WHL Concept Series (Series Complete)

[Karnage84]

On 4/15/2021 at 3:13 AM, vtgco said:

Next up is Saskatoon:

 

Saskatoon's logo is fine, certainly better than what it replaced, but it doesn't really look like anything (not even the skate blade it's meant to be.)

I just figured I'd turn it into the Traffic Bridge for the City of Bridges. A saskatoon berry is the shoulder patch logo.

 

Also, I figured they could be the WHL's yellow-dominant team, so they get a simple jersey design because they already stand out enough!

 

still lost on how to change regina eek

This is probably intentional but it's like if the Golden State Warriors and the Swedish hockey team decided to have a kid together. 

 

I am personally a fan of it and find the gold jersey to be really really sharp. 

[jwinters]

On 4/14/2021 at 4:38 AM, vtgco said:

Fair point about the deer-ness of it... I'll keep messing around with it, even if I have to ditch the hockey stick to make it work.

How does this feel? Step in the right direction, maybe?

 

I do think this is better, but I think the snout should be rounder and droopier. It might not make for a great logo, but I do think it would look more moose-like.

 

I think the way you handled Prince Albert's numbers in the first place was best, but thanks for humouring me!

 

Saskatoon looks excellent!

[Edubdesign]

Oh I am following the hell outta this. Excellent work so far - you've managed to somehow come up with entirely new designs and identities, yet keep them consistent with the rest of the league. It's bold, it's colourful, it's unique - and as someone who's spent a lot of my life in Saskatoon, I know that design would go over well.

[vtgco]

On 4/16/2021 at 10:49 AM, Karnage84 said:

This is probably intentional but it's like if the Golden State Warriors and the Swedish hockey team decided to have a kid together. 

 

I am personally a fan of it and find the gold jersey to be really really sharp. 

 I promise I didn't have Golden State in mind, but I guess with the bridge theme, it really does look that way! Oh well, both are good looking teams. Thanks!

 

On 4/16/2021 at 8:42 PM, jwinters said:

I do think this is better, but I think the snout should be rounder and droopier. It might not make for a great logo, but I do think it would look more moose-like.

 

I think the way you handled Prince Albert's numbers in the first place was best, but thanks for humouring me!

 

Saskatoon looks excellent!

I thought your Prince Albert idea was good, so I was happy to try it out. I'll keep trying on Moose Jaw... I guess it's hard to reconcile that droopiness of an actual moose with the very jagged current logo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

5 hours ago, Edubdesign said:

Oh I am following the hell outta this. Excellent work so far - you've managed to somehow come up with entirely new designs and identities, yet keep them consistent with the rest of the league. It's bold, it's colourful, it's unique - and as someone who's spent a lot of my life in Saskatoon, I know that design would go over well.

Thank you so much! I'm really glad to hear someone from Saskatoon likes the design, since I wasn't sure if the current classic logo was considered untouchable or something.

[vtgco]

Okay, here's my take on the newly-relocated Ice:

 

 

So I don't mean to say that the Ice brand belongs in Winnipeg instead of the Kootenays, but I tried to show them embracing their new city with a new set.

The current jerseys are quite bad, IMO, with gross shades of gray and powder blue bleeding into each other, and a decidedly un-wintery black base.

For my take, I add Winnipeg's famous Esplanade Riel bridge as a patch (I was trying to match the aggressive style of the primary logo) and go with a light blue base with icicle striping.

Also the team gets a new wordmark because the current one is slightly illegible.

 

Original (before correction of mistakes and other minor changes)

[monkeypower]

Been following this series since the beginning, but haven't yet posted so here are some comments that have turned into some (somewhat unorganized) long form jot notes

 

Everett - I think my favourite is your third go-around with the mountain logo background and no "EVERETT"

Seattle - I like reducing the grey and the idea of the ferry shaped striping, but I find a lack of cohesion in the actual striping. Firstly, the sleeve stripes don't match the hem stripes and secondly, the single grey stripe feels tacked on after the fact and kind of "floats" out on its own in the blue at the bottoms of the jersey without really feeling like it's part of the b/w/g striping design

Spokane - Intrigued by the name change and I think it would be a good idea if Spokane ever was going to change. Pretty good concept outside of me not knowing how I feel about the white numbers on the white jersey (you also don't continue the white stripe in the middle of the blue on the back of the red jersey between the numbers, but I'm guessing that's just an accidental thing). I'm not a huge fan of the secondary logo

Portland - I like the sash striping and I like the second version with the green pants much better. Needs a number outline though

Tri-City - The logo doesn't really feel like a sports logo to me, but think your second version with the straight striping is better and agree with the other comment that "Atoms" is better than "Atomics". I also think the wordmark across the top of the graphic should be used in the secondary logo instead of using a third different font there. Also needs number outlines

Kamloops - Absolutely love the secondary logo and the wordmark really gives me a BC feel for whatever reason, though I don't like the little triangle in it. I think you needed to either commit to the B or the K for the logo instead of trying to split the difference because it's an odd shape and I'm not a huge fan of the striping down the middle of the sleeves. I also think the top stripe on the blue jersey should be white. Also needs number outlines

Kelowna - I like the logo, but it's another Rockets logo that doesn't actually feature a rocket. The colour balance is off on the white jersey as there's no teal at the bottom of the jersey nor on the socks. Not a huge fan of the secondary logo and the jersey needs number outlines

PG - Absolutely love the logo, so much better than what they have and I like the double brown look. I think the metallic striping/numbers on the brown jersey is not great, especially since it isn't seen on the white jersey. I would like it better if the metallic was limited to the logo and the jersey colouring be changed to white. I also think the pants should be the dark brown. Not a huge fan of the secondary logo and the jersey also needs number outlines

Vancouver - This is the first miss for me. I don't think the G works for me in the logo and it looks weird having the lumberjack head to appear as a black silhouette and then have his arm be red, it feels detached. I also think the arm/bottom of the G because his head is realistic and then his arm is just a line ending in a stump. The jersey screams 2007 EDGE rollout with the side panels and the Kings/Panthers sleeve striping and piping that the hockey world should and has been moving on from. The bottom of the jersey also fall into the same colour balance problem as the Kelowna jersey where it's too heavily weighted to one of the colours. I think the pants should be black. Not a huge fan of the secondary logo and the jersey also needs number outlines (you also didn't stripe the socks in this concept)

Victoria - It's a toss-up for me between the purple/lavender and the purple/grey look. I'm a fan of both, but I don't think they should be combined because that one extra mockup you did runs into the same striping problem I have with the Seattle jerseys. I don't like the socks for the purple jersey not being purple and I'm not a fan of the NOB font. I do like the secondary logo, but I wish you didn't include the maple leaf (and removed it from the primary logo). I also think the jersey needs consistent number outlines

Moose Jaw - I agree with the previous comments about the logo not working. Just as a personal preference, I think coloured namebars always suck and look bad. I also don't really like the secondary logo

PA - Outside of the colours, there is nothing I would keep about the Raiders current look. However, I also think this is a miss for you. The logo isn't great, but I will concede that you are basing it off an already bad logo. I also don't like the overuse of beveling and the beveled/alternate shoulder/sleeve/hem striping is a no go for me. I also don't like the chunk cut out for the number and I don't like the secondary logo

Saskatoon - I like switching to a yellow prominent look and I like the skate blade/bridge merge logo, but I would remove the water and the berries at the bottom of the logo to reduce the clutter, especially at small sizes, and they don't really add anything. For the jerseys, I would remove the lower yellow/blue stripes from the sleeves, so that it is like a flipped version of the hem striping and then change the yellow stripe on the yellow jersey to white like in your second version. I would also flip the socks for the yellow jersey (following the hem/torso design) so they are primarily yellow and don't create an unbroken chunk of blue going hem-pants-socks. Not a huge fan of the secondary logo and the jersey also needs number outlines

Winnipeg - Like the switch to the double blue (agreed that the current weird greyscaled dark set is bad). I also think the wordmark is cool, but it reads as "ICE WINNIPEG" and not "WINNIPEG ICE". For the secondary logo, I would maybe take artistic liberty with/simplify the bridge cables so that there aren't so many cramped in there. As for the jerseys, I think you should keep the downwards icicles on the sleeves but remove the upwards ones (icicles don't go upwards) on the sleeves and just make it straight stripe so it mimics the hem striping, just with the icicles at the bottom. On the white jersey, you also flipped the placement of the dark blue stripe on the hem and the sock striping doesn't match anything. Also the numbers need outlines.

 

After typing all this up, and it becoming longer than I thought, two consistent drawbacks for me:

- Personally, I prefer outlined numbers and think outlined numbers looked much better than non-outlined numbers when teams have a secondary colour to use as an outline

- My problem with the secondary logos is that I think you overrelied on city symbols and I find they drifted too far away from the brand of the team into specifically the brand of the city. Like PA's secondary logo is straight up just a tree and Saskatoon's is just a plain bunch (bouquet?) of berries. Also with Kelowna and Spokane, you have four teams with tenuously connected plant-based secondary logos.

 

Though overall, and despite how my comments come across, I really like this series as a whole and I'm looking forward to the rest and what you do with the Hitmen.

[jwinters]

That's exactly the colour scheme I'd like to see for Winnipeg, and the 'W'-shaped icicles on their sleeves are a great touch! I do agree with @monkeypower about the upward spike though. Besides not being the way icicles form, I think they make the sleeve numbers too hard to see on the white jersey, and they look a little too close to the diamonds on your Kelowna concept.

[vtgco]

7 hours ago, monkeypower said:

Been following this series since the beginning, but haven't yet posted so here are some comments that have turned into some (somewhat unorganized) long form jot notes

Thank you for the very thorough critiques; I really appreciate the thought you put into this.

I think in regards to the overall, consistent drawbacks you've mentioned, I think it's a mixture of differences in opinion between us, some difficulties I'm having, and some laziness on my part.

 

You mention the differences in the hem/sleeve stripes for Victoria, Seattle, and Saskatoon. I've been doing the abridged hem striping thing, for the same reason I imagine the Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken (and arguably the Maple Leafs) have done it: the sleeves leave a lot of vertical room for interesting designs, and the hems don't. Thus, it feels like a bit of a trade-off between letting myself do taller, unorthodox sleeve designs and matching those designs closely to the hem. The mismatching doesn't bother me when I'm excited about the sleeves!

However, I admit I'm doing that trick for Saskatoon when I don't have to, so it might look better without it:

 

As for the logo suggestions, I originally had it with no berries, but I think the roundel feels really unbalanced without something to fill up that space.

 

Re: the number outlines, I guess I just tend to prefer no number outlines, especially for non-block fonts, but I tried out a few real quick:

 (black outlines, per @HenryJens's suggestion)

 (Wine outlines... Just realized wine & navy don't touch anywhere else, but it's still fine)

 (Number outlines don't work with the silver anyway, so white trim instead as suggested)

 

Not quite my cup of tea, but maybe that appeals more to you!

 

 

As for the large number of city-themed (and plant-themed) logos, it's complicated. I strongly believe that a sports brand's goal should be to represent its city as much and as uniquely as possible, so I do want to do a lot of that. For example, Kelowna's current IRL situation with a redundant ogopogo head roundel secondary and Moose Jaw's IRL generic "MJ" secondary feel really underwhelming to me. To that end, using civic imagery over more name imagery feels natural to me.

That said, I have a couple rough ideas for different Giants and Raiders secondary logos that I was struggling with which would've add some variety from the plant/flag references. Maybe I'll try again with them. If you have any alternate secondary logo ideas for the Rockets or Blades that are less out of the blue, let me know!

 

 

7 hours ago, monkeypower said:

On the white jersey, you also flipped the placement of the dark blue stripe on the hem and the sock striping doesn't match anything.

Oops, part of this was actually a mistake! I forgot to change those back after trying out some other arrangements. I've made these fixes to the original post, while also simplifying the cables of the bridge logo a tad (feels much improved IMO, thanks for that suggestion!)

 

7 hours ago, monkeypower said:

I think you should keep the downwards icicles on the sleeves but remove the upwards ones (icicles don't go upwards) on the sleeves and just make it straight stripe so it mimics the hem striping, just with the icicles at the bottom

5 hours ago, jwinters said:

I do agree with @monkeypower about the upward spike though. Besides not being the way icicles form, I think they make the sleeve numbers too hard to see on the white jersey, and they look a little too close to the diamonds on your Kelowna concept.

Fair enough. That upward spike was originally going to be the only bridge callout, but I guess the shoulder patch is enough to cover that!

 

Thanks for the feedback!

[Chromatic]

Winnipeg is awesome. I love the secondary logo. The colours are great, they remind me of these cups, which is perfect for the slurpee capital of the world.

[chcarlson23]

The three jerseys that you added number outlines to, all got stronger. They were good before, but that adds just a nice touch to each of the jerseys! 
 

Keep up the great work, this series is fantastic!!

[vtgco]

22 hours ago, Chromatic said:

Winnipeg is awesome. I love the secondary logo. The colours are great, they remind me of these cups, which is perfect for the slurpee capital of the world.

Thanks! Never would've guessed that about Winnipeg; that's kinda funny...

 

12 hours ago, chcarlson23 said:

The three jerseys that you added number outlines to, all got stronger. They were good before, but that adds just a nice touch to each of the jerseys! 
 

Keep up the great work, this series is fantastic!!

Thank you for the kind words!

 

Here's Brandon:

Not a fan of the execution of the team's current logo (or the team itself *grumbles in 2016*) but the actual idea is really nice, so I mostly just revamp that a bit. The shoulder patch is a take on the retro logo to match the style of my primary, and the simplified logo on the pants is a take on the current shoulder patch. The chest striping has a Golden Knights-style embossed wheat pattern.

 

So it's still slow going on Regina, especially because of schoolwork, so it'll either take a bit or I might just start the Central and come back to the Pats later. Suggestions are appreciated.

[monkeypower]

Love the crown.

[jwinters]

Kelowna and Tri-City do look better with the outlined numbers, but I liked the original Prince George concept with more silver better. The update to Winnipeg looks great, as does Brandon. The embossed wheat in the gold sections is great!

[vtgco]

On 4/21/2021 at 8:45 AM, monkeypower said:

Love the crown.

Thank you! I'm happy how it turned out.

 

On 4/21/2021 at 6:01 PM, jwinters said:

Kelowna and Tri-City do look better with the outlined numbers, but I liked the original Prince George concept with more silver better. The update to Winnipeg looks great, as does Brandon. The embossed wheat in the gold sections is great!

Yeah, I'm partial to the silver outlined version for PG too. The dark pants won't work with the away, either, I think... Glad you like Brandon!

 

-------------------------

 

Well, I had a sudden burst of progress to get Regina done (procrastinating on schoolwork will do that to you, I guess...) so here it is earlier than expected!

It might be lacking some polish, so feedback is appreciated.

 

The Pats have gone through a few subtly different variations on their classic jersey over the past century, any of which would be a solid place to stay, but I had to try to mix it up just a tad.

I basically ended up trying to make a cohesive set that combines the two dark blue jerseys and three white jerseys seen in this image along with the striping of this alternate. I really like that cream 1920's fauxback with the red chest stripes, so that is why the away has a chest stripe.

The current logo has the most elegant font used in their history, but the bajillion outlines bog it down, so I've pared it down to just one.

 

Finally, I didn't want to keep the exact that PPCLI regiment logo they use now, because that felt too on-the-nose militaristic.  A dog logo felt appropriate, since Regina has used a bulldog sleeve patch before and their mascot is a Clifford-esque red dog of unidentified breed. Someone on the comments the main Sportslogos.net Pats page said the PPCLI had history with collies, which apparently is true, so I just tried to make a red collie and put it into a similar roundel design to the PPCLI logo. The crown comes from Regina's city flag.

A bit more of a subtle take on the military theme for the name, I hope.

Anyways, I'm not great with animal logos, so any advice about the dog logo is appreciated.

[monkeypower]

I like the simplicity of the dog logo. Two minor things, I think his dog tag is too big and I don't know if you were going for it, but the placement of the crown sort of looks like the dog is wearing the crown but it's too big for his head.

[vtgco]

On 4/23/2021 at 10:12 AM, monkeypower said:

I like the simplicity of the dog logo. Two minor things, I think his dog tag is too big and I don't know if you were going for it, but the placement of the crown sort of looks like the dog is wearing the crown but it's too big for his head.

I was sorta trying to make it work so that the crown was both on the dog's head and part of the roundel... Anyways, you're right about it being too big. Here's a small update compared with what I had. Thanks for the feedback!

[vtgco]

Starting out the Central Division, it's Calgary!

Calgary's got a fun logo; it just needs fewer outlines and a return to the previous colors. You'd think that a team purchased by the Calgary Flames and with flames on a shirt on its logo would have kept flames on its jerseys. Hopefully this take isn't too busy.

 

Anyways, the shoulder patch is of the Calgary Tower, and the helmet/pants logo is a take on the Calgary flag with a simplified winged heart, the symbol of the team's namesake, Bret Hart.

 

The Central Division has some strong logos, IMO, so it'll mostly just be logo tweaks/recolors, but hopefully the jerseys will feel sufficiently new!

[HenryJens]

Hitmen look great, as usual your secondary logos are on point. I've never been a big fan of the wrestling themed jerseys myself and was happy when they went to black-red-copper but I definitely prefer them without silver like you've got here. The flames just seem a bit off to me, a bit too jagged and busy so I'm getting more of a claw mark vibe like the raptors logo.

[vtgco]

2 hours ago, HenryJens said:

Hitmen look great, as usual your secondary logos are on point. I've never been a big fan of the wrestling themed jerseys myself and was happy when they went to black-red-copper but I definitely prefer them without silver like you've got here. The flames just seem a bit off to me, a bit too jagged and busy so I'm getting more of a claw mark vibe like the raptors logo.

Yeah, black/red/copper is a good color scheme too, but I'm not sure it's well suited for this particular concept. Besides, the league could use a touch of pink. If it's any consolation, I tried to go with a redder pink (ala St Louis City SC).

 

Fair enough about the flames, I was just trying to emulate the flames on the logo, which now that you point them out are definitely very skinny. Here's a version I threw together with a wider, more fluid flame pattern.

 

Maybe it matches the logo less, but maybe it looks better?

 

Anyways, thank you for your feedback, and I'm glad you like the secondary logos! It's always nice to hear from a local.

[monkeypower]

Yeah, I think the wider flames are better even if it doesn't match the logo flames (the jersey flames have never matched the logo flames IRL anyways).

 

I'm not a huge fan of side paneling and if I had my druthers, I would do like what you did for Winnipeg or what the old Manchester Monarchs had (and sort of like what the old Hitmen jerseys had) where the sleeves have the design and then the hem matches the sleeve colour pattern, just without the design.

 

I am wondering what your reasoning is for changing the colours of the arms of the logo guy (I just now realized he doesn't have a colloquial nickname like Gorton's Fisherman or Blasty or Burger King). I've also made my feelings pretty clear on number outlining and the secondary logos, I think your Calgary Tower logo is a great logo but just not for this. I do wonder if the triangle should be flipped though so that it's like it's the same triangle from the primary logo.

 

However, I think the flag inspired secondary is great. It's a direct reference to the city while still being a direct reference to the team, I really like it.