jackkmart's Concept Emporium - It's just a bunch of random concepts

[jackkmart]

Introduction and First Concept

 

Recently I've gotten back into design, especially sports design, and I've been really trying to come up with some unusual or interesting team names, concepts, brands, etc. This is something I started to do and explore with NACA concepts (my mostly defunct?  project. IDK I may continue or revamp it someday) but felt kind of limited by the University angle I put on myself. So, upon returning I decided not to tie myself to any constraints except to do something a little out of left field for each concept and brand. 

 

With all that being said, this thread may eventually turn into one where I dump a bunch of kind of 'wacky' sports concepts or it may just be a couple.

 

EDIT: This thread has ended up being a lot longer and more complex than I had originally planned so I'm gonna hijack my first concept and create a contents page on this reply.

 

Contents

 

Hockey Concepts

 

Gulf Coast Mavericks

Morgantown Druids

Montreal Patriotes

El Paso Desiertos & Houston Spacehawks

New Orleans Specters

Cleveland Cavalry

Mississippi Marsh Monsters

Tahoe Lake Tigers

New York Ferrymen

Charleston Colliers

Halifax Expedition

Nunavut Nanook

Great Falls Grizzlies

 

American Football Concepts

 

Chicago Butchers

 

Baseball Concepts

Idaho Komets

 

 

 

Without further adieu I present the first concept; the Gulf Coast Mavericks.

 

 

 

 

Explanation

 

It's a lot I know, but the general idea is a team that subverts the name maverick, usually represented by a horse/ mustang, and instead refers to the Maverick of Top Gun fame and then riffing off that idea. Obviously, the character isn't supposed to directly reference Tom Cruise as Maverick but instead a sort of amalgam of 80s action heros and 'cool guys'. 

 

My initial idea was to place the team in the Florida panhandle near Tallahassee or Pensacola as there is a relatively large airbase near there that I forget the name of and this acts as another tie in to the Top Gun sort of aesthetic. I think this also fits in nicely with the color scheme which could also be interpreted as a sunrise or set which works very well for a Florida based team.  

 

I'm currently working on jersey sets to go with this brand, and while I feel I'm mostly finished I think I'm gonna work on them a bit more before posting them. Also I might chop and change the way in which this stuff is presented because I know one long scroll of images isn't particularly interesting.

 

In the meantime I'd love to hear any criticisms and/or general feedback you guys have for these designs and the brand as a whole. I know gradients can be a little overpowering but I think it works for the whole faux 80s/ 'over-the-top' aesthetic!

 

Ultimately these concepts are meant to be fun and light and explore some more relatively unexplored ideas in the sports world.

 

 

 

 

 

[jackkmart]

After posting the first concept I immediately remembered I had another one all ready to go as well. This one I did upon request for the ISFL which is an online 'Sim Football League' I used to be in. It's a little nerdy but it's pretty fun even though I'm not active over there anymore. Regardless, one of my old GMs reached out and asked me to do some concepts for his current team the Chicago Butchers and here's what we came up with.

 

They wanted to be represented by a boar or hog type creature and include some motifs from their current branding which includes a lot of cleavers and blood and whatnot. 

 

This one is obviously a football concept and, again uniforms may come later but as of right now all that we've completed is the general branding although I do include some helmet designs at the end of this post.

 

 

 

This one was pretty fun and I think I did an alright job of updating their look without straying too far from what they currently sport.  There's also some fun little design quirks in this one. The snout on the boar/ hog creature is meant to resemble football stitching, the boar's nose (and the overall style of the primary) utilizes a design very similar to the Chicago Bulls as a tie in or nod to their city's basketball team, while still being distinct enough. The iconic Chicago star is also interspersed throughout. The secondary is meant to be a direct update of their current logo which is a hand holding a bloody cleaver, but here I went a little more angular and chose to replace the hand with a somewhat abstract glove or mitten as a nod to the brutal Chicago weather and I think it makes the bloody cleaver a little less imposing (IDK I just didn't want the branding to come across too murderous or edgy, that might turn some people off). 

 

Overall the brand is supposed to look quite angular and 'knife-like', lot's of sharp edges and stuff to evoke that butcher feel.

 

Overall I think the look came out pretty well and look forward to developing the designs a little more with the team if they choose to use it and then maybe then I can start workshopping some uniforms. 

 

Obviously feedback and critique is always welcome!

 

Also, as a final note, the colors may look a little inconsistent that's just because of the exporting I did, I think I changed my settings in between some of the exports by accident, I might update to fix that in a bit if it's too noticable. 

 

 

 

[BlueMoon18]

Love what you did with Chicago dude. The state of Illinois in the butcher's knife in the secondary is extremely clever. 

Gulf Coast is cool too! I didn't expect the reference to Top Gun, but it worked out perfectly! Keep this series going!

[jackkmart]

15 hours ago, BlueMoon18 said:

Love what you did with Chicago dude. The state of Illinois in the butcher's knife in the secondary is extremely clever. 

Gulf Coast is cool too! I didn't expect the reference to Top Gun, but it worked out perfectly! Keep this series going!

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you like the designs.

[jackkmart]

Next concept: the Morgantown Druids. 

 

This one I'm not super confident on but I really wanted to try to create a team with some Celtic imagery that uses a somewhat unusual mascot. However, i spent so long on the primary mark I got a little burned out and ended up creating somewhat boring alternate logo designs. Maybe you guys have some better ideas?

 

Let me know what you think! 

 

 

 

This one is a little more abstract but the mascot is supposed to be some sort of Celtic inspired, mythical creature. For the design I took inspiration from old Irish art, the Green Knight, and 'spriggans' from Elder Scrolls (lol).  I think this works well for West Virginia as it's a state with a rich history of cryptids and legend while being heavily forested which obviously lends well to a team represented by a forest creature. This is also why I tried to include orange in this design as for some reason I think green and orange are very good colors for an Appalachian team.

 

Otherwise, the secondary logos feature a 'rune' which is meant to be a W, V, and M all interwoven to represent Morgantown, West Virginia.  I like how it looks but it may be a little too hard to comprehend upon a quick glance. 

 

I initially had no other colors beyond shades of green and the light beige but figured an accent color would be much more interesting so I tried blue and orange and I think orange came out much better. 

 

I hope you guys like it, and generally let me know what you think could be improved!

[jackkmart]

After a minor hiatus I'm back to post some of the work I've been doing this past month. Mostly hockey stuff again. 

 

The first concept is actually  rebrand I was asked to do for yet another sim league. I present the Montreal Patriotes refresh.

 

 

The mascot/ logo here is based upon two major inspirations. Primarily, it's based on the Quebec Patriot Movement flag linked here (which is itself based on this art). It's supposed to be an 'old' revolutionary Quebecois patriot from the early 1800s smoking a pipe, wearing a cozy, if not a little oversized wool hat (I'm not certain on the history here but from my limited research this seems to check out). 

 

The second inspiration was another post here from long ago by Tyler Rodgers (which you can see). If anyone can link the actual forum post I would be grateful. As you can see I pretty much shamelessly ripped off his shield design and reworked it and placed my own OC logo within. However, the actual mark of the old patriot is entirely my work. 

 

A couple notes as well, the old logo is itself well made and pretty good but very different to my 'style' and maybe a tad too busy so my primary goal was to simplify the logo while still giving it a very unique look. I think I achieved this and I really like the final product (albeit there still could be some minor improvements and refinements here and there)

 

I'm still relatively new to logo making on Illustrator so I have yet to really get to grips with all the requisite tools so there are undoubtedly issues with my marks. 

 

[jackkmart]

And just like that I have two more entirely new concepts to post that I made entirely for fun.

 

First El Paso.

 

 

 

Anyone with good knowledge of minor league baseball might immediately recognize that this team shares its colors with the El Paso Chihuahuas. I think these colors just work so well for a desert team, especially as brown is criminally underused in sports.

 

Next!

 

 

 

Two Texas hockey teams, just for fun. These were designed to be minor league teams, hence the perhaps a but silly mascot choices. I would explain more but I feel I want to keep the writing in these posts relatively brief so if you have any questions about design choices I'd be happy to answer!

 

 

[LaGrandeOrange]

Patriotes logo is beautiful in a vacuum, and fitting on this St-Jean, but I'd be wary of 1.) using a Maple Leaf along with Patriote iconography and 2.) using that iconography in the first place, as in 2022 it's now loaded with...certain political meaning.

[jackkmart]

9 minutes ago, alexandre said:

Patriotes logo is beautiful in a vacuum, and fitting on this St-Jean, but I'd be wary of 1.) using a Maple Leaf along with Patriote iconography and 2.) using that iconography in the first place, as in 2022 it's now loaded with...certain political meaning.

 

Interesting to know. I'm not Canadian so I'm not all that aware of the intricacies/ complexities of all the symbolism here. I can see the issue though, perhaps it would be better to only include the fleur without the maple leaf (or remove them entirely in favor of something else)? 

 

As for the team name and identity, it was conceptualized by someone else a while ago I was just asked to give their logo/ brand a facelift. I did try to root the logo as far in the past as possible via the inclusion of a direct reference to an old patriot movement as opposed to a modern one though (similar to how the New England Patriots would perhaps be more controversial if they used a more modern 'patriotic' symbol).  

 

Obviously don't want my concepts to cause offense or alienate anybody so I'd be happy to make adjustments.

[jackkmart]

Finally back with some more content for this thread. Recently was asked to to propose some concepts for another team in the same online league as the Patriotes. So I'll post my first 'final draft' as it were for some critique so I can get feedback from the team and the forum here.

 

New Orleans Specters

 

 

 

Here is the 'complete' logo set. The primary and alternate primary are modernizations or 'tweaks' to their current logo, which you can see here: OLD LOGO. I reintegrated the fleur as a 'nose' of sorts for the phantom or specter, while removing the wordmark although, I do have a version of the specter with a new wordmark:

 

But, generally, I prefer logos without wordmarks integrated, although this one, with some more tweaks could be a decent primary logo as well. I also think the lettering on the secondary needs some balancing.

 

The tertiary is a little wonky but its meant to be molded in the shape of Louisiana (roughly) and I needed a simpler logo maybe for use on shoulders of jerseys or just as another, less frequently used mark option. Plus I think its kinda cute looking. 

 

I only have two complete jerseys so far that are very similar to the current Sens kit. 

 

Each shoulder features a different mark, on the right (our left) the roundel is embroidered, meanwhile the secondary sits on the left (our right) shoulder. On top of that, I also placed a custom 20 season anniversary patch on the upper chest as next season marks their 20th season in the league. 

 

Yeah, that's mostly it so far I would appreciate some critique so I can improve the logos for the 'client' as it were. 

[jackkmart]

I'm finally back on this forum and with a plethora of (mostly) hockey concepts to post. This thread has basically become and will continue to serve as a place to upload my mostly finished hockey concepts for critique. These concepts aren't organized in any real way except they all share a similar style (kinda).

 

Cleveland Cavalry

 

 

[jackkmart]

 

 

Mississippi Marsh Monsters

 

[jackkmart]

Tahoe Lake Tigers

 

[jackkmart]

New York Ferrymen

 

 

[jackkmart]

Charleston (WV) Colliers 

 

[jackkmart]

Halifax Expedition

 

 

 

[jackkmart]

Nunavut Nanook

 

 

[jackkmart]

Great Falls Grizzlies

 

COLOR SCHEME 1 - BRUIN STYLE

 

 

COLOR SCHEME 2 - KODIAK STYLE

 

 

 

[Bomba Tomba]

  

9 hours ago, jackkmart said:

Nunavut Nanook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A set with the alt as the home and the darker blue used as the secondary color on the away would be great

[jackkmart]

3 hours ago, Bomba Tomba said:

  

A set with the alt as the home and the darker blue used as the secondary color on the away would be great

 

I think this is the right idea tbh. I originally planned on a color scheme closer to the twilight jersey anyway so I've whipped up some unis with that in mind:

 

First set features a slightly tweaked twilight jersey and a reverse as the away.

 

 

Same jersey design but with the official primary logo recolored as the mark.

 

 

And the final set with an identical home but the away is an 'ice' jersey that replaces the blue with the silver from the logo to create a similar effect to the twilight jersey. Almost like a night and day jersey. Maybe, they could even wear white pants 

 

 

Minor Edit:

 

with those changes in mind, the new logos are featured below. I also slightly tweaked the outline on the bear/igloo logo to be a little more rounded.

Spoiler