Arena Football Project

[BengalErnst]

You hit on basically all my favorites growing up. The arena league was pretty big where I was from. My friends and I all had parents that had season tickets to Barnstormer games.

 

The only additions I’d like to see you make would be the Grand Rapids Rampage, Toronto Phantoms, Oklahoma City Yard Dawgs and the Colorado Crush

[WideRight]

Next up today are the Arizona Rattlers.  Their R-rattler is one of my favorite logos of all time, and I love their original color scheme of turquoise, copper and black.  The changes made in later years I generally don't like as much, with one exception, the snakeskin sleeve pattern, so I tried to incorporate it here, with midling success.  

 

[_DietDrPepper_]

The Jags font doesn't work, neither does the snakeskin pattern. I'd carry over the pant stripe to the sleeves, no more contrasting sleeve colors either 

[MJWalker45]

7 minutes ago, _DietDrPepper_ said:

The Jags font doesn't work, neither does the snakeskin pattern. I'd carry over the pant stripe to the sleeves, no more contrasting sleeve colors either 

I think the snakeskin works but I like that pants striping even better. 

[WideRight]

I may revisit Arizona.  I love the snakeskin pattern on the actual jerseys, but I don't think my recreation of it works well, so I might redo that.  Not sure what the problem with the Jags font is.  Seems to go well with the angular qualities of the logo/pants.  I will consider. 

 

But first, our 3rd reveal of the day.  A team with a wild, but pretty good-looking color scheme, but, in my mind a logo that does not work at all (looks like SMU had a baby with U. Michigan), so I reinvented the Mustang Logo (and not the one they went with in the late 2000's, which I did not like at all), but stuck with a lot of elements from the original Mustangs identiy. 

 

Black, Purple & Teal Green.  What a weird combo for the Upper Midwest!!!

 

Your Milwaukee Mustangs!!!

 

[MilSox]

Indiana: The uniforms look great.  Although I'm disappointed that they're not in Albany.  I kind of see them as being to the AFL what Green Bay is to the NFL.  Not many cities embraced arena ball and their team the way Albany did with the Firebirds.

Arizona: No complaints here.  You either stuck with what worked for them, or improved on it.

Milwaukee: Very torn on this one.  You stayed true to their identity, which (as you alluded to) definitely hasn't aged well.  Although a lot of buildings in the Milwaukee area that were being renovated at this time were given purple and/or teal makeovers, which may have had an influence on the Mustangs identity.  That said, I would probably start by tweaking the colors to be more similar to what the Bucks were using at the time.

[neo_prankster]

Nice job on Milwaukee, but I am not too crazy about the mane being disconnected from the head.

[the_grateful_ted]

8 minutes ago, neo_prankster said:

Nice job on Milwaukee, but I am not too crazy about the mane being disconnected from the head.

I was about to say the same thing, it definitely looks a little odd. Connect it and it'll look much improved

[mkg74]

8 hours ago, WideRight said:

I may revisit Arizona.  I love the snakeskin pattern on the actual jerseys, but I don't think my recreation of it works well, so I might redo that.  Not sure what the problem with the Jags font is.  Seems to go well with the angular qualities of the logo/pants.  I will consider. 

 

But first, our 3rd reveal of the day.  A team with a wild, but pretty good-looking color scheme, but, in my mind a logo that does not work at all (looks like SMU had a baby with U. Michigan), so I reinvented the Mustang Logo (and not the one they went with in the late 2000's, which I did not like at all), but stuck with a lot of elements from the original Mustangs identiy. 

 

Black, Purple & Teal Green.  What a weird combo for the Upper Midwest!!!

 

Your Milwaukee Mustangs!!!

 

I like the darker purple. In real life it was more a blue ish purple(think Kansas ST purple). Which made it seem so bland. The purple makes the teal pop out a bit more

 

the Rattlers look awesome. I’d prefer a black home jersey but that’s me!

 

the Firebirds are flawless. 

[mkg74]

On 4/22/2020 at 3:36 PM, WideRight said:

Last one for the day:  Tampa Bay Storm.    I decided to focus on the glory years when they wore navy and gold.  The main logo is one I found on a basic search for clip art of hurricane logos.  It is from Dreamstime.com.  With Tampa I decided to...

 

1. Go with the oversized logo trend.

2. Use stripeless pants.

3. Create a secondary TB logo.

4. I used a very basic font.  Not sure why.  

5. Overall, it looks a bit St. Louis Ramsish, but  that is mostly the colors. 

 

 

I have the Firebirds and Rattlers in the works.  Those should be up tomorrow. 

The Storm look awesome this way. Like the Rams of St Louis. One of my favorite uniforms of all times. Definitely top 5 for me 

[WideRight]

And now a team that for many is the epitome of Arena Football identity, forever linked to the league's greatest success story, Kurt Warner.  The Iowa Barnstormers.

So much to love about their identity that I did not feel the need to do a lot that has not already existed in reality.  So here are the basics:

 

1. Had to have the gold helmet with the goggles, right?

2. Wings on the jersey, prop on the pants, so classic.

3. I did go with 3 color numbers and used a font that many will recognize as the former Titans'.

4. The one aspect of the Iowa identity I have never cared for is the very complex standalone logo.  The wings work, but the rondel with a barn, several silos and the biplane, then all the text around it, always felt too busy to me.  So I went with a simpler central rondel, transforming it into the propellor setup of a classic prop plane/crop duster or barnstorming biplane. 

 

Hope you like it.  SaberCats are next. 

 

[Josef_Bretones]

Amazing logo! 

[Seadragon76]

It's... it's... it's so beautiful!!

[BengalErnst]

Dang. That’s a flashback to my youth. You took an almost perfect uniform set and improved on it. The logo is much better and yet still recognizable as its classic self. Great work

[WideRight]

Thanks guys, the Barnstormers real world identity gave me so much great stuff to work with that I really felt that there was not much I needed to do to create a look that I loved.  This is one of my favorite team looks of all time.  

 

So, I have a version of the SaberCats ready to go.  Here is what I did:

 

1. I never liked the logo.  Too photorealistic for a team logo, and not a great shape overall.  So I created a new cat logo, trying to incorporate something akin to the old Michigan Panthers. 

2. I tried to to do the full helmet swoop like the old Panthers, but I just could not get it to look right, so I am just cutting it off where the logo cuts off. 

3. I also did not care for the font used in the real SaberCats logo.  Too minor league for my taste, so I went a totally different direction. 

4. Decided that the Cats needed a somewhat simple uniform desigh with tooth-inspired swooshes on the shoulder and pants. 

 

Enjoy.  Next up will be Memphis and then probably LA. 

 

[MilSox]

Your Barnstormers concept is your best work so far. Perfect update to a classic identity!

[raz]

 

Flashed into my head, the horse head looks like a squirrel with tail to me ... now I can't unsee.

[BengalErnst]

1 hour ago, WideRight said:

Thanks guys, the Barnstormers real world identity gave me so much great stuff to work with that I really felt that there was not much I needed to do to create a look that I loved.  This is one of my favorite team looks of all time.  

 

So, I have a version of the SaberCats ready to go.  Here is what I did:

 

1. I never liked the logo.  Too photorealistic for a team logo, and not a great shape overall.  So I created a new cat logo, trying to incorporate something akin to the old Michigan Panthers. 

2. I tried to to do the full helmet swoop like the old Panthers, but I just could not get it to look right, so I am just cutting it off where the logo cuts off. 

3. I also did not care for the font used in the real SaberCats logo.  Too minor league for my taste, so I went a totally different direction. 

4. Decided that the Cats needed a somewhat simple uniform desigh with tooth-inspired swooshes on the shoulder and pants. 

 

Enjoy.  Next up will be Memphis and then probably LA. 

 

The font/wordmark is definitely minor league-ish but that’s what the arena league is! Haha I loved their wordmark, just not the color of it with the rest of the set. I think your logo is a huge upgrade but the wordmark missed the mark 

[Guest darkpiranha]

1 hour ago, BengalErnst said:

The font/wordmark is definitely minor league-ish but that’s what the arena league is! Haha I loved their wordmark, just not the color of it with the rest of the set. I think your logo is a huge upgrade but the wordmark missed the mark 

I like everything about this update except your wordmark.  The font you chose leaves too much white space around the T.  

[Guest darkpiranha]

1 hour ago, rjrrzube said:

 

Flashed into my head, the horse head looks like a squirrel with tail to me ... now I can't unsee.

 

Agreed.  I appreciate you were trying to do something different with the mane, but this is a bit weird and distracting.  It's like the horse's mane toupee (toumane?) is falling off because he's running so fast.