Ann Arbor Blues hockey concept

[deked73]

A continuation of teams from a minor league or semi-pro league the Great Lakes Hockey Assoc. Following the Marathon Argos and the Chicago Huskies. 

 

These are the Ann Arbor Blues. Not like the music blues but the color after the Michigan Wolverines. The the oak tree and the three stripes on the roundel and throughout the design comes from the flag of Ann Arbor. 

 

The shield logo is to have a university look to it with the Latin phrase "Fortes Fortuna Iuvat" meaning "Fortune Favors the Brave" 

 

I have some ideas for teams but any  ideas for teams would be welcomed. Teams do not need to be on the lake just in states and provinces  surrounding them. 

 

Next possible team is the Mackinac Islanders or another name, maybe a team in Green Bay or somewhere in Wisconsin.

 

Any comments welcomed and appreciated. This will be sent to HJC later on

 

[timberwolf]

It looks solid. One nitpick would be to add a stripe on the hem of the alternate to fulfill the three-stripe design flow. I'm a sucker of double blue so bonus points for that.

[deked73]

bump

[hockey week]

I can't believe this is the first I've seen of this league. Maybe because it's not a megathread and instead each team gets its own thread, idk. 

 

I'm really against names that have no real tangible image tied to them, especially after being a Laker in college. You certainly made a great looking team, really it's a solid identity, but I had no idea why the name was picked until I read it. Michigan and "Go Blue!" didn't click until I read it, and I knew that U of M is in Ann Arbor. I think there has to be some gold to make that connection work, or mimic the helmet stripe somehow, there has to be some bigger reference, I think.

 

But to do that, you'd have to change your very good looking team. I don't think I'd want to see that either, because it looks really good. So I'm really torn. Maybe the change should come in the logo, which is somewhat generic. I get there's no good way to show "blues", but some bigger reference to the Wolverines would complete this overall image.

 

As for the league 1) make a map. Having done a few league-wide projects that aren't just already-established teams, so much gets overlooked, and realism with logistics and such starts to get overlooked.  2) I really hope you put a team in Erie, PA. They're so often overlooked, and it's such a great minor league market with tremendous history. 

[deked73]

Updated versions. Changed the main crests to the roundel and made the A-Blues the alt. Changed the striping in the shield shoulder logos so the striping is horizontal and not vertical. Found the Ann Arbor FC logo, they have the vertical stripes and a two tone blue color with an oak tree in the center. Much too close to what I did, so i rotated the striping to match the uniform and the flag for the city of Ann Arbor.

[seattlesonicsofsacramento]

As an Ann Arborite who doesn't have much knowledge about hockey uniform design, I figured I'd give my opinion anyway. As generic as the name sounds, it is a bit clever of a GO BLUE workaround. I think you realized when you looked up the AFC Ann Arbor logo what happens when a team takes the city flag and tries to make a logo out of it in double blue. Your primary logo does seem to differentiate itself enough from AFCAA though, using the 3 stripes pretty well I'd say.

 

That said, I'm not feeling the shoulder logo. Seems too busy for something that appears that small on the uniform, and it doesn't seem to match the overall look. In fact, there's a bit of a disconnect between your primary logo, your secondary logo, and that shoulder logo. I'm not feeling a real cohesive team identity. One thing I might suggest is, instead of going with an Argonauts-esque block A logo for the secondary, try to do something with AA or A², which is what the locals refer to Ann Arbor as.

 

There is a decent music history in Ann Arbor, maybe not so much with the blues but definitely with early punk rock and, more recently, noise, so if you wanted to explore that theme for the shoulder logo or something, that might be worth looking into. But yeah, especially with the shoulder logo looking so much like AFCAA's (could be through no fault of your own, just probably a go-to idea for designers of Ann Arbor double blue logos) it seems like it could use a change.