The Old-Continent League of American Football project (All teams added, NOW IN BEHANCE! )

[Josef_Bretones]

On 6/1/2020 at 12:01 AM, darkpiranha said:

Love it!  What would an alt with a bit more of the silver/metal look like?  What if you made the helmet blank, but with the neck guard coming up the back?  

 

On 6/1/2020 at 4:08 PM, Josef_Bretones said:

I like the idea of the neck guard going up the back. I think I'm going to try it. Thanks for that idea.

Ok, I rectify. I can't get a minimally satisfactory result. I prefer, at least for the moment, to leave it as it is.

[Josef_Bretones]

And finally here we have the last team from the Western Europe Division, the West Conference and the entire league: the Amsterdam MERCHANTS.
The name of the team is associated with the important naval history of the Netherlands. For several centuries they maintained one of the most important colonial empires in the world thanks to their merchant ships. The color scheme was evident given the typical colors of the Netherlands. For the uniforms I have also been somewhat inspired by the New York teams that wear these colors: Mets, Islanders and over Knicks (his shirt is one of my three favorites in the NBA)
The Merchants play at the Emporio Arena of Amsterdam.

 

Mood Board:

 

Logo, wordmarks, numbers and slogan:

 

Uniforms and helmet:

 

Alternative uniform and helmet:

C&c welcome!

 

[jbird669]

1 hour ago, Josef_Bretones said:

And finally here we have the last team from the Western Europe Division, the West Conference and the entire league: the Amsterdam MERCHANTS.
The name of the team is associated with the important naval history of the Netherlands. For several centuries they maintained one of the most important colonial empires in the world thanks to their merchant ships. The color scheme was evident given the typical colors of the Netherlands. For the uniforms I have also been somewhat inspired by the New York teams that wear these colors: Mets, Islanders and over Knicks (his shirt is one of my three favorites in the NBA)
The Merchants play at the Emporio Arena of Amsterdam.

 

Mood Board:

 

Logo, wordmarks, numbers and slogan:

 

Uniforms and helmet:

 

Alternative uniform and helmet:

C&c welcome!

 

I love the colors, but it needs more Orange! LOL

[stumpygremlin]

24 minutes ago, jbird669 said:

I love the colors, but it needs more Orange! LOL

Yes. I'd say get rid of the gray jersey and pants and replace them with orange.

[Josef_Bretones]

I liked the suggestions. More presence of the orange color. Here the update:

[_DietDrPepper_]

I disagree, i think the grey pants look good, ties it all in together nice, orange pants would be excessive. Good job, one of my favorite sets and identities in this league!

[Josef_Bretones]

Finally, all the OCLAF teams are already shown. It has been great to be able to share them with the Community and I sincerely believe that your suggestions have improved them beyond my imagination. I would like OCLAF not to end here and I have some idea to continue making it grow (match schedule, mockups, expansions?) But now I must put it aside a bit because it has been almost two months focused solely on it and it is time for me to focus in other things: my wife, my job, Logolympiad (hehe) ...

 

 

But before I die of curiosity to know which team has liked more. So since we are in Logolympiad time I want to ask all of you who have followed the list to tell me and tell which of the 32 teams you thought was best. Also which has seemed worse if you want. And of course I would like to know why. Always with constructivism please. You already know that the designer's ego is fragile, hehe.

 

I link the teams here so you don't have to be looking for them by topic:

 

 

NORTH CONFERENCE

Scandinavian Division: Oslo Invaders, Copenhagen Princes, Stockholm Polars, Helsinki Stags.

North-Central Division: Berlin Breakers, Munich Monks, Hamburg Protectors, Prague Golems.

 

SOUTH CONFERENCE

Iberian Division: Porto Explorers, Lisbon Atlantics, Madrid Royals, Barcelona Segadors.

Mediterranean Division: Roma Wolves, Napoli Volcanoes, Marseille Sailors, Athens Mighties.

 

EAST CONFERENCE

Orient Division: Moscow Redstars, Kiev Cossacks, Bucharest Vampires, Istanbul Sultans.

Central Division: Wien Devils, Budapest Imperials, Zagreb Rebels, Warsaw Lancers.

 

WEST CONFERENCE

British Division: Cardiff Dragons, London Corsairs, Glasgow Gaelics, Manchester Steampunks.

Western Europe Division: Paris 89ers, Zurich Guards, Ghent Keizers, Amsterdam Merchants.

 

Thank you all for your comments.

 

[Sebastianm]

you can go to ahsports to hopefully see these teams in an alternate history if you want to!

[sportsfan7]

I figure I'll break this down by conference and I'll only judge the logos.

 

North:

Favorite: Invaders - This is definitely the most unique logo in the conference and it is also very detailed.

Least Favorite: Protectors - This should have something on the shield. It just seems so boring.

 

South:

Favorite: Atlantics - If I am being honest, I'm not quite sure what draws me to this, but I think the colors work well together.

Least Favorite: Volcanoes - Its a good logo, but it just seems a little cartoon-like fore a football team.

 

East:

Favorite: Red Stars - Even though it is basic, this logo conveys a certain amount of strength and power.

Least Favorite: Vampires - I think this is a solid logo, but I don't think the colors work well together. I would do either purple or pink and use that with a different color.

 

West:

Favorite: Corsairs - This was probably my toughest decision. The logo is probably the most detailed view a skull I have seen.

Least Favorite: Merchants - This doesn't really look like a traditional anchor logo. If I were to guess what the team name was based on the logo, I wouldn't guess Merchants.

 

Overall:

Favorite: Invaders - As I said above, this is a very unique logo with a very detailed pattern.

Least Favorite: Protectors - I just think there needs to be something on the shield.

 

All in all, great series!

[HRC4]

Individually, I love each logo, but when I see them all together, a couple things pop out to me.
1. Every single logo has a stroke around the whole logo.

2. Every single word mark is the city and the nickname being in different sized fonts with different colors stacked on top of each other. I just checked out my wordmarks that I do for my fantasy football leagues, and I definitely fall into this trap as well.

I guess my suggestion is to not be afraid to try new things with your logos. The best threads on here, in my opinion, are the ones where I can't tell that it's the same designer making each logo. That each one feels unique. Don't get me wrong, your logos are much better than anything I could come up with on my own, but those things stuck out to me.

[Josef_Bretones]

7 minutes ago, HRC4 said:

Individually, I love each logo, but when I see them all together, a couple things pop out to me.
1. Every single logo has a stroke around the whole logo.

2. Every single word mark is the city and the nickname being in different sized fonts with different colors stacked on top of each other. I just checked out my wordmarks that I do for my fantasy football leagues, and I definitely fall into this trap as well.

I guess my suggestion is to not be afraid to try new things with your logos. The best threads on here, in my opinion, are the ones where I can't tell that it's the same designer making each logo. That each one feels unique. Don't get me wrong, your logos are much better than anything I could come up with on my own, but those things stuck out to me.

You're right. I could say that I have been cautious with this league because I want to establish it as the basis for my future work. In my head I intend to establish classic rules with OCLAF that I will later break with new ideas in new series. Although in the end we all have a way of working and a personal seal.

[Dan O'Mac]

My favorite is Lisbon. The Atlantics are a great looking team.

 

My least favorite is Prague. The Golems just didn't click for me. The logo is well done, but isn't a design that draws my attention, personally.

[sky1324]

I just can't help loving the Sultans. The Panthers influence is awesome and the jerseys were some of your best. Amsterdam and Cardiff are also amazing. I'll echo that some of your logos feel the same, but that's a common trap that just about every designer falls into, myself included. Your work is great and this series is one of the best I've seen in a while.

[Josef_Bretones]

It's funny because as a designer I want my designs to have my personal stamp and at the same time be different from each other (I know I have repeated some patterns and I have done this consciously (Breakers vs Cossacks, Gaelics vs Guards, Rebels vs Lancers) because I also it was a way to go deeper into a technique refinement. Right now I can only think of the Alliance of American Football as an example of a league whose designs are all by the same designer.
Perhaps an interesting idea would be for some designers to get together and create a new league between all of us. Each one made a design. With minimal requirements. But it would be interesting to see how in that league each team has its own personality.

[sky1324]

27 minutes ago, Josef_Bretones said:

It's funny because as a designer I want my designs to have my personal stamp and at the same time be different from each other (I know I have repeated some patterns and I have done this consciously (Breakers vs Cossacks, Gaelics vs Guards, Rebels vs Lancers) because I also it was a way to go deeper into a technique refinement. Right now I can only think of the Alliance of American Football as an example of a league whose designs are all by the same designer.
Perhaps an interesting idea would be for some designers to get together and create a new league between all of us. Each one made a design. With minimal requirements. But it would be interesting to see how in that league each team has its own personality.

Right, there needs to be a balance between the designer's personal mark and style and creating a varied-looking league. This is usually only a problem in concept leagues where the entire thing is done by one person, but sometimes you can begin to tell when a certain designer made a logo. For example, you can pretty clearly tell that the same designer made both the Pelicans and Hornets in the NBA (RARE Design, who've actually made a ton more logos I never knew about) which bothers me, but in the long run isn't a problem. (Funnily enough, they're also responsible for every logo in the NBA 2K League, which has the biggest "same-y" problem I've ever seen.)

[Josef_Bretones]

Hi again, everybody!

Nineteen months have passed since I finished this topic. In between a lot of exciting things (I won the X Logolympiad!!!) and some not so exciting things but I have started uploading the final projects of the OCLAF teams on my Behance profile. The difference with respect to what I have shown you here is that I have created the definitive uniforms (that all of you helped me to finish) in Mockup render.

I invite you all to visit my profile and give it a like if you like it.

Thanks a lot!   

https://www.behance.net/JosefBretones