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Revisiting the California Soccer League! (SERIES FINALE)


TheGiantsFan

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Freeway Division

Sporting Oceanside

Oceanside, California

Founded: 1990

Championships: 1

 

ORIGINAL POST:

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Because [it was] Veterans Day [2015], I felt like doing a patriotic team today. And there's no city more appropriate for this than Oceanside in northern San Diego County, which has the Marines' Camp Pendleton just north of the city. For the crest I wanted to do something that combines elements of patriotism/military homage and the SoCal beach town that Oceanside is. After contemplating with ideas similar to President Obama's campaign logos, I decided to go with the very simple red/white/blue surfboard. The surfboard has an "SO" (the team's initials) inside of it.

 

The home kit is a fairly simple kit with a single red chevron paying homage to the rank insignia of the Marines. The two-tone, blue clash kit combines the idea of a waving flag with the waves of the ocean. The kits are supplied by Nike and the sponsor is Legoland California, which is located in nearby Carlsbad.

 

Here's the first of the three San Diego County teams to be digitized! Our surfing/military-inspired team remains relatively unchanged in 2019, aside from the Callaway Golf Company (based in neighboring Carlsbad) being the new shirt sponsor.

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Responses have been pretty slow the past few days, but we shall keep going!

 

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Central Division

Fresno SC

Fresno, California

Founded: 1970

Championships: 2

 

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Fresno is another founding team of the California Soccer League. The crest combines an Italian-style soccer crest with the unique colors and the ash leaf (Fresno means "ash tree" in Spanish) seen on the Fresno's city flag.

 

The home kit consists of green and blue pinstripes on a white jersey with brown trim. The clash kit is an homage to the red/blue color scheme of the Fresno State University Bulldogs. The kits are supplied by Adidas and the sponsor is Yosemite National Park (for a city as large as Fresno, I'm really surprised at how there's no major company based there).

 

The digitized version of Fresno has a shorter, wider crest than the hand-drawn version, and the colors (except for the light blue) are the exact match from the Fresno city flag. Because of the overabundance of red jerseys in the Central Division, I decided to scrap the Fresno State-inspired kit and replace it with an olive green kit with a simplified map of Fresno's grid (which does not take into account where roads get cut off in the grid) and its freeways. The sponsor has changed to the Valley Children's Hospital located just outside the Fresno city limits, which actually is one of the country's top pediatric hospitals 

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Guest darkpiranha

Responses are slow because these are all uniformly solid and fantastic.  If you'd like a continuous stream of praise, I'll be happy to oblige.  If you otherwise want more comments, you'll have to throw in a few duds now and then.  

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13 hours ago, darkpiranha said:

Responses are slow because these are all uniformly solid and fantastic.  If you'd like a continuous stream of praise, I'll be happy to oblige.  If you otherwise want more comments, you'll have to throw in a few duds now and then.  

 

12 hours ago, JerseyJimmy said:

yeah, critiquing designs is really hard when they're literally all bangers. god, the grid on the clash jersey is so cool.

 

I'd echo what these two have said here. Sometimes people don’t get many comments when their designs appear completed and well put together — IMO, it’s easier to comment a critique or point out something obviously wrong than it is to make a substantial, meaningful compliment when the designs are at the level that yours are at. I think all of your designs are just well-designed and your explanations make any of the, per se “shaky” designs, make sense within their context.

 

I'll try my best to give you some constructive criticism though, but take it with a grain of salt since my only "design experience" has come from scrolling through these boards for years and only recently trying to design my own things. I've divided your designs into four categories ("favorites," "great," "solid & good," and then "I like it, but..."). I would say as a disclaimer that I genuinely like all your designs as is, so these comments are just ideas on how I'd aim to improve upon what you've put together so well already. If anything, I hope they just give you a fun idea here or there for your designs.

 

Favorites (mostly just praise with very few ideas to improve, if any)

- Roses AFC: probably my favorite so far. The crest, the colors, the thorny pinstripes, the rose gold clash…fantastic.

- Hollywood: aww man, black and gold! Art Deco crest! Hot pink clash! This hits all the right things for me.

- Lancaster-Palmdale: sleek is the word that comes to mind. Silver, black, and white are perfect for this team and the modern feel is easy to love.

- Silicon Valley: the colors and the patterns and the app-like crest all just fit together. Well done. I think I’ve commented before that I found the crest perhaps too minimalistic, but it’s grown on me. I like how the three horizontal parts of the S are representative of the three crossings (and helps explain why the V is shorter than the S).

- OC: I love orange, I love the “rather-abstract” OCU monogram, and I love the sun rays around the crest. Well-executed all around and the green and orange clash is a really nice touch as well.

- Elk Grove: blue and orange = yes please, antler pattern = yes please, the crest = I just like it.

- Sporting Oceanside: the surfboard crest with the interlocked S and O is my favorite part. I don’t know if this team intentionally is built around designing a kit that could be worn with khaki shorts and some boat shoes, but it reminds me that. The waving flag / ocean waves clash = love it. I’d honestly put that as home and relegate the other to clash.

- Fresno: unique. I really enjoy the color scheme here, the multi-colored pinstripes on the home, and the simplified map on the clash. I think you could also toy around with a tree-inspired clash too, given the green and brown color scheme.

 

Great

- Barstow: this may sound weird, but I’m a sucker interstate highway sign inspired soccer crests! This team is just great as is, and I like the patterns on the kits too. I am curious how it’d look if you made the home kit either a monochrome highway sign green or the red and blue from the standard issue interstate sign.

- Inland Empire: I like the simplicity of the crest, the IE monogram, and the colors. My favorite part of the jerseys is probably the subtle arrowhead pattern on the clash.

- Modesto: orange and brown is underrated. I like the cattle brand inspired crest too, and the yellow and black clash is great too.

- Atlético: I enjoy everything about this. I do miss the pinstripes from the hand drawn clash, but the new pattern for your clash is great too.

- Deportivo: this is another team that I just genuinely like, top to bottom. I really like the striping on the kits and the crest is well done too. Your initial drawing came across a bit as a Padres-esque yellow and brown in the light, which I think it could be cool to see this team in too.

- Racing Bakersfield: this team feels like an old-school diner in all the right ways. The colors are great, the patterns are great, and the crest is great. I think the crest itself could benefit from having bigger checkers, so they stand out more on the kit, but all in all, it’s a great looking team.

 

Solid & Good

- AC Monterey: the two reds work well together, especially with the striping on the home and I like the colors of the clash as well. Simple crest, yet effective.

- Slo Town: this falls into the simple, no change necessary category. Solid crest, solid colors, solid kits.

- Del Norte: I like the colors and the yellow shoulders/sleeves. It evokes the crescent from the logo well. The Native American pattern on the clash is well placed too, though I wonder if perhaps it would work better on the chest, behind the sponsor. I’m also not against the majority of the clash being gray, but I do wonder if perhaps it would look better in all black.

- Russian River: damn, I like that green clash a lot and it’s crazy pattern too. The waves on the home kit are a great touch too, the red and blue contrast well, and I have nothing critical on the crest.

- Salinas: The strawberry-inspired clash is awesome, and the color scheme in general is a win. I like the crest, but I do think the S could do with more space around it so it’s not touching the white rectangular outline.

 

I Like It, But…

- Mt. Diablo: I appreciate the hidden M, W, and D within the crest, but it feels to me as if it’s too simple and I’m not sure I would’ve picked up on the letters without the explanation attached. I think that the rich maroon/red is perhaps too dark next to the black as well and that more contrast is needed or a third color between the maroon and black (maybe tan or a sandy color?). With that, I love the fading mountains on the clash.

- Capital City: Colors = love, Kits = love. As for the crest, I looked at the sign you’ve based it off of and I think you’ve matched that well. However, I think in making the crest from the sign, you should add an outline or two around it all (like in your hand-drawn version) since currently the navy “Capital City Soccer Club” seems rather unconstrained in the center of the logo (especially on the white background), and the white stands out rather starkly on the home kit since it’s the only white on it at all.

- Paso Robles: I think the text on the crest is perhaps too small and too far up/down on it, leaving  a lot of space in the middle. I think this could be solved pretty simply though by arranging it more like your original drawing. I like the colors too — especially how the claret represents the wine. I think the shade of claret could be a little more maroon though, though that’s more a minor minor nitpick on my end.

- Maritime: I like the striping patterns on both kits, and the blue-white combo is great. I get the reasoning behind the nautical flags on the shoulders, but I wonder if they could perhaps take a larger role in the crest instead.

- State of Jefferson: I like everything about this concept — the green and yellow, the blue clash with the double x pattern -- but I feel like you could do more with it.  The proposed state flag has black in it as well, and I think you could extend the double x design to the home as well, opening up the crest itself to other design opportunities. The crest as it is currently feels too simple.

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23 hours ago, darkpiranha said:

Responses are slow because these are all uniformly solid and fantastic.  If you'd like a continuous stream of praise, I'll be happy to oblige.  If you otherwise want more comments, you'll have to throw in a few duds now and then.  

 

22 hours ago, JerseyJimmy said:

yeah, critiquing designs is really hard when they're literally all bangers. god, the grid on the clash jersey is so cool.

 

I appreciate the support! Good to know that these concepts are at least getting some good reception! :)

 

12 hours ago, woody86 said:

My only nitpick is not with the designed themselves, but with the names. Some are nit immediately obvious, but that’s also what Google is for!

 

That's the fun part! I'm just reusing a lot of the names that I used years ago and people have already figured it out in my old thread, but I've been throwing in some new names once in a while. If it helps you out, I get all the names from each city's Wikipedia page!

 

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9 hours ago, Megildur said:

I'd echo what these two have said here. Sometimes people don’t get many comments when their designs appear completed and well put together — IMO, it’s easier to comment a critique or point out something obviously wrong than it is to make a substantial, meaningful compliment when the designs are at the level that yours are at. I think all of your designs are just well-designed and your explanations make any of the, per se “shaky” designs, make sense within their context.

 

I'll try my best to give you some constructive criticism though, but take it with a grain of salt since my only "design experience" has come from scrolling through these boards for years and only recently trying to design my own things. I've divided your designs into four categories ("favorites," "great," "solid & good," and then "I like it, but..."). I would say as a disclaimer that I genuinely like all your designs as is, so these comments are just ideas on how I'd aim to improve upon what you've put together so well already. If anything, I hope they just give you a fun idea here or there for your designs.

 

Favorites (mostly just praise with very few ideas to improve, if any)

- Roses AFC: probably my favorite so far. The crest, the colors, the thorny pinstripes, the rose gold clash…fantastic.

- Hollywood: aww man, black and gold! Art Deco crest! Hot pink clash! This hits all the right things for me.

- Lancaster-Palmdale: sleek is the word that comes to mind. Silver, black, and white are perfect for this team and the modern feel is easy to love.

- Silicon Valley: the colors and the patterns and the app-like crest all just fit together. Well done. I think I’ve commented before that I found the crest perhaps too minimalistic, but it’s grown on me. I like how the three horizontal parts of the S are representative of the three crossings (and helps explain why the V is shorter than the S).

- OC: I love orange, I love the “rather-abstract” OCU monogram, and I love the sun rays around the crest. Well-executed all around and the green and orange clash is a really nice touch as well.

- Elk Grove: blue and orange = yes please, antler pattern = yes please, the crest = I just like it.

- Sporting Oceanside: the surfboard crest with the interlocked S and O is my favorite part. I don’t know if this team intentionally is built around designing a kit that could be worn with khaki shorts and some boat shoes, but it reminds me that. The waving flag / ocean waves clash = love it. I’d honestly put that as home and relegate the other to clash.

- Fresno: unique. I really enjoy the color scheme here, the multi-colored pinstripes on the home, and the simplified map on the clash. I think you could also toy around with a tree-inspired clash too, given the green and brown color scheme.

 

Great

- Barstow: this may sound weird, but I’m a sucker interstate highway sign inspired soccer crests! This team is just great as is, and I like the patterns on the kits too. I am curious how it’d look if you made the home kit either a monochrome highway sign green or the red and blue from the standard issue interstate sign.

- Inland Empire: I like the simplicity of the crest, the IE monogram, and the colors. My favorite part of the jerseys is probably the subtle arrowhead pattern on the clash.

- Modesto: orange and brown is underrated. I like the cattle brand inspired crest too, and the yellow and black clash is great too.

- Atlético: I enjoy everything about this. I do miss the pinstripes from the hand drawn clash, but the new pattern for your clash is great too.

- Deportivo: this is another team that I just genuinely like, top to bottom. I really like the striping on the kits and the crest is well done too. Your initial drawing came across a bit as a Padres-esque yellow and brown in the light, which I think it could be cool to see this team in too.

- Racing Bakersfield: this team feels like an old-school diner in all the right ways. The colors are great, the patterns are great, and the crest is great. I think the crest itself could benefit from having bigger checkers, so they stand out more on the kit, but all in all, it’s a great looking team.

 

Glad that you really like these ones! :)

 

You do have a point about Oceanside, and I do agree that the waving flag would be a stronger home kit than the current one (I'll change that for you!). San Diego County in general has quite a beach-loving culture, so these jerseys would definitely also be seen on the beaches of northern San Diego County!

 

In response to your Fresno tree-inspired clash comment: You're gonna enjoy Humboldt's kits once I get to that team!

 

Barstow's crest (and also SLO to an extent) is actually inspired by black/white US highway shields instead of the red/white/blue Interstate highway shields, but you do have a point with the road trip theme there! I don't think I have any other road-inspired teams going forward, but I will have some more green and red/white/blue kits later on in this series!

 

In converting the hand-drawn concepts into the digital format, I did take some liberties in terms of colors. Now that I have infinitely more color possibilities than my old 50-pack colored pencil sets, I have adjusted the shades of colors that the teams used to more accurately reflect the colors of city flags (such as Fresno and San Jose) or their colleges' color schemes (such as SLO). In the case of El Centro, I adjusted the shade of yellow to be the exact shade used in the color scheme of the short-lived El Centro Imperials baseball team.

 

Now that I look at it again, Bakersfield does have too many checkers, so I'll reduce the amount of checkers like the Croatian national logo  

 

9 hours ago, Megildur said:

Solid & Good

- AC Monterey: the two reds work well together, especially with the striping on the home and I like the colors of the clash as well. Simple crest, yet effective.

- Slo Town: this falls into the simple, no change necessary category. Solid crest, solid colors, solid kits.

- Del Norte: I like the colors and the yellow shoulders/sleeves. It evokes the crescent from the logo well. The Native American pattern on the clash is well placed too, though I wonder if perhaps it would work better on the chest, behind the sponsor. I’m also not against the majority of the clash being gray, but I do wonder if perhaps it would look better in all black.

- Russian River: damn, I like that green clash a lot and it’s crazy pattern too. The waves on the home kit are a great touch too, the red and blue contrast well, and I have nothing critical on the crest.

- Salinas: The strawberry-inspired clash is awesome, and the color scheme in general is a win. I like the crest, but I do think the S could do with more space around it so it’s not touching the white rectangular outline.

 

I tweaked Del Norte's clash from your suggestion, and the black actually makes the Native American pattern stand out a lot more! I still kept the pattern in the same place because it fits nicely with the neck cut at the front, but I appreciate the suggestion!

 

Spoiler

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For the Salinas crest, I had actually intended for the S to touch the white outline so that the white elements would balance nicely with the green-heavy crest design

 

9 hours ago, Megildur said:

I Like It, But…

- Mt. Diablo: I appreciate the hidden M, W, and D within the crest, but it feels to me as if it’s too simple and I’m not sure I would’ve picked up on the letters without the explanation attached. I think that the rich maroon/red is perhaps too dark next to the black as well and that more contrast is needed or a third color between the maroon and black (maybe tan or a sandy color?). With that, I love the fading mountains on the clash.

- Capital City: Colors = love, Kits = love. As for the crest, I looked at the sign you’ve based it off of and I think you’ve matched that well. However, I think in making the crest from the sign, you should add an outline or two around it all (like in your hand-drawn version) since currently the navy “Capital City Soccer Club” seems rather unconstrained in the center of the logo (especially on the white background), and the white stands out rather starkly on the home kit since it’s the only white on it at all.

- Paso Robles: I think the text on the crest is perhaps too small and too far up/down on it, leaving  a lot of space in the middle. I think this could be solved pretty simply though by arranging it more like your original drawing. I like the colors too — especially how the claret represents the wine. I think the shade of claret could be a little more maroon though, though that’s more a minor minor nitpick on my end.

- Maritime: I like the striping patterns on both kits, and the blue-white combo is great. I get the reasoning behind the nautical flags on the shoulders, but I wonder if they could perhaps take a larger role in the crest instead.

- State of Jefferson: I like everything about this concept — the green and yellow, the blue clash with the double x pattern -- but I feel like you could do more with it.  The proposed state flag has black in it as well, and I think you could extend the double x design to the home as well, opening up the crest itself to other design opportunities. The crest as it is currently feels too simple.

 

Yeah, I do agree that the Mt. Diablo crest can be quite cryptic and hard to read. My hand-drawn concept had a much lighter shade of dark red that provided more contrast, and I don't think that translated very well to the digital version, so I'll play around with the colors a bit more. The "M" and "W" fit easily with the twin peaks of Mt. Diablo, but then I had to awkwardly put the "D" in between; I'm not sure how else I would tastefully incorporate the "D" better, though :/

 

I tried to "enclose" the crest with a navy blue and a yellow outline, but it led to some awkward color interactions between the various parts of the crest. I'll just leave it to Gestalt to enclose the white part of the crest 😬

 

The proportions on the Paso Robles crest (which is indeed taller in the digital version than the hand-drawn one) is a little funky, leading to the the text ribbons being smaller and harder to read. I think it would help significantly if I made the text less thick, so I'll make those changes later on!

 

I had actually never intended on having the nautical flags being the main design element of Maritime's identity, leaving it instead to more secondary roles. Honestly though, Maritime is a quite a mashup of various nautical elements (the flags, the anchor, the ship), so it would be tricky to give them all the limelight in the mostly-blue design

 

When I was first designing State of Jefferson's crest five years ago, I think I was basing the simple crest design off of the simpler designs of German soccer crests. I think the simplicity of the design may also highlight the State of Jefferson flag better without any other supporting elements on the crest. I think I may extend the "double X" design to the home kit, but I think the hometown crowd would rather spread the State of Jefferson awareness outside of Yreka when their team is on the road. I originally did have a green clash kit instead of the gray one, but it ended up looking to similar to the new Monterey clash kit

 

I truly appreciate all the detailed feedback, and I'll continue to incorporate your feedback (as well as everyone else's) going forward! :)

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South Coast Division

Solvang forenede Boldkluber (fB)

Solvang, California

Founded: 1986

Championships: 1

 

ORIGINAL POST:

Spoiler

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I wanted more ethnic teams in my league (to add some diversity), and so I ended up moving the proposed Santa Maria team, which I thought would be a fairly boring team, to the more interesting Danish community in nearby Solvang. The Solvang forenede Boldkluber (Danish for "Solvang United Football Club") has its name and monogram inspired by Esbjerg fB of the Danish Superliga. Its colors are taken directly from the Flag of Denmark, with the white box in the crest stylized just like the Danish royal standard.

 

The home kit is a very simple red-and-white jersey inspired by the Danish flag. The clash kit is inspired by the Scandinavian-style architecture seen throughout central Solvang. The kits are supplied by Nike, and the sponsor is The Landsby, a local boutique hotel.

 

After the 2015 season, Solvang made a few tweaks to their Danish-inspired identity to make the team aesthetic look more intimidating. Gone are the curly team initials and its place is a more aggressive blackletter font. The rounded shield has also made way for a sharper, more angular shield.

 

The home kit now sees a dark red (instead of white) cross in the middle, with a subtle sunburst/farmland pattern alluding to Solvang's etymology, as the city name translates to "sunny field" in Danish. The clash kit* continues the Danish architecture motif of the 2015 clash by featuring Solvang's downtown windmill. The jersey sponsor is now the Chumash Casino Resort (not the last casino sponsor we have!) located in neighboring Santa Ynez.

 

*I'm still a little iffy about this clash kit, so any feedback is appreciated! I considered having a diagonal windmill, but then there can be a hidden swastika in the way the "fans" of the windmill are laid out

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More than halfway done with this series!

 

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Bay Area Division
SC Golden Gate
San Francisco, California
Founded: 1970
Championships: 5

 

ORIGINAL POST:

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The first San Francisco team in the league, the identity very much plays on its name. In this world, Northern California artist Michael Schwab, designer of the logo for the 2007 MLB All-Star Game in San Francisco, was commissioned to redesign SCGG's logo (Other examples of Schwab's amazing, minimalistic art is here). The crest, along with showing an image of the Golden Gate Bridge, pays an homage to the San Francisco fog at the "bottom" of the bridge.

The home kit utilizes hoops and pinstripes inspired by the Golden Gate Bridge's vertical cables. The clash kit is inspired by the San Francisco fog, and also has an outline of the bridge in the middle. The kits are supplied by Nike and the sponsor is Levi's.

 

The CSL's most successful team (tied with Roses AFC for most championships) has received quite a lot of tweaks to differentiate itself a bit more from the orange-and-black Sporting SF. Firstly is the color shift to a more reddish main color, as the colored pencil I used for the original drawing was more orange-based: it still retains the Golden Gate Bridge's International Orange color scheme. The crest has also been shortened and the fog was removed.

 

Gone is the white/orange striped home kit, but the stripes remain! The new striped home kit resemble the vertical cables of the Golden Gate Bridge with an arch inspired by the bridge's shaped; this idea was inspired by this rejected jersey proposal for the short-lived SF Deltas NASL team. The new clash kit brings back the foggy design of the 2015 clash, and it now features the Art Deco detailing of the Golden Gate Bridge's two towers, partly inspired by the 2017-18 Cavs City Edition jerseys

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Let me just say, I have been a lurker on these boards since this was a hand drawn series. It's really cool to see the evolution of these ideas over the course of years and really awesome to see all of these designs get refined and made digitally.

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Guest darkpiranha

Something that would be neat that I've seen others do is once you're done, make a graphic that has all the jerseys displayed together so we can get a real sense of what this league looks like as a whole, how the colors flow and contrast.  Maybe divide it up by all the homes, all the clashes.  

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Guest darkpiranha
7 minutes ago, darkpiranha said:

Something that would be neat that I've seen others do is once you're done, make a graphic that has all the jerseys displayed together so we can get a real sense of what this league looks like as a whole, how the colors flow and contrast.  Maybe divide it up by all the homes, all the clashes.  

lol.  So right after I typed this, I went and scrolled back through the original hand-drawn series, and sure enough, you did exactly this, so I'm sure you'll do it again.

 

However, here's a suggestion for this series going forward (and maybe retrofitting the first half of your new entries).  I really LOVE seeing your original hand-drawn stuff.  Easily the best hand-drawn stuff I've ever seen, and would have remained fantastic even if you'd never leveled up to digital.  What I'd love to see with each post is your original hand-drawn version, even if it's just a smaller thumbnail.  I know the link is posted in the hidden comments, but I find it incredibly inspiring to see what hard work looks like on the page.  Hard, dedicated work doing those hand-drawn versions (still amazed), but then you did the work to learn and constantly get better at digital design (maybe you already were an Illustrator or Photoshop guru).  Anyway, I love seeing the progression of a design and being able to directly compare and contrast two designs.  That would be my Christmas request. Do this for ME.  

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Guest darkpiranha
15 minutes ago, darkpiranha said:

lol.  So right after I typed this, I went and scrolled back through the original hand-drawn series, and sure enough, you did exactly this, so I'm sure you'll do it again.

 

However, here's a suggestion for this series going forward (and maybe retrofitting the first half of your new entries).  I really LOVE seeing your original hand-drawn stuff.  Easily the best hand-drawn stuff I've ever seen, and would have remained fantastic even if you'd never leveled up to digital.  What I'd love to see with each post is your original hand-drawn version, even if it's just a smaller thumbnail.  I know the link is posted in the hidden comments, but I find it incredibly inspiring to see what hard work looks like on the page.  Hard, dedicated work doing those hand-drawn versions (still amazed), but then you did the work to learn and constantly get better at digital design (maybe you already were an Illustrator or Photoshop guru).  Anyway, I love seeing the progression of a design and being able to directly compare and contrast two designs.  That would be my Christmas request. Do this for ME.  

 

Okay, so I scrolled back even further in your posts and I'm proud to see that I was one of your very first fans back in September of 2013 in the Alton Baseball League series.  And in there, you answered one of my above questions.  You said then that you did hand-drawn because you didn't know how to use graphic design programs (or use them well).  So all of this stuff is, I'm assuming, newly-taught.  In any case, great stuff all around.  My favorite design of yours was the Sunsox.  I'd love to see that one get a digital upgrade.  

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Thanks for your detailed response to my comments! It’s impressive to see how much you’ve thought things out, especially with your explanations behind why teams look the way they do. I’m glad you liked some of my suggestions (Del Norte looks great with the black clash — I agree that it makes the Native American pattern stand out much more) and took time to respond to all my points. 

 

For Mt Diablo, I wonder how it’d look if you made the D taller, the D more clearly a D, and then intersected the center point of the M and W with the top and bottom of the D. As for State of Jefferson, I took a look at the link on German soccer crests that you provided and it helped me understand your thinking there a lot more and appreciate State of Jefferson’s crest as it is (and several of your other designs too). The influences of Werder Bremen, SV Waldhof Mannheim, and B Moenchengladbach with hints of BV Borussia Dortmund are clear. I’d still push to involve black into the crest and the home kit more, due to it’s strong presence in State of Jefferson’s flag and seal, but I understand that that could be encroaching upon the territory of Monterey’s new clash.

 

I’m excited to see Humboldt, and SC Golden Gate looks great. I like the fading pinstripes and the fog-inspired clash. I think “Soccer Club of the” may be too small to include into the crest, but otherwise it’s all damn near perfect. For Solvang fB, I think you could do a sorta sublimated cityscape type thing with the windmill and neighboring buildings right above the sponsor. Similar to how the buildings are over “Philadelphia” in the 76ers’ new city jersey. That way you can avoid any inadvertent imagery of other things...

 

Thanks again for the response and keep the concepts coming! It's great to see the level of effort put into all of these.

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On 12/23/2020 at 9:34 AM, Quambo said:

Let me just say, I have been a lurker on these boards since this was a hand drawn series. It's really cool to see the evolution of these ideas over the course of years and really awesome to see all of these designs get refined and made digitally.

 

Glad you like them! And thank you for following along through all these years! :)

 

On 12/23/2020 at 3:46 PM, Silence of the Rams said:

Let's hope this bay area team doesn't blow a 3-1 lead

 

Hopefully they won't! 🙏 Golden Gate has plenty of championships, so I don't think they're worried about that anytime soon 😂

 

On 12/24/2020 at 9:34 AM, darkpiranha said:
On 12/24/2020 at 9:14 AM, darkpiranha said:
On 12/24/2020 at 8:59 AM, darkpiranha said:

Something that would be neat that I've seen others do is once you're done, make a graphic that has all the jerseys displayed together so we can get a real sense of what this league looks like as a whole, how the colors flow and contrast.  Maybe divide it up by all the homes, all the clashes.  

 

lol.  So right after I typed this, I went and scrolled back through the original hand-drawn series, and sure enough, you did exactly this, so I'm sure you'll do it again.

 

However, here's a suggestion for this series going forward (and maybe retrofitting the first half of your new entries).  I really LOVE seeing your original hand-drawn stuff.  Easily the best hand-drawn stuff I've ever seen, and would have remained fantastic even if you'd never leveled up to digital.  What I'd love to see with each post is your original hand-drawn version, even if it's just a smaller thumbnail.  I know the link is posted in the hidden comments, but I find it incredibly inspiring to see what hard work looks like on the page.  Hard, dedicated work doing those hand-drawn versions (still amazed), but then you did the work to learn and constantly get better at digital design (maybe you already were an Illustrator or Photoshop guru).  Anyway, I love seeing the progression of a design and being able to directly compare and contrast two designs.  That would be my Christmas request. Do this for ME.  

 

Okay, so I scrolled back even further in your posts and I'm proud to see that I was one of your very first fans back in September of 2013 in the Alton Baseball League series.  And in there, you answered one of my above questions.  You said then that you did hand-drawn because you didn't know how to use graphic design programs (or use them well).  So all of this stuff is, I'm assuming, newly-taught.  In any case, great stuff all around.  My favorite design of yours was the Sunsox.  I'd love to see that one get a digital upgrade.  

 

To fulfill your request, I'll go back and post a pic of the hand-drawn concepts on each post once I post this next team! And just like five years ago, I definitely will compile all the teams' kits in the series finale! :)

 

Thank you for being one of the first fans of my work from way back then; I truly appreciate all the support!

 

When I started college in the fall of 2016 (after my hand-drawn series were completed), I found out that my university provided a free Adobe Creative Cloud subscription to all its students. That was the beginning of my experience with Illustrator and other programs such as InDesign and more advanced Photoshop, slowly honing my skills as I created 230+ Snapchat Geofilters (all of which can be seen on my Behance linked in my forum signature). Recently, I've started to grow bored of making Snapchat filters, mostly because of declining app usage and me realizing that designing for Snapchat began to limit my creative experimentation. Now that I'm a bored, unemployed college graduate, I decided to go back and digitize my old sports logos to add to my portfolio site (also linked below). 

 

I have several ideas of what I'll be doing once I finish Team No. 49, and the baseball league is unfortunately quite on the backburner for now. But we shall see, my friend!

 

On 12/24/2020 at 10:13 PM, Megildur said:

Thanks for your detailed response to my comments! It’s impressive to see how much you’ve thought things out, especially with your explanations behind why teams look the way they do. I’m glad you liked some of my suggestions (Del Norte looks great with the black clash — I agree that it makes the Native American pattern stand out much more) and took time to respond to all my points. 

 

For Mt Diablo, I wonder how it’d look if you made the D taller, the D more clearly a D, and then intersected the center point of the M and W with the top and bottom of the D. As for State of Jefferson, I took a look at the link on German soccer crests that you provided and it helped me understand your thinking there a lot more and appreciate State of Jefferson’s crest as it is (and several of your other designs too). The influences of Werder Bremen, SV Waldhof Mannheim, and B Moenchengladbach with hints of BV Borussia Dortmund are clear. I’d still push to involve black into the crest and the home kit more, due to it’s strong presence in State of Jefferson’s flag and seal, but I understand that that could be encroaching upon the territory of Monterey’s new clash.

 

I’m excited to see Humboldt, and SC Golden Gate looks great. I like the fading pinstripes and the fog-inspired clash. I think “Soccer Club of the” may be too small to include into the crest, but otherwise it’s all damn near perfect. For Solvang fB, I think you could do a sorta sublimated cityscape type thing with the windmill and neighboring buildings right above the sponsor. Similar to how the buildings are over “Philadelphia” in the 76ers’ new city jersey. That way you can avoid any inadvertent imagery of other things...

 

Thanks again for the response and keep the concepts coming! It's great to see the level of effort put into all of these.

 

I'm glad that the explanations help clear up the designs for you!

 

I'll keep those suggestions in mind for Mt. Diablo and Solvang edits; thank you for the support and feedback! :)

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Christmas definitely looked a lot different in this weird year, but I hope y'all still had a safe and wonderful holiday! :)

 

Up next is San Francisco's junior team and Golden Gate's crosstown rival:

 

---

 

Bay Area Division

Sporting San Francisco

San Francisco, California

Founded: 1991

Championships: 1

 

ORIGINAL POST:

Spoiler

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^ Alongside the link to the original post, I have now attached the original hand-drawn concepts for easy comparison (Thanks to darkpiranha for the suggestion!)

 

50763841691_8a123a6a2b_o.png

 

Quote

San Francisco's other soccer team, primarily directed for the gentrifiers growing young population centered in the eastern and southeastern parts of the City. This team is owned by the same company who owns the San Francisco Giants, hence the "Sporting" name and the orange-and-black color scheme. I was considering making this team's name "Sporting 415" for the City's area code, but I later decided for a more traditional name. As for the crest itself, it's basically the eagle phoenix taken from the San Francisco city flag above a miner's spade; San Francisco, as a vital port town, experienced a major population growth during the California Gold Rush.

 

The home kit is a simple black, white, and orange kit. The clash kit is an orange kit, with stripes mimicking the stripes seen on the eagle wings on the crest. The kits are supplied by Umbro and the sponsor is Virgin America*, an airline based in nearby Burlingame.

 

Sporting San Francisco retains its simple, classy Umbro look with slightly-modified kits from the 2015 set. The home kit sees the orange stripe be moved lower on the front of the shirt, and the clash now sees a diagonal pattern reminiscent of the city's many steep hills (Golden Gate has taken possession of all bridge-related imagery). The new sponsor is Salesforce (whose name is also attached to SF's new tallest building), as hometown Virgin America was merged into Alaska Airlines in 2018.

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On 12/26/2020 at 2:20 PM, raysox said:

You're doing an amazing job. I've love seeing the major step in your design ability, because obviously all of these look that much better.

 

Thank you very much! I always admired your soccer series through the years, and I hope that these digitized concepts are right on par with yours! :)

 

---

 

This is a team that's been eagerly anticipated by many since the beginning of the series, so here we go!

 

Gold Country Division

Mammoth Ski Association

Mammoth Lakes, California

Founded: 2017*

Championships: 0

 

*Replaces the now-defunct Mavericks Sporting

 

ORIGINAL POST:

Spoiler

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50767388403_730cf2ba65_o.png

 

First of all, I would like to give a huge shoutout to ItsSlothy and FlyingLamprey for suggesting that I do a Mammoth Lakes team and giving me ideas for the direction of the team's identity! Now for the backstory...

 

For 22 years, Mavericks Sporting (owned by the real-life High Desert Mavericks MiLB team) represented the communities of Victorville and Apple Valley in the Mojave Division. Following the California League's 2016 decision to terminate the Mavericks and the team's inability to renew their lease at their home stadium, Mavericks Sporting was dissolved before the 2017 season.

 

With one fewer team in the league, CSL officials began to sift through their waiting list of potential franchises* in time for the 2017 season. One of these prospective franchisees came from the owners of the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, who hoped to boost summertime tourism with the Eastern Sierras' first sports team. Despite the relative remoteness from the rest of California, the Mammoth Ski Association was founded in 2017 and was placed in the newly-realigned Gold Country Division for easier travel to the Reno and Carson City teams. 

 

*Due to the CSL's 49-team cap for California history purposes, the league keeps a list of franchises ready to go in the case of a team failing

 

---

 

The crest features an "M" stylized like the front of a mammoth** and its large husks. To stand out in the league, Mammoth features a brown/light blue color scheme (one of my favorite color schemes, actually!) 

 

The home kit takes the "M" from the crest and makes it into a fading mountain stripe pattern. The clash kit changes every year to reflect Mammoth Mountain's annual beanie design that's unveiled every November: the 2019 season has the mountain pattern of the winter 2018-19 beanie. The kits are supplied by Under Armour, and the sponsor is the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.

 

**Mammoths were actually never found in this area, and the name is actually derived from the Mammoth Mining Company that was founded in 1878

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I went ahead and made another team today because why not?

 

Redwood Division

Bidwell Park AC

Chico, California

Founded: 1998

Championships: 0

 

ORIGINAL POST:

Spoiler

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50769124762_f0a0e75496_o.png

 

Quote

This was one of the teams I was just plain stuck on. Chico is indeed notable for being a big party town, home to Chico State University. However, I wanted to downplay that and put a more positive image of the city, so I turned to Bidwell Park, one of the 25 biggest municipal parks in the United States. The roundel logo features trees at the top and blue stripes, suggesting the flow of the Big Chico Creek that runs through Chico, as a nod to the park's natural beauty. Color-wise, I ultimately decided to stray away from a red color scheme (Chico State has a cardinal red/white color scheme) because of the rival Redding's color scheme; instead, I turned to a more natural forest green/sky blue color scheme.

 

The home kit is a simple light blue, hooped kit with green trim. The clash kit is a simple green jersey with a light blue diagonal sash across the front torso. The kits are supplied by Puma, and the sponsor is Build.com, an online home improvement retailer based in Chico.

 

Bidwell Park remains mostly unchanged, with the crest being a little more cleaned up and the home kit losing its sleeve stripes because it looked like overkill. The 2019 season is the first season following the tragic and destructive Camp Fire in nearby Paradise, so Bidwell Park added a black "PARADISE STRONG" armband on the right sleeves of the kits. The 2015 clash kit was recolored to match the green/yellow color scheme of Paradise High School, with the yellow gradients representing Paradise rising from the ashes. I also had to make sure that the green clash did not conflict with the many other green kits in the Redwood Division. The sponsorship rights were bought out by the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, whose main brewery is in Chico.

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