changes to mls logos

[upperV03]

Just judging the logos, I would say the ones that are upgrades are Houston, Orlando, Toronto, and maybe KC.

[lancebridwell]

I really like what you did with the Dynamo, RSL, LA, and Kansas City. I think the changes there were phenomenal and well-exectuted. But take a word from someone who has made one too many "quick concepts" ; quick concepts don't get the response you'd like. Also, some fans are set on their names/colors/styles, and that should be kept in mind when redesigning unless you're purposely trying to be other-dimensional. Ultimately, keeping an aspect of practicality in mind usually works well when presenting a concept

[qckgnc]

You should have expected backlash, soccer club names in the US is a touchy subject for some. Even though I don't see the issue with US nicknames, KHL uses soccer style nicknames for some teams. Plus you can't please the world, do your thing. That said Houston is the best, I always liked that proposed logo for the rejected name. I like the idea for LA, but i agree that more white would help. Portland and Seattle are downgrades, not because of the names but the coloring. Dallas is horrible either way, the only way to fix any Dallas team is contraction.

[Nyk33]

This is a quick post, i messed with 15 of the mls teams logos. I changed some names, changed some colors, and changed the logos. I went with things that I thought would be corrections and improvements to existing logos. I went with names that are more european, than american. hope you enjoy

Toronto - Slight upgrade

Orlando City - Slight upgrade

DC United - I actually like this one surpisingly.

Red Bull - Downgrade. I'm not a fan of the new shape.

Philadelphia Union - Upgrade. I think getting rid of the excess brown helps make it seem less cluttered.

Portland - Downgrade. Not a big fan of the red.

Colorado - Push

Vancouver - Push

LA - The new look isn't bad but it looks like something that would be shown in an LAFC Concept series rather than an LA Galaxy rebrand.

San Jose - Push

Houston - Massive upgrade.

RSL - Push. I hate RSL's branding no matter what anyone does with it.

Seattle - Downgrade. Not a fan of the monochrome look.

SKC - Upgrade.

FC Dallas - Downgrade. I personally liked the blue in the badge.

[MJWalker45]

With Toronto, DC, FC Dallas and Orlando the changes are so small i couldn't even notice them. For teams that you changed the name for a completely new crest would be the best thing to do. Otherwise people will react as they have here. I like Houston's new crest however it's in use by one of the supporters groups now so I'd suggest a star placed above a crest design. And just know when it comes to the MLS some people are steadfast in trying to avoid naming conventions that follow the European model. That will always be the case.

[Dan O'Mac]

Where is the team that most needs a new logo, the Revolution?

[New York's Greatest]

This is a quick post, i messed with 15 of the mls teams logos. I changed some names, changed some colors, and changed the logos. I went with things that I thought would be corrections and improvements to existing logos. I went with names that are more european, than american. hope you enjoy

Don't Like LA, Seattle, nor San Jose. I also don't like the name changes to some of the teams Athletico doesn't belong with the Earthquakes in my opinion

[TheBlueBomber]

After everything that's been said, I'll just say a couple things. The OP didn't make that Houston logo. That's the oroginal Houtson 1836 logo that got scrapped because of the controversy about the name, but with "1836" replaced with "Dynamo".

That being said. I LOVE it. Because I always loved that original logo, I just wished they had added the new name it it instead of replacing it entirely with the generic one they use now. So thank you OP for doing that.

The reason why I (and I might speak for a few others here) reacted so poorly to your concepts was that I misinterpreted your concept as a set of rebrands. But your goal was to Europeanize MLS. That wasn't incredibly clear in the title or your original post. That matters because Europeanizing MLS is something that is very unpopular with the majority of MLS fans, so if your goal with this concept is to Europeanize our league, simply say so at first. Myself and others who don't appreciate a Europeanized MLS would've just avoided the thread to begin with.

If you want to debate the merit of making MLS Europeanized instead of Americanized, the place to do that is mlssoccer.com, where I and others could pick your arguments apart (lol I say that in a lighthearted way), not here.

As for the actual logos themselves, I think everyone else has already covered that. Peace.

[macalesterscots]

Sorry to further hijack this thread, but I feel the need to address some comments made here as they go to the core of this board. So:

I can take criticism. What I'm talking about is all the nit-picky stuff, the fact that people can't look past their biases, which act as a sort of beer goggles that change how they see a design. They can't put away their biases and look at logo and critique it on its own merit.

You must be new here. "Nit-picky" stuff is what can make or break a logo, in my opinion. The little stuff can make a logo great, and therefore not having that little stuff and missing an opportunity downgrades a logo.

A couple things:

1) A quick glance at his profile and your profile (5 seconds tops) shows me you are "newer here" than OP is. Even if I include the possibility that you "lurked" for an extended period of time, the OP, having been here for the better part of two years, is by no means "no here". So that claim was proven wrong rather easily.

2) The "nit-picky stuff" he is referring to and the "nit-picky stuff" you are referring to are two different things entirely, and conflating the two does harm to the creative community the board has tried to create. I don't think anything would argue that the "nit-picky stuff" you are referring to makes or breaks a logo. A certain curve has an amount of tension throwing off the movement of a logo or some improper kerning? Yes, by all means, it does affect the logo and should be fixed. Of course. The "nit-picky stuff" he is referring to, on the other hand, does not make or break the logo. The premise of his concept was Europeanizing the MLS, and part of this Europeanization involved changing the names of some teams. Rather than focus on whether he successfully Europeanized the MLS, people complained about him changing team names, something pretty inconsequential to the overall impression of a logo. It was just a fun little thing, changing the names to better fit within the European sphere which he tried to create in this concept. Like I said in my previous post, people chose to reject the premise and question that rather than question whether he did what he set out to do.

After everything that's been said, I'll just say a couple things. The OP didn't make that Houston logo. That's the oroginal Houtson 1836 logo that got scrapped because of the controversy about the name, but with "1836" replaced with "Dynamo".

That being said. I LOVE it. Because I always loved that original logo, I just wished they had added the new name it it instead of replacing it entirely with the generic one they use now. So thank you OP for doing that.

The reason why I (and I might speak for a few others here) reacted so poorly to your concepts was that I misinterpreted your concept as a set of rebrands. But your goal was to Europeanize MLS. That wasn't incredibly clear in the title or your original post. That matters because Europeanizing MLS is something that is very unpopular with the majority of MLS fans, so if your goal with this concept is to Europeanize our league, simply say so at first. Myself and others who don't appreciate a Europeanized MLS would've just avoided the thread to begin with.

If you want to debate the merit of making MLS Europeanized instead of Americanized, the place to do that is mlssoccer.com, where I and others could pick your arguments apart (lol I say that in a lighthearted way), not here.

As for the actual logos themselves, I think everyone else has already covered that. Peace.

1) As I said before, OP could have been clearer in the naming of his concept and pointing out his goals at the beginning of the post. However, upon reading the original post he made, I felt it was pretty obvious that he wanted to go with "names that are more european, than american". I struggle to think of any other possible interpretation of those words, although I admit the title ought to have reflected this.

2) I don't see anywhere in the thread where he said he wanted to "debate the merit of making MLS Europeanized instead of Americanized", so I don't know why you felt the need to bring that up. He was merely performing an exercise where he made MLS Europeanized; he didn't argue one way or the other. I am not going to go down the rabbit hole of whether they should or not, because I've hijacked this thread enough already, but I do agree that the concepts forum is not the place to argue that.

Morals of the story:

1) Titles should be descriptive, clearly and specifically identifying the goals of the concept.

2) Read posts carefully, then comment.

3) Give constructive criticism to help the original poster accomplish his goal. Do not criticize the goal itself.

Happy posting!!

[SplashBoogie]

The MLS logos are fine as they are. The American-style names aren't something you want to mess with either. Sorry.

I'm going to agree with this. FC Dallas's name doesn't make sense in a league that is called Major League Soccer. We don't call it football so if anything has to be used then SC but even then there's nothing wrong with American style names. America (and Canada) should be embracing it's brand of soccer and not trying to become England West. It's like do you see the Nippon League try to emulate the Yankees with their logos. No and they shouldn't. Japanese Baseball isn't New York. They embrace their Japanese logo styles and have unique logos as a result.

That's my two bits on the name changes. That said the only crest that feels like an improvement is Orlando because of the superior outlining on yours. I like the use of gold. Houston and FC Dallas are lateral moves (not a huge fan of how overpowering red is in the new crest) but I'm not liking any of the other ones.

I like the mindset of trying to find ways to improve current sets and I hope you keep with that eye, but this seems like a miss to me overall.

[jdp]

Red Bull - I like the original shield better

Portland - I understand the addition of red, but it still makes it to Christmas-y for my taste

LA - It’s a good idea—with maybe a bit too much red—but I agree with Nyk33 “…something that would be shown in an LAFC Concept series…”

RSL - I like the addition of the crown; the RSL monogram, though, I’ve never liked

Houston - They should implement that now

I’ve never liked the KC and San Jose crests, so I’m not sure you could’ve impressed me much with those, unless you started from scratch. Great that you got rid of the KC gradient, though.

The others just seem unnecessary. Although, I do like some of the name changes, most notably: Centennial Colorado, Vancouver Athletic, Athletico San Jose

[LoyolaProp1]

I really can't stand the MLS's and its fans insistence that they must be more European. Why must it be called "football" by the hipster fan club scarf toting d-bags? What is so wrong with calling it soccer? I am an FC Dallas fan, but it drives me freaking nuts that its not SC Dallas. We are playing soccer aren't we? Sporting KC? That doesn't even make sense. MLS didn't have this issue in the Dallas Burn days. I just don't get it. If you want soccer to be accepted in America, don't act like its some foreign niche game owned by a bunch of Europeans.

[TheBlueBomber]

Forgot one thing: I actually really liked what you did with the Orlando crests's outline. I always felt that the shield was a little too rushed in the original design, so it's nice to see some extra outlining. Nice.

[Wgeddes122]

I really can't stand the MLS's and its fans insistence that they must be more European. Why must it be called "football" by the hipster fan club scarf toting d-bags? What is so wrong with calling it soccer? I am an FC Dallas fan, but it drives me freaking nuts that its not SC Dallas. We are playing soccer aren't we? Sporting KC? That doesn't even make sense. MLS didn't have this issue in the Dallas Burn days. I just don't get it. If you want soccer to be accepted in America, don't act like its some foreign niche game owned by a bunch of Europeans.

It helps elevate the level of the league. Now I do agree that if they are fc then they should probably be sc, however it is still "football". Soccer isn't even an American word, it's actually a British term that puts the suffix "er" on a shortened version of association (soc+cer) as in association football. Sporting JC does make sense it's a sporting club, it has the soccer team but also helps promote other sports like lacrosse. I played in the KC lacrosse championship which was put up in sporting park. It like sporting Lisbon or any other sporting club. The thing is soccer is growing in America and people like the more European style names with obviously home influence. Atlanta will be called Atlanta united which I don't like they haven't merged anything, but one of their proposed names Atlanta rise sc which would been a good mix of American style and european

[rsaline]

Of these modifications, I think I like NY Red Bulls best. However, the white space below "New York" is kind of awkward, maybe you could change that by moving the ball down into that space.

[wquarton]

Really like the Houston one.

[wquarton]

Although I'm not a fan of changing the galaxy's logo(I think currently they are the most recognizable team in MLS and would be foolish to make any changes), I like the idea of the California Republic colours/style being used for an LA based club. Would you consider coming up with something along these lines for the new (I believe logo-less) LAFC? Personally I think something along those lines would make for the perfect rival