Houston Galaxy NHL Expansion Concept

[Stampman]

At one point there was talk of another NHL franchise in Texas, based out of Houston.

At one point, many years ago there was talk of the Edmonton Oilers moving to Houston--I don't know how serious it was and how much was an attempt to get people to buy more tickets or to access tax dollars, etc.

I never heard any serious discussion of what the team might be called, but many suggested sticking with the Oilers name--for obvious reasons.

As for the uniform--it is a little busy, but not bad, so if you simplified it & cleared it up a bit--it would be better.

[TrueNorth13]

So, I almost completely redid the concept. I renamed the team to the Houston Apollos, thanks to the suggestion of a user on here. I also learned that there was a Houston Apollos hockey team, so it plays into Houston's hockey history, without stealing the Aeros name. I think that name belongs in the AHL, especially if an AHL team returns, because we all know, teams move every year in the AHL. Anyway, the primary changes were minimal. I put the team name in the ring, to minimize any mess it had before. I also added a puck at the end of the ring, because I thought it looked cool. The shoulder logo is now simply a star with an A for Apollos. Kind of like the H star with the Astros, but not completely stealing it. Just changing it a bit. The alternate rocket ship got redesigned. The body of the ship is now an A and an H. The uniforms minor changes include stars instead of the skyline on the sleeves, and the number font is new. Its the closest I could find to match the script font I used. The alternate uniform is based off of the former Houston Apollos uniform, with the new colours and sleeve stripes added. I feel this new set is a major upgrade from what I had originally.

[Guest darkpiranha]

Hmm... Not sure I like all the changes. It's gotten way too busy. We have the planet, with the ring now turning into a puck, and the star, and the skyline, AND a long wordmark in a hard-to-read font.

I think the planet, with the star and skyline, but eliminating the wordmark and the puck would make for a very clean logo.

The font especially is hard to read on the logo. On the rocketship where before you had something that read as an "H", now I see an odd A with some other shape below it that isn't a letter, but my brain is trying to decipher it as a letter.

Instead of the star, what if you had the rocketship (just the shape, no letters inside of it) rising out of the skyline with a trail, and even breaking through the top of the globe?

[TrueNorth13]

Hmm... Not sure I like all the changes. It's gotten way too busy. We have the planet, with the ring now turning into a puck, and the star, and the skyline, AND a long wordmark in a hard-to-read font.

I think the planet, with the star and skyline, but eliminating the wordmark and the puck would make for a very clean logo.

The font especially is hard to read on the logo. On the rocketship where before you had something that read as an "H", now I see an odd A with some other shape below it that isn't a letter, but my brain is trying to decipher it as a letter.

Instead of the star, what if you had the rocketship (just the shape, no letters inside of it) rising out of the skyline with a trail, and even breaking through the top of the globe?

A couple things. If this were to be a real jersey, the logo would be larger, and therefore, easier to read. Houston Apollos is not a long name. If you're brain is trying to decipher the H as a letter, than its doing its job. Because it is a letter. I wasn't trying to make it black and white, I wanted it to be harder to make out, but still pretty clear on what it is, and I think it is pretty clear. And I think a rocket ship instead of the star would make things even messier, even though what I have now, which is much cleaner than the original, isn't terribly messy. Adding a detailed rocket breaking through the outline adds far too much detail to what I have right now. Its also not a globe, it's Saturn. And ships don't break through planets. Just my take, though. I can understand your criticism, but when you contradict yourself in the same comment, it kinda disvalues your comment to me. (The contradiction was the logo being too busy, but then suggesting to add more detail with a rocket in the logo)

[wquarton]

I was thinking I might change the name. I don't have many ideas that fit the space theme. But I was thinking maybe Cosmos. What do people think about that? Any other ideas?

Lets just see how many overrated soccer teams we can rip off

But seriously, as a hockey fan, I find that the colours seem a little... kid-ish. It reminds me of maybe a junior team but I don't think Classic NHL franchise when I look at it.

Also, I think both the shoulder patch and the alternate logo are much better than the main. If it was me I would ditch the main(or make it a simpler shoulder patch/alternate), make the shoulder or alternate the main and go from there. I'd also like to mention that it doesn't need to say the team name on the main, most actually don't.

Sorry to be critical, The concepts got potential though.

[Guest darkpiranha]

Hmm... Not sure I like all the changes. It's gotten way too busy. We have the planet, with the ring now turning into a puck, and the star, and the skyline, AND a long wordmark in a hard-to-read font.

I think the planet, with the star and skyline, but eliminating the wordmark and the puck would make for a very clean logo.

The font especially is hard to read on the logo. On the rocketship where before you had something that read as an "H", now I see an odd A with some other shape below it that isn't a letter, but my brain is trying to decipher it as a letter.

Instead of the star, what if you had the rocketship (just the shape, no letters inside of it) rising out of the skyline with a trail, and even breaking through the top of the globe?

A couple things. If this were to be a real jersey, the logo would be larger, and therefore, easier to read. Houston Apollos is not a long name. If you're brain is trying to decipher the H as a letter, than its doing its job. Because it is a letter. I wasn't trying to make it black and white, I wanted it to be harder to make out, but still pretty clear on what it is, and I think it is pretty clear. And I think a rocket ship instead of the star would make things even messier, even though what I have now, which is much cleaner than the original, isn't terribly messy. Adding a detailed rocket breaking through the outline adds far too much detail to what I have right now. Its also not a globe, it's Saturn. And ships don't break through planets. Just my take, though. I can understand your criticism, but when you contradict yourself in the same comment, it kinda disvalues your comment to me. (The contradiction was the logo being too busy, but then suggesting to add more detail with a rocket in the logo

Hmm... I don't know that further commentary will be received in the spirit in which it's given, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

First off, everything is just a suggestion. It's YOUR concept and you can always do what you want, according the vision you have, and to the extent you're willing to work on it. People, including myself, will suggest lots and lots of things, and it's then in your court whether any of those suggestions inspire you to tweak or improve your design. I don't know where you are on your journey of learning graphic design, but this tolerance of feedback and suggestions is obviously different for everyone. I gave you a variety of feedback, and several suggestions, not all of which were meant to be incorporated at all, much less at the same time. My overall assessment would be to simplify everything significantly, but barring that, if your personal style leans more towards complex ("busy") logos, then one suggestion I had would be to replace one element (the star) with another element (the rocket) and give it some dynamism by having it break free from the rest of the logo. Yes, it's a Saturn, but for design/shape discussion purposes, it's a globe, especially since inside of it we have a skyline which suggests a domed city (I know it's not at all that, but it gives the sphere a dual purpose, which I think is actually kind of neat). The font? We'll just have to agree to disagree. I find the font as used in the ring to be way too complicated with all the dot-shapes. The outline around it makes it more muddled which if it's just one solid color, it might mitigate it somewhat. And I'm staring at the rocket, and I don't see an H. My brain logically knows it's intended to be some sort of H shape, but it's definitely not there in any sort of visual way. I see a pi shape, but if that's supposed to be an H, it's missing the top half of what makes it an H. If the top letter is supposed to be the H, that's not working either, because that would make it backwards. I read the top part as a lower-case A.

Overall, I think you've got what is the basis of a great design, but I think it's just a bit overstuffed in trying to be all things and make every change someone suggested. As stated earlier, you don't have to incorporate ALL of our suggestions or even any of them. Personally, I thought Galaxy was a perfectly good name and was surprised you opted to change it. But Apollos works, too.

Anyway, good luck! Looking forward to your next designs.

[TrueNorth13]

Hmm... Not sure I like all the changes. It's gotten way too busy. We have the planet, with the ring now turning into a puck, and the star, and the skyline, AND a long wordmark in a hard-to-read font.

I think the planet, with the star and skyline, but eliminating the wordmark and the puck would make for a very clean logo.

The font especially is hard to read on the logo. On the rocketship where before you had something that read as an "H", now I see an odd A with some other shape below it that isn't a letter, but my brain is trying to decipher it as a letter.

Instead of the star, what if you had the rocketship (just the shape, no letters inside of it) rising out of the skyline with a trail, and even breaking through the top of the globe?

A couple things. If this were to be a real jersey, the logo would be larger, and therefore, easier to read. Houston Apollos is not a long name. If you're brain is trying to decipher the H as a letter, than its doing its job. Because it is a letter. I wasn't trying to make it black and white, I wanted it to be harder to make out, but still pretty clear on what it is, and I think it is pretty clear. And I think a rocket ship instead of the star would make things even messier, even though what I have now, which is much cleaner than the original, isn't terribly messy. Adding a detailed rocket breaking through the outline adds far too much detail to what I have right now. Its also not a globe, it's Saturn. And ships don't break through planets. Just my take, though. I can understand your criticism, but when you contradict yourself in the same comment, it kinda disvalues your comment to me. (The contradiction was the logo being too busy, but then suggesting to add more detail with a rocket in the logo

Hmm... I don't know that further commentary will be received in the spirit in which it's given, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

First off, everything is just a suggestion. It's YOUR concept and you can always do what you want, according the vision you have, and to the extent you're willing to work on it. People, including myself, will suggest lots and lots of things, and it's then in your court whether any of those suggestions inspire you to tweak or improve your design. I don't know where you are on your journey of learning graphic design, but this tolerance of feedback and suggestions is obviously different for everyone. I gave you a variety of feedback, and several suggestions, not all of which were meant to be incorporated at all, much less at the same time. My overall assessment would be to simplify everything significantly, but barring that, if your personal style leans more towards complex ("busy") logos, then one suggestion I had would be to replace one element (the star) with another element (the rocket) and give it some dynamism by having it break free from the rest of the logo. Yes, it's a Saturn, but for design/shape discussion purposes, it's a globe, especially since inside of it we have a skyline which suggests a domed city (I know it's not at all that, but it gives the sphere a dual purpose, which I think is actually kind of neat). The font? We'll just have to agree to disagree. I find the font as used in the ring to be way too complicated with all the dot-shapes. The outline around it makes it more muddled which if it's just one solid color, it might mitigate it somewhat. And I'm staring at the rocket, and I don't see an H. My brain logically knows it's intended to be some sort of H shape, but it's definitely not there in any sort of visual way. I see a pi shape, but if that's supposed to be an H, it's missing the top half of what makes it an H. If the top letter is supposed to be the H, that's not working either, because that would make it backwards. I read the top part as a lower-case A.

Overall, I think you've got what is the basis of a great design, but I think it's just a bit overstuffed in trying to be all things and make every change someone suggested. As stated earlier, you don't have to incorporate ALL of our suggestions or even any of them. Personally, I thought Galaxy was a perfectly good name and was surprised you opted to change it. But Apollos works, too.

Anyway, good luck! Looking forward to your next designs.

I truly thank you for and appreciate your comments. Sorry for the way I've responded to them, I'm still getting used to getting criticism. But I do think many point that were made, were solid and I could've responded differently. The first post I made on here, didn't garner very good comments, in anyone's standard, so I started off not on a great foot. But I'm changing the way I view the criticism. So thanks for all the criticism. Some has been harsh, but I think as a person who is just starting to create concepts, I need the harsh stuff first.

[Guest darkpiranha]

Well, so far, you haven't needed any harsh stuff! I don't know what sort of experience you have going into this, but for your first post in these forums (apologies if you'd posted another one prior, I haven't seen it), this is a solid effort. I'll say it again. Simplify what you have so far, and you'll have a great, iconic look. The Saturn shape is very strong completely on its own, as you can see with the little mono-color shapes you have in the graphic. Think of it the same way the Lightning had a kind of busy logo with the wordmark incorporated, with extraneous stuff, but just by simplifying a little bit, they now have an incredibly iconic logo and look.

As far as feedback goes, think of it as FEEDBACK, as opposed to CRITICISM. I don't like that word as it causes one to automatically feel defensive about getting it. For my job, I do a lot of video editing, writing, and graphic design (all of which results in multiple layers of feedback on every single project), and the key to getting feedback is to first NOT take it personal, and second NOT take it as definitive. If you're lucky enough to get feedback from multiple sources, you're in a great position to analyze that feedback to correlate all the different data to see what REALLY is probably going on with your work. People don't always know what it is that is bugging them about something, and they may say things like "It's too busy", or "That line of dialogue doesn't make any sense." or whatever. If you get similar notes from more than one person, then that usually means that SOMEthing is going on. For example, we've all seen busy logos that are perfectly acceptable and iconic. We've all seen logos with wordmarks incorporated and we're fine with it. We've all seen designs that have lots of bold colors that on the surface seem odd, but for some reason just work. So when you get feedback from multiple sources that something is just off, it's worth it to kind of break apart your project and look at it from a different perspective. Maybe it's not too busy, but just that the colors clash in a way that makes the logo hard to read. Maybe there are too many different distinct shapes that conflict with the overall feel, and changing just one of the shapes would make it all flow better. Maybe part of a logo really just wants to be at a different angle to make it feel more balanced. Maybe one part of it just needs to be bigger. There are a million underlying reasons why someone could be giving you a particular set of feedback, and the fun part of the creative person's journey is figuring out how to translate feedback into tweaks both little and large.

Finally, just check out some of the bigger players here on the site, like Sparky Chewbarky, or Raysox, or Windell, and see how they incorporated (or ignored) feedback. I give Sparky feedback and crazy suggestions on almost everything he does, and I'm always fascinated to see his updates that have taken my and others' suggestions into consideration, but went in completely different directions, but always making the design much much stronger.

Any and every suggestion you get could take you down an incredible road you never thought of, so in the end, just always be open to listening and you'll do great.

[Kam]

Looks alright. The only thing I don't like in the original is the placement of the star. I'm assuming that star is suppose to be where Houston is at. Looks like you placed it more in Corpus Christi.

Not crazy about the colors, it just doesn't seem "Houston" enough.

[wquarton]

Hahaha don't worry about it. First post I made I got ripped with criticism and repsonded poorly too. You learn to understand what the hivemind wants

Like darkpiranha said, we just look at it and say what comes to mind immediately - and assume you will take it as such. I've often got feedback that I've ignored, but at the same time, if 6 people say the same thing you might wanna listen.

You will be amazed what you can end up with if you take feedback the right way though. I've slapped together some designs and posted them up, got torn to shreds and then ended up with something amazing 5 or 6 posts later. It's worth it.