New Lacrosse Template // MLL-PLL Merger Concepts

[raysox]

Hello! So first off, if you haven't heard, Major League Lacrosse and the Premier Lacrosse League will merge going forward. Major League Lacrosse had a regular franchise model, with teams based in cities. Premier Lacrosse League is a 2 year old venture from former MLL Most Valuable Player Paul Rabil, with backing from IMG and aired on NBC. They have 7 teams that go city to city, basically a touring lacrosse league. Rabil was fed up with the way MLL was ran, and actually tried to straight up buy the MLL in the past. Instead created the PLL which now controls the league.

 

Here's more about the merger

 

What this means is that the PLL will expand to include the Boston Cannons, which will rename as Cannons Lacrosse Club. The PLL also will inherit the names that aren't used. So whenever the PLL expands next, they may choose the name of a team that played in MLL. Overall I think it's good for the sport and growing the game, since MLL was not on healthy standing. 

Boring part is over, you clicked on this thread for artwork! The MLL has used a New Balance template for yeeeeears. The PLL has a deal with adidas, and they ended up having better designs than MLS has with the same company. The goal of this is to give a facelift to the Major League Lacrosse teams into a modern, fresh uniform. A look in to what these teams might possibly look like in the future.

So without further adieu, here are the Cannon Lacrosse Club. The designs are pretty simple, trying to use the cannon shape on both. I wanted to keep them asymmetrical because the logo is too. 

I couldn't leave you hanging without dropping this template.

Last year, I was looking to update my popular soccer template. But I ended up dropping it because I thought that it was too complex and ugly. I arched out the hem, and figured out layers a little better. If I can make a better way to swap brands for soccer, you may get a soccer template in this style.

Download right here, and check back for more in the next couple days!

[sky1324]

Great concept! Honestly I'm a little sad that the MLL is essentially under because I never was able to see a Hounds game, but ultimately it'll be better for the game of lacrosse. The template is fantastic as always, my only issue is I seem to be downloading PDF files from the link rather than the AI file. Is this on my end or possibly an error from you? Either way, great stuff as always and I'm excited to see more!

[raysox]

18 minutes ago, QCS said:

Great concept! Honestly I'm a little sad that the MLL is essentially under because I never was able to see a Hounds game, but ultimately it'll be better for the game of lacrosse. The template is fantastic as always, my only issue is I seem to be downloading PDF files from the link rather than the AI file. Is this on my end or possibly an error from you? Either way, great stuff as always and I'm excited to see more!

You had ME worried cause I had sent this out a few places, but I just downloaded it and got an AI. Would have been worrying since I never saved it as a PDF, haha.

[sky1324]

8 minutes ago, raysox said:

You had ME worried cause I had sent this out a few places, but I just downloaded it and got an AI. Would have been worrying since I never saved it as a PDF, haha.

I just got it to work, I had to switch browsers from FireFox to Edge just to get the AI file. Nearly bricked my computer with viruses it seems, but I got the new template so it was worth it.

[raysox]

Outlaws Lacrosse Club

This concept was the first one I thought through thinking about this series, but would only feel right if the first team was the Cannons. I'm pretty confident in guessing the Outlaws will be the next team to join. They historically had one of the best attendance and support, even with giving other teams a 6 year head start.

 

I made pinstripes on the dark uniform with the barbed wire from the logo. I originally wanted to make this black, but think going back to their traditional orange really popped. It is my favorite color after all. The other idea I had was sublimated paisley, like a bandana pattern. I threw it on the black penny and light jersey. The light jersey I swapped the base color, and was heading to add more splashes of orange. But took a second and realized I really liked the Las Vegas Raiders look of the uniform.

 

 

 

[raysox]

I was thinking when this was announced that one team that may get the shaft is the New York Lizards. The 2 decade old club would go in to a league with an existing reptile-named team, and surely they wouldn't want to double up on something so close. But tonight I realized the Lizards and Rochester Rattlers shared a league for nearly their whole existance.

 

The Whipsnakes use a snake scale pattern, so that was out. I was trying to think of some interesting ideas for this. The lime green would stand out in the new league, so I swapped the base of their dark uniform from black to green. I was cruising through the concept, and was making a chrome silver facemask that. Then thought, "hey lizards isn't specific, what if it was like a chameleon with an oilslick typed wrap?" The thinking there is that the color would change depending on which way you look at it. It was more interesting than making them white. Here is Lizards Lacrosse Club.

 

[raysox]

Well no biters, but I have some more concepts for you all.

 

The Philadelphia Barrage moved there for 2020, which obviously never had a chance to take place as scheduled. They were the Atlanta Blaze before then, but previously, the Philadelphia Barrage existed from 2004-2008. The name fits in with the PLL, and has a decent logo for the job. The PLL has the Archers, who use navy and orange. I tried to differentiate and use this greener shade color that some logo results on google had. Knowing Archers have an orange uni and navy uniform, I wanted to make a uniform that was a good mix of both, and then a white uniform for the light version.

I used this lightning bolt pattern inspired from the logo for both, but used them in two different ways. So here's the concepts for the Barrage Lacrosse Club.

 

I have the Hammerheads done too and may post that tonight if someone tells me if these are good or not!

 

[PERRIN]

Though I'm by no means a lacrosse fan, I've always been a fan of the logos of many of the MLL teams, and these uniforms are nothing short of amazing. All the teams look great, but the Lizards are my favorite as of now. Another terrific thread so far!

[vtgco]

I love the paisley for the Denver away, and the barbed wire pinstripes are cool too. The iridescence for the Lizards is fun.

 

Not sure how I feel about the Lizards' shorts; doesn't really read as a tail.

 

Minor complaint: the outline on the Adidas logos feel unnecessary for the Outlaws and the Cannons away.

 

Overall cool designs! Can't say I prefer the PLL's location-devoid branding scheme, but you've done a really good job adapting the MLL teams over.

[qckgnc]

On 12/17/2020 at 7:34 PM, QCS said:

Great concept! Honestly I'm a little sad that the MLL is essentially under because I never was able to see a Hounds game, but ultimately it'll be better for the game of lacrosse. The template is fantastic as always, my only issue is I seem to be downloading PDF files from the link rather than the AI file. Is this on my end or possibly an error from you? Either way, great stuff as always and I'm excited to see more!

 

 

The Hounds were awesome, I think the ownership (same as Independence) has a lot to do with why they went under. Team was uber succesful the first few years, think we had the highest attendance our first and maybe second year, then it just tailed off. I'd like to see them come back if the PLL ever goes to a franchise model. 

 

My favorite concept here is the Lizards, I also feel like the crossed cannons makes a better primary logo for the Cannons so I appeciate that you used it on the home set.

[raysox]

Thanks for the kind words! 

 

Here's the newest team in the MLL. They were expanded after the Dallas Rattlers folded. Connecticut never hosted them, as they played in a bubble at the Naval Academy stadium. I removed CONNECTICUT from their logo, leaving just the weirdly rendered shark. I put a pattern of a shark fin in a circle, repeated across the jersey as the schtick of this uniform. The dark unfiorm has a horizontal stripe, at the angle the text from the logo is. It also has colored thread that some uniforms have in real life, that's what I was going for there.

Also @4_tattoos pointed out that some teams have a light and dark helmet, which I hadn't noticed because I believe only two teams had this summer in the bubble. I inverted the blue and yellow for this.

[4_tattoos]

On 12/21/2020 at 3:53 PM, raysox said:

Also @4_tattoos pointed out that some teams have a light and dark helmet, which I hadn't noticed because I believe only two teams had this summer in the bubble. I inverted the blue and yellow for this.

As far as the PLL bubble went, each team wore both their helmets at some point during the championship series. Although I personally think they should cut back to one for the sake of recognition.

 

These concepts are great!

[colinturner95]

I like what you got going on here. This makes me wonder if the teams will get totally new branding or just minor tweaks and keep their logos if and when they all come back. 

[raysox]

16 hours ago, colinturner95 said:

I like what you got going on here. This makes me wonder if the teams will get totally new branding or just minor tweaks and keep their logos if and when they all come back. 

I posted in that thread linked in the original post that I really hope they don't. If they strip the Boston AND logo from the Cannons, it won't feel like the same team. Of the MLL teams, the Hammerheads were the hardest to lift the place name from, so partial logos are super easy to make out of the existing brands.

I have the Bayhawks vectors and going to play around with that for the next post.

Somewhat related, but 47brand is having a hell of a MLL sale

https://www.47brand.com/collections/major-league-lacrosse

[4_tattoos]

A little OT: If the PLL ever decides to release a set of third jerseys for it's clubs, I kinda hope they go with a traditional style for them. Meaning instead of having third jerseys with a big logo on the front (the PLL norm), the front of thirds would have the team's wordmarks and jersey numbers.

 

Think it would be a nice little change up that could help win over some of the traditionalists that aren't too fond of the way the PLL does things. The jersey style is one of the legit complaints I've seen since the league has been running.

[raysox]

On 12/22/2020 at 4:57 PM, 4_tattoos said:

A little OT: If the PLL ever decides to release a set of third jerseys for it's clubs, I kinda hope they go with a traditional style for them. Meaning instead of having third jerseys with a big logo on the front (the PLL norm), the front of thirds would have the team's wordmarks and jersey numbers.

 

Think it would be a nice little change up that could help win over some of the traditionalists that aren't too fond of the way the PLL does things. The jersey style is one of the legit complaints I've seen since the league has been running.

I think that would be fun. PLL does retro really well judging from their merchandise. Doing these was kind of odd. I didn't have any lacrosse inspiration, other than the 7 teams. Outside of this, there's restricted college lacrosse unis or 20 year old templates that the MLL seemed to love. Wonder if this conversation would be different if a kit maker actually let the MLL teams differentiate from each other more.

 

The Bayhawks were one of the original teams, and it would be a shame to never see their rebirth in the PLL. With that in mind, I wanted to keep these uniforms a little cleaner than the others. I had an interesting color way to work with that would do a lot of heavy lifting. I created a feather pattern, a throwback to what that they once used when their colors were navy/kelly green. I also used the diagonal break in a solid stripe that they used in their most recent look. I also made different color sleeves, which felt like the limitations of how much I wanted to play with such a clean look. Just think that I wanted to "honor their roots by referencing the naval academy" or something!

 

[raysox]

Okay last one for now! The Charlotte Hounds were on hiatus for 2020. On top of this, the Waterdogs are an existing team in the PLL. They're 7th of 7 in my rankings for potential MLL team names carrying over to the PLL However! They have a solid logo and color scheme, and I couldn't leave them out. I had an idea for using paw prints in this, and went from thinking the pattern on the penny to the vertical striping only seen on the Redwoods uniforms. I used gold accents pretty heavily since navy and that cool dark grey were hard to work with at times. Then finally, made sure the gold helmets were represented in this series.

 

 

Thank you to everyone who touched in for this series. I loved playing on this template, and hope more people make some concepts. I'm sure the NCAA could use a facelift.