a lot of my Canadian friends follow their NFL teams than the Lions (which, no disrespect to BC - i'm just friends with people from Surrey). I work in sports marketing, so I have a few takes, but don't want to make assumptions based on personal preferences. Is it a crowded sports market? Is it the NFL becoming easier to watch abroad? Is it marketing towards a niche group of people and not succeeding growing the game? More importantly, what would you do differently? Ultimately, I have a soft spot for the league and want it to succeed. Hoping to make it up to Vancouver for a game at some point

Absolutely love everything in this thread so far. Can’t wait for more!

Do like the lightning's concept for the sole fact you left the logo one color. A lot of concepts around here try to bring back the old color scheme and add strokes to the logo. this one is clean with the only critique I could think of being adding some color to the collar

Yeah agree with what everyone else has already said, these are super good. They all feel unique and well thought out in terms of team names and smart design. I would love to see each logo bigger as individual posts. Also echoing that breaking ties from the USFL may be the best call. The helmet/flag logo is cool enough to stand on it's own, but there's 1 (2 if you count the Bulls originally being Jacksonville) team that carries over from the original USFL. There's WFL teams, and WLAF teams. Plus an unused NFL team name. It's almost like a spring football super league. But the current USFL being tied to markets and brands from 40 years ago seems restrictive and clearly you've pushed the markets away from NFL to spawn teams that weren't on the radar for that league in it's original form.

Bulls Release New Football Uniforms The USF Bulls unveil their new uniforms courtesy of Danger Brand. “I think when it comes to uniform design, we have a motto - KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. I feel like in the NCAA specifically, teams like Alabama and Michigan are able to look bold even if their uniforms are relatively simple. If you turn on a random game, there’s about a 50/50 chance the uniforms have an American flag logo fill, or some sort of color that doesn’t match. Part of the reason we began this brand is to elevate the aesthetics of college sports.” “While this is our first major contract, we have lots of experience in designing uniforms. We’ve taken cues from sports like baseball and hockey for small details like the team logo above the number, and brand logo on the back of the neck.” Taylor says. Notably, the Danger Brand D logo appears to be stitched in the color of the garment it’s on. Taylor went on to say that’s a way to elevate the school’s brand, and that “people will know our names soon enough” “Growing up, USF was the “best of the rest” of Florida schools. I have fond memories of Matt Groethe and George Selvie. This uniform set calls back to that era with gold helmets overtop green jerseys and pants. We simplified the Serpentine font that USF uses, and skewed it to feel elusive and fast. Most notable about the uniform design is the bull horns that go from the sleeve onto the collar bone. Matching horns can be found at the bottom of the pants. “I believe there’s strength in mixing and matching uniforms, as long as it’s a cohesive brand. There will be gold, green, and white helmets. Green and white jerseys. Then the pants will come in gold, green, and white as well.” When asked about the prospect of alternate uniforms, Taylor perked up and said “I guess we’ll just have to surprise you when it’s time”, with a smile.

USF Enters Agreement with New Uniform Manufacturer A new era is beginning for USF athletics. The Bulls become the first university program to sign a deal with fledgling uniform manufacturer Danger Brand. Danger Brand, based out of St. Petersburg, Florida will supply the Bulls with new uniforms after taking over from the previous company Under Armour. “I’m excited for what the future holds. Being from the area, i feel like we have the potential of exponential growth. Our vision is to make USF the next Oregon or Maryland.” says Michael “raysox” Taylor, founder of Danger Brand. Taylor acts as the creative director, and oversees uniform design. Danger Brand will use its new NeatO uniform cut, a high performance jersey material and stitching that allows all athletes to breathe through their jersey while staying tough in battle. The uniform deal will go into effect immediately with the forthcoming release of new football uniforms. USF Bulls

I think inverse OG is your winner

Oh wow I totally forgot to post this. I gave this monster of light and energy a body. Clearly modeled off the NC State logo but only for anatomical purposes.

"school locations aren't really accurate because I don't care that much" boy you're right about that they moved USF to Miami! Like what these look like so far. Nothing too far from reality but really solid all around. I would add a black pair of pants for Oklahoma State, but can't complain about anything you've shared.

Yeah that was something I was grappling with because the body is more of an orange in the original sketches, but they use the head partial logo still. I may have something up my sleeve to address this though. Thank you for the kind words and critiques! they all mean a lot, I may go back and continue to tweak some. Until then.... Stumpy saw right through me, but of course he has FIU logos in his signature so he knew what was up. The Sunblazers is a silly 80s name, but it's also fun. Especially fun with a mascot that looks like this. Love that guy. I had sketched up a logo thats kind of a mix of poochie from The Simpsons and the raisin bran mascot. Here is what I have! You may recognize the little hat taken from a lot of mascot logos. I want to make a body for this guy to have in the style of the old cartoon mascots. That'll be the next update I think, but would like to hear your feedback! UCF may get one too. Florida seems to corner the market on this because so many state schools are much newer. No excuse for Florida Gulf Coast to be the Eagles though. I'd love to do some other ones if anyone has suggestions! I know the Texas Tech Red Raiders used to be the Matadors which is pretty cool!

I had an itch I couldn't scratch for some logos I wanted to see, good thing i'm a logo designer. If you didn't know, both South Florida and Central Florida had much more unique team names before their current Bulls and Knights names, respectively. USF was the Goldan Brahmans, which is a type of cattle that looks like it has a goiter. The name is unique, even if Bulls is much more recognizable. So with this, I traced a Brahman for a front profile looking mascot. Then, added a palm tree and sunset in the negative space created by the lack of features on the front of a bull. To be honest this looks like a normal bull too, so I would just remove the bump at the top to transform the breed. The case with UCF is a little bit more known. A citronaut, to the best of my understanding, is a citrus shaped astronaut? Some sort of freak that i'm sure a student drew for meal vouchers. Every couple years they bring out the logo for their football team and everyone says go back to it. Well, what if they did and made it look more detailed? There's not a hidden message like the other, besides the star symbol being pulled directly from their university crest. Would love to hear your thoughts! Just kind of a fun idea I had. It's not the last one I want to do in this series. Look forward for another mid-sized Florida school that drifted away from god's light and changed to a much more boring name.

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