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

[WideRight]

And now the last of the actual current CFL teams.

 

MONTREAL ALOUETTES

This is perhaps the redesign I am most excited about.  I started off trying to make a slightly modernized version of the 1970's- 1980's Ferragamo era logo (see below), but it quickly became apparent that by curving the letters more I could approximate a fleur-de-lis, often used symbol of Québec. 

 

 

What I ended up with was a logo which includes the alouette bird, the fleur-de-lis, and still maintains the "M" for Montreal.  It also harkens back to the older Alouettes logo and the colors & symbolism found in the Expos logo.  For the secondary, I just created more of a "corporate" look by placing the symbol inside a rondel with the team info around it.  Of course there would also be a french version of this, but for now we are sticking with English (my French is not what it used to be and I just did not want to risk messing it up.)

 

So, here are the logos for the reimagined Alouettes.  Commentary on uniforms to follow.

 

 

As for the unis, I tried to blend the Ferragamo era (see the jersey shoulders and sleeves) with the more modern "charging bird" era, skipping the current 2 color design completely.  The one significant adjustment is that I decided to go with tapering stripes on the helmet and pants rather than straight stripes.  I am not a big fan of side panels on jerseys (my designs occasionally have them, but not often) so there are no white side panels separating the blue and red sections, only shoulder striping. 

 

 

Next up, we enter into the world of imagined CFL expansion.  The first team is an obvious one, the Atlantic Schooners.  They will be followed by 2 additional Canadian franchises (creating a 3 division CFL with East, Central & Western divisions) and then a 4 team USA Division. 

 

Over on the Requests board (visible only to members of the site) I have placed my 9 top candidates for USA franchises.  I would love feedback on which I should choose and why. 

[Wade Heidt]

11 hours ago, mkg74 said:

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.  

 

The concepts are good.  I would not want to replace any of the current logos for these logos though some of the concept logos are good.

 

What is an upgrade over current CFL are the helmet/jersey/pants colour combinations.  Would be pleased if all teams wore these combos.  No monochrome.  White/orange/white for the Lions was one of their best looks.  Like the Als with the white/royal blue/white combo.  Stamps with white pants at home better than black.  Riders, Argos, Redblacks wearing white pants with their dark jerseys better than their current monochrome looks.

[WideRight]

CFL Expansion to Halifax becomes a reality. 

 

ATLANTIC SCHOONERS

After years of frustration, the Atlantic Provinces finally receive their CFL franchise, as the Atlantic Schooners, playing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, become the CFL's 10th franchise. 

The logo of the Schooners is designed to inspire the power of the sea, the speed of sailing ships, and the heritage of the region.  Included within the logo are an "A" monogram made of sails and sky, a fast-moving ship with a football in its bow, and waves of blue sea that also call back the St. Andrew's Cross of Scotland.   This is not a new design for me, as I proposed this when the CFL announced a few years back that they were looking at reviving the Schooners franchise.  

 

The colors are a bit "Dolphinesque" for the North Atlantic, but it represents a unique color palette for the CFL and captures the true colors of sea, sky and schooners on a summer day.  

The secondary logo combines two additional nautical symbols, the ship's wheel and the mariner's compass. 

 

 

The uniform uses color block sleeve colors, a bold 5 stripe pattern, and angled player numbers with a drop shadow to convey speed and movement.  Alternate jerseys in Navy are also expected to be revealed at a later date. 

 

 

Coming tomorrow, the two additional Canadian expansion teams which will allow the league to split into 3 divisions:

 

EAST:  Atlantic, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City

CENTRAL: Hamilton, London, Toronto, Winnipeg

WEST: BC, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan

 

 

 

[TakingOnWater13]

All of these concepts are great, really loving this series.

 

I see Quad Cities reppin! 

[WideRight]

38 minutes ago, TakingOnWater13 said:

All of these concepts are great, really loving this series.

 

I see Quad Cities reppin! 

Yes and no.  I lived in Rock Island for 22 years, but last January moved for work, so no longer there.  I just have not updated my profile. 

[TakingOnWater13]

1 minute ago, WideRight said:

Yes and no.  I lived in Rock Island for 22 years, but last January moved for work, so no longer there.  I just have not updated my profile. 

I also don't live there anymore, I was born and raised, haven't lived there for about 10 years.

[seancarter]

love your concept of Atlantic Schooners primary logo is better than one CFL is using it's so 2020 

[Tygers09]

Toronto & Montreal- made me think at first, but they started to grow on me.

 

Hamilton- Not feeling the primary logo, love the pawprint secondary.

 

Ottawa- loving the Axe superimposed into the "R"!

 

Atlantic- not feeling the logo here.

[WideRight]

Big Day today.  We move from reimagined CFL teams to brand new teams and identities.  We start with the first of 2 new Canadian expansion teams. 

 

Québec (City) Voyageurs

Having used a fleur-de-lis with Montreal, I wanted to do something different with the team's identity.  There is a fleur-de-lis as one of the secondary logos, but that is not a main part of the identity.  Decided to go with Voyageurs because it is a historical identity closely linked with Quebec and with French Canada as a whole.  For the colors I wanted a unique color scheme, and what I ended up with looks a lot like Tulane, which is fine, a nice Cajun-Arcadian French connection.  

 

My one concern with the logo package here is that the main logo is perhaps not very dynamic or "sports" focused.  It kind of looks like a tourism logo rather than a sports team.  Not sure how to portray Voyageurs without it looking a bit placid (open to ideas). 

 

'

 

As for the uniforms, I really wanted to make the most of the dark green that I really like a lot.  The logo (Primary and secondary) appear, and the striping is pretty traditional.  And, in case you have not noticed, I have a ton of NFL fonts I use on these, and Quebec got the Eagles. I think it works with the historical, "refined" look of the team. 

 

[JPC]

Loved the BC Lions (all of it).  Same with Montreal!  Secondary logos for Saskatchewan and Winnipeg should be adopted this year. Quebec makes me think Blue and White or Blue and Gold should be their colours.

[WideRight]

And our final Canadian team...

 

LONDON WOLVES

There is no purple in the CFL, so we needed to add some, right?  Welcome the London Wolves.  Indigenous animal to the Great White North, plus a nice vague reference to London (UK) and a team that can really pull off purple and silver.  Inspiration came from multiple wolf-head logos, as well as some of what UConn did with their husky logo. 

 

 

 

As for the uniforms, we went with a scratch pattern as the dominant theme, paired with the angular font of the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

 

 

Tomorrow:  We introduce the first of our USA expansion teams.  We will do like we did with the original 9 CFL teams and start in the Pacific Northwest, then head east for all 4 franchises. 

[Underdog519]

3 minutes ago, WideRight said:

And our final Canadian team...

 

LONDON WOLVES

There is no purple in the CFL, so we needed to add some, right?  Welcome the London Wolves.  Indigenous animal to the Great White North, plus a nice vague reference to London (UK) and a team that can really pull off purple and silver.  Inspiration came from multiple wolf-head logos, as well as some of what UConn did with their husky logo. 

 

 

 

As for the uniforms, we went with a scratch pattern as the dominant theme, paired with the angular font of the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

 

 

Tomorrow:  We introduce the first of our USA expansion teams.  We will do like we did with the original 9 CFL teams and start in the Pacific Northwest, then head east for all 4 franchises. 

As a Londoner, I could get behind this. Past London franchises have been called the Lords, Silvberbacks & Thunder, current franchise in the CJFL is the Beefeaters, so Wolves would be a welcome sight

[WideRight]

I almost went this direction with the Wolves, but UConn did it so well, anything I did would just be derivative.  I love this helmet treatment. 

 

[Philsphan]

This is a cool series. The expansion teams are all really well done, especially with the color schemes all taking into account the existing teams in the league. I agree about the Voyageurs. Maybe you could have the man in the canoe standing and paddling more vigorously? I don't know. Google tells me that voyageur refers to river traders, but you could also use imagery related to explorers like Samuel Champlain, who I believe founded Quebec City. That could veer too closely to the Schooners, but you don't use a big old fashioned boat in that logo really. You should keep the pine trees, the midnight green (and the Eagles number font?) regardless!

[Tygers09]

Love that you went with Purple & Gray, but UWO use those colors too ( only silver not gray), that might be an issue. But good job on the logo and unis though!

[WideRight]

10 hours ago, Tygers09 said:

Love that you went with Purple & Gray, but UWO use those colors too ( only silver not gray), that might be an issue. But good job on the logo and unis though!

 

That actually was by choice.  Since the Wolves will share UWO's stadium, I wanted the color scheme to be similar so that they could keep the same basic color scheme to the stadium.  It is something I have thought about with a few teams (especially the expansion teams that share uniforms), though clearly I did not do this with Quebec, who would share a stadium with the U. of Laval Rouge et Or. 

[WideRight]

Here it is folks, the first USA Expansion for the CFL since the early 1990's.  

 

PORTLAND CHINOOK

Portland is an ideal CFL city.  Located within the Cascade region that includes Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, Portland already has a rivalry with the city of Vancouver through MLS, so the same fanbase can go to the same stadium and watch their team take on the BC Lions in an instant rivalry. 

 

For the team, I wanted something intrinsically Northwestern.  It was between the Steelheads and the Chinook, and I felt like the salmon was just a better option from a color and a name perspective.  Initially I tried doing the logo with tones of green, but the look was just not right, so I ended up with three different tones of pale, almost slate blue, and then the bright contrast of the salmon pink/red.  

 

 

For the uniforms my inspiration was the Hasselbeck-era Seahawks uniform, one of my all-time favorites.  It uses the interplay of the different blues to recreate the striping of the Chinook salmon, and just like Seattle with bright green, the salmon red is used only sparingly to create a pop of color.  The pant stripes are supposed to recreate the striping on the salmon logo.  With the helmet I tried all three blues, thinking the lightest one (silvery blue) would be the best, but it turned out that the medium blue gave the best look.  The overall look is a lot like those early 2000's Seahawks, but without the unitard, as I would pair the white pants with the dark jersey and vice versa. 

 

 

 

[Tygers09]

I can see for a Portland dark uniform, navy jersey, paired with both silver helmets and silver blue pants, a Dallas Cowboy uniform ensemble. But I also see where you're going with this, and it's a great color combination.

Note: A dark purple maybe Eggplant like the Mighty Ducks, would be sharp alternative to the navy. But you're going with 2000 Seahawks colors here.

[Josef_Bretones]

2 hours ago, WideRight said:

 

19 hours ago, philcar1994 said:

 

 

On 5/3/2020 at 4:32 PM, WideRight said:

All these logos seem to me of a superior quality. Very good work! I really like that of the Fleur de Lis (hello, here a scout). But the Portland one seems to me to be on another level. I want to see more.

[WideRight]

For our second US-based team we stick close to the Canadian border and introduce a city to its first major league sports team. 

 

BOISE BULLS

Boise seems an ideal location for a CFL franchise.  It is close to Canada, but far from other pro teams (Seattle? Denver?).  They have a very good football culture thanks to the success found at Boise State, which also supplies them with a good-sized stadium.  The only drawback is that Boise State has that famously (hideous) blue turf.  So, if you place a team there, you better use blue as a dominant color.  

 

I was again looking at local fauna for inspiration, and the moose just seemed right, but rather than call them the Boise Moose, or the Bull Moose, I thought Bulls would work well, with most folks in the region knowing that a male moose is a bull.  For the colors I went with 2 tones of Blue from Boise State's official palette, and paired it with a color from the world of the Idaho potato, Russet, a red-brown color.  

 

As you will see in the uniform, this palette of colors started looking a lot like the Buffalo Bills, so I rolled with that and went with a very Bills look for the team.  Red (russet) helmets and blue jerseys. I decided to add the state of Idaho into the main logo both to increase the amount of red in the logo and to provide more local flavor.  

 

 

The main features of the uniform are the moose antler helmet design (too good to pass up) and the tri-color numbers.  Like I said, very Buffalo Bills inspired. The secondary B-Idaho-Bull logo is on each sleeve.