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CFL Project (Expansion in Canada & USA starts 5/4)


WideRight

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Good stuff all around! my only critique (nit pick?) is the collar on Edmonton's jersey. You gave it the "toilet bowl" treatment and that's a pet peeve of mine. 

 

Otherwise I think this is really good stuff and I like that you aren't afraid to try something new without completely disregarding the past. 

Also, solid call on bringing back the old CFL logo. 

GTA United(USA) 2015 + 2016 USA Champions/Toronto Maroons (ULL)2014, 2015 + 2022 Gait Cup Champions/Toronto Northmen (TNFF)

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BC Lions

I like the new font that you've chosen for the "BC" in the primary mark. It's less busy than the old font and works well in both outlined and non-outlined versions. As for the font used for the "LIONS" portion of the word mark, that strikes me as being too kitschy and juvenile. It looks as though it was lifted from the branding for the Wild Kratts animated television show, or the signage at a zoo. Hard pass on that, I'm afraid. I feel as though an attractive and effective word mark could be achieved by something as simple as leaving the "BC" as is, with "LIONS" rendered - in a straight line and in orange - in the font that you're already using for "BC". 

While I like the integration of the mountain lion head with the letters in the primary mark, there's something about the lion itself that feels slightly off to me. For the life of me, I can't quite put my finger on it. At first glance, t seems that you may have tweaked the logo you found by making it slightly wider and squashing it a bit vertically. The effect, at least to my eye, is that the mountain lion appears a bit stockier - and less sleek - than I feel it should. A moment later, I'll think it has something to do with the lion's eyes. The manner in which the black slit pupils each curve outward in opposite directions gives the lion a slightly walleyed look. The fact of the matter is, I may just be overthinking things.

The "prowling lion" secondary mark doesn't work. The lion clearly comes across as a mash-up, with the head just layered over a body that was created after the fact. The line-weights are all over the place. From where I'm sitting, it just doesn't fit within the overall brand package... and, more importantly, doesn't live up to your normal standard of work. Having checked out the original collection of mountain lion logos that you linked to, I found this mark...


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I could see a secondary mark featuring a mountain lion rendered in a pose not unlike this one and set atop the letters "C" and "LIONS" in the word mark I described above. 

I'm a fan of the uniforms that you've designed. They feel like a look that the BC Lions have owned quite often throughout their history: white helmets... orange and white jerseys paired, respectively, with white and orange pants. I like carrying over the font from the "BC" to the uniform numbers, but mimicking the offset of the letters in said numbers is overkill. It comes across as forced and gimmicky.

I find myself going back and forth on the jersey striping. I like the boldness of the torso striping and feel that it could ultimately become - within the world of this series - the Lions' signature design element. That said, in a branding package where all of the major uniform striping is consistently of the 3-stripe variety (black-orange-black, black-white-black, even white-orange-white on one of the pairs of socks), some part of me wonders whether the torso of the jersey should also feature that pattern? Or, would it come across as overkill? This also opens up the question of what should be done with the sleeve striping. If you opt to maintain the current 2-stripe torso design as the only place in the uniforms that features said style of striping, I feel that you should replace the white sleeve-cap on the white jersey with black. However, you could opt to make the 2-stripe pattern a feature of the jerseys as a whole, in which case the black sleeve-cap on the orange jersey should be replaced with orange.

Overall, I'm looking forward to your take on the CFL.              
                    


 

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4 hours ago, shark said:

Wasn't sure where Requests was, but if you're looking for city ideas...

  • Canada - agree on Quebec, Halifax...maybe add a second Ontario team (London, Windsor) or Victoria
  • USA - Boise, Portland, Albany, or Fargo...Anchorage would be unique, but not sure any facility exists

B.C. looks great!  Uniform numbers a great idea.

I like the idea of expanding to northern American cities that aren’t in the NFL since the season overlaps. I’d love to see the Des Moines, Omaha or Sioux Falls get a team also.

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I agree that the BC identity needed some changes, so...

 

  • I created a new body for the stalking lion.  I like this one much better.  Let me know if you think it is an improvement. 
  • I changed the "Lions" font to be similar to the BC font. 
  • I adjusted the chest/sleeve stripes.  Decided to stick with a 2 stripe  motif, even with the 3 stripes elsewhere.

 

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First of two CFL reimagined teams for today, as we work our way from West to East.  

 

Saskatchewan Roughriders

I have always viewed this team as one of the most traditional, back to basics, barely more than 1 color (Green) identities, similar to the NY Jets or Indianapolis Colts.  Sure, there are hints of silver or black, but it's basically a green & white team.  So I wanted to keep that in play.  That, the central iconography of the "S" and of wheat, seemed key.  I opted for a 2 stripe motif, which runs from the bottom of the shield logo to the uniforms (helmet, pant & jersey stripes).  Decided to go with a more traditional shield shape to allow for a more angular "S" and wheat stalks.  The wheat motif appears in a few places as well, such as the back of the helmet and the top of the pant stripes.  Not the most "modern" look in the league (which feels appropriate) and not the most exciting (also appropriate).  Last note, i decided to go with a bright Kelly green to distinguish the green from that of Edmonton, and also as a nod to the brighter green used in past decades (50's-70's). 

 

C&C Welcome, of course. 

 

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And, because it is in the hopper, the 5th CFL team (West to East).

 

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Here I wanted to keep some aspect of the traditional W, but add more.  I found an intereresting concept with a bomber plane, and I liked what they did with the W, so I took their more subtle W but I did not want a full-on bomber plane or bomb as the logo, so I went with military insignia as the focus.  This aligns with what the Jets did in the NHL and still allows the W to be a big part of the logo. 

 

On the Uniforms, I tried to capture some elements of some of the recent designs, while maintaining the traditional sleeve striping to a degree.  

 

and yes, the wordmark is an homage to Top Gun (which is not at all Canadian, but still... Danger Zone!!!!)

 

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We got an Archer fan here (:P)

 

I like what you did for Saskatchewan. I feel the same way: They are like the Colts and the Jets: Simple straight forward looks that you can easily recognize.

 

I also like the additional stuff for Winnipeg. I always thought that the plain 'W' was boring and felt... I dunno, plain.

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I would use the white W logo you have on the helmet.  The one you are using now gets very lost.  The update to the BC logo is better, but I would be aware of the stalking lion's placement.  With where the B is, it kind of looks like there's a notch cut out of his butt.  

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Getting close to the end of the actual 9 franchises as we enter Ontario.

 

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

 

This was tough for several reasons.  First, the actual Ti-Cats logo is great.  The roar, the pounce, it is a solid tiger logo.  Second, there are so many tiger logos out there that doing something original is tough.  I would not call my side-shot of a tiger head original, but the key for me was to try to come up with a design where the black would disappear on a black helmet and all you would see is the gold and white.  It is not the greatest tiger-head logo ever, but I still like the way it turned out.  I had downloaded about 10 different side-shots and logos and this is something of an amalgam of different styles, but I think it comes together as a coherent single vision of a teed off tiger.   The paw is a variation of a tiger paw logo found at https://www.logolynx.com/.  I did some minor modifications, but it is not original. 

 

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For the Ti-Cats uniform, I wanted to retain a lot of elements from their classic look.  Their sleeve striping is somewhat iconic, so not much here which I would call divergent from what you might expect. I did throw a bit of tiger striping around.  Hopefully not too much (helmet stripe, collars, pant stripe on black pants only.)

 

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Just finished a few more teams, but will release them 2 per day.  Today we start with my favorite CFL team, the Argos. 

 

TORONTO ARGONAUTS

With this one I wanted to combine an aquatic (wave) theme and a Greek Warrior theme.  Toronto has had some very good logos (Ship, Warrior with shield, shield alone), so I wanted to do something different.  I focused on the warrior's helmet and built a wave motif as his cloak.  You will see that I did two very different attempts at this.  My first attempt was a warrior with shield, and that became the essence of the secondary logo, while the helmet/wave logo became the primary. 

 

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For the uniforms I called back to the look I remember from my youth (ship-logo era, pre-Flutie).  This uniform emphasizes the double blue by using a simple thick double stripe motif.  I tried a bunch of Greek key pattern but it always felt overdone, so we stick with the wide stripes. On the jerseys I use the cuff as one stripe and just add a thick 2nd stripe above it. 

 

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20 minutes ago, WideRight said:

Just finished a few more teams, but will release them 2 per day.  Today we start with my favorite CFL team, the Argos. 

 

TORONTO ARGONAUTS

With this one I wanted to combine an aquatic (wave) theme and a Greek Warrior theme.  Toronto has had some very good logos (Ship, Warrior with shield, shield alone), so I wanted to do something different.  I focused on the warrior's helmet and built a wave motif as his cloak.  You will see that I did two very different attempts at this.  My first attempt was a warrior with shield, and that became the essence of the secondary logo, while the helmet/wave logo became the primary. 

 

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For the uniforms I called back to the look I remember from my youth (ship-logo era, pre-Flutie).  This uniform emphasizes the double blue by using a simple thick double stripe motif.  I tried a bunch of Greek key pattern but it always felt overdone, so we stick with the wide stripes. On the jerseys I use the cuff as one stripe and just add a thick 2nd stripe above it. 

 

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Fantastic!

What a coincidence that we both showed our Greek warrior look logos on the same day.
I like very much!

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58 minutes ago, THEANGEL&THEGAMBLER said:

These look great but why do the Calgary stampede look so jaggy.  The quality of that logo slick looks worse than the others?

 

Thanks for pointing that out.  I re-uploaded the image to Imgur and I think that fixed the issue.  It looks smoother to me now. Check it out on the original post. 

 

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Already through with our 3 Ontario teams.  Only 1 current CFL team left after this one. 

 

OTTAWA REDBLACKS

 

I was very tempted to use this slot to bring back the Rough Riders, just for the whole 2 teams with "the same" name laugh, and because "RedBlacks" is a bizarre and not very useful name.  But, I decided that I would keep it because the Rough Riders history of logos is not a good one, while the lumberjack theme of the RedBlacks offers some good options. 

 

For the main logo I wanted to keep the lumberjack theme, but swapped out the buzzsaw for a cut tree motif, building the ax head into the iconic Ottawa "R".  You may recognize the ax head as part of the U. of Northern Arizona branding. I added an extra layer to depict the sharpened edge.  

 

The secondary is the R alone, but then I thought "We need a Johnny Cannuck style lumberjack here", so I added a second additional logo, and liked it so much it made it onto the uniform. 

 

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And, of course, the uniform had to have some lumberjack flannel plaid in it, right?  I tried adding some to the pant stripe as well, but it started to look too kitschy, so just the sleeves.  Decided to bring back the single red helmet stripe as a nod to the Riders, and I am not entirely sold on the number font, but I think the plaid turned out pretty decent. 

 

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9 hours ago, WideRight said:

Just finished a few more teams, but will release them 2 per day.  Today we start with my favorite CFL team, the Argos. 

 

TORONTO ARGONAUTS

With this one I wanted to combine an aquatic (wave) theme and a Greek Warrior theme.  Toronto has had some very good logos (Ship, Warrior with shield, shield alone), so I wanted to do something different.  I focused on the warrior's helmet and built a wave motif as his cloak.  You will see that I did two very different attempts at this.  My first attempt was a warrior with shield, and that became the essence of the secondary logo, while the helmet/wave logo became the primary. 

 

spacer.png

 

For the uniforms I called back to the look I remember from my youth (ship-logo era, pre-Flutie).  This uniform emphasizes the double blue by using a simple thick double stripe motif.  I tried a bunch of Greek key pattern but it always felt overdone, so we stick with the wide stripes. On the jerseys I use the cuff as one stripe and just add a thick 2nd stripe above it. 

 

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That secondary is a work of art. I’d like to see that be the primary as well but those are some beautiful uniforms 

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All of these Teams look so incredible.  they are all upgrades full stop on anything current In the CFL. Especially the Lions Bombers and Argos.  

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