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The University of Mary in Bismarck ND has a new logo: https://bismarcktribune.com/sports/college/university-of-mary-unveils-new-logo/article_434d927f-58f7-51db-ad95-6e8602de3633.html https://news.umary.edu/transformed-marauder-looks-to-lead-university-of-mary-into-new-era-of-athletics/ OLD: NEW:

I've been following a story out of the University of North Dakota regarding its process of working with SME Branding for its new logo last year. The Grand Forks Herald sought access to SME's unused preliminary designs on the grounds that they should be public record, since they were designed on behalf of a public institution. The state's attorney general disagreed, siding with SME, which argued that the firm could use those designs for future projects and that disclosing them publicly would diminish their value. SME argued, and the attorney general agreed, that they should be protected as a trade secret. Public records issues aside, this made me wonder: How common is it for a designer take a logo created for one client and pitch it to another? Apparently SME's intent, per the Herald story, is to offer up the dozens of designs not chosen to future clients in need of a hawk logo. Here's an interesting bit of analysis from the general counsel for the North Dakota Newspaper Association: “SME made the case that, ‘Well, we’re in effect going to use them again someplace else and we’re going to reuse them, but we don’t want people to know we’re reusing them.’ It’s kind of a funny argument. … In this case, I can see their point.” That makes me wonder: How can UND know whether SME didn't just give them recycled designs, too?

I've always thought a Northern Pike would be a great team mascot and after my wife caught a 16lb-38in pike last weekend I decided to try to put the idea into practice. Because "northern pike" is kind of a clumsy name I did some research and discovered that pike are also called the "wolves of the water" so I shortened that to water wolves. I tried a lot of color palettes trying to incorporate green and settled on green, blue, and gray/silver. For the primary I used the photos of her pike for details and the old zephyr Muskingum logo as pose reference: For the secondary/wordmark I took some inspiration from the Toledo Walleyes who have a hook inspired secondary. Many people use spoon lures to fish for pike and I drew out the name with several hook "serifs". For some alternate logos I looked at photos of pike skulls and took cues from the secondary's Ws... I'm still playing with the Ws but there's a hint of it in the jerseys below. Finally the jerseys are simple stripes and colors:

This is a concept that I've been rolling around for a few years, but haven't quite had the skill set to pull it off. The Nokota horse is a breed that is historically connected to the settlers and natives of North Dakota. They are horses that carried Sitting Bull's people and the horses that helped break the ground for crops. For my concept I found a suitable pose and tried to give the same style as the, no banned, UND logo. First up is just the sketch. University of North Dakota Nokotas