North American Premier League (Take 2) ... (4/40) Red Star Chicago + Chicago United

[MDTrey4]

So this is a take 2 on a league concept that I first posted a while back but was never able to get the image quality to what I wanted. Then life got in the way and I didn't think about the project for months. Now that I've created an imgur account, it seems like the images are a good quality now so I can begin posting again.

 

The idea behind the league is that soccer, not American football, was the sport that took hold in the United States after WWII. There were many expansions from an original league (the Football Association of America) that resulted in a pyramid not unlike the real world soccer pyramids in Europe (and most other countries). Those original teams were based in New York (two clubs), Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington DC and St Louis. As it stands, those 10 clubs make up half of the NAPL to this day.

 

I've worked a little on the presentation, as well as the number/name font, and will be posting teams in random order this time around. Below is the new presentation showing off the league logo, as well as two all star uniforms with the teams captained by Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna:

 

 

And here are the aforementioned uniforms:

 

 

 

And here is the map of teams that will be in both the NAPL as well as NAL1, the second division. I have the uniforms of NAL2 ready but am still working on the logos little by little. As I post more teams, I'll update this map with their logos over their city as well:

 

 

[Blindsay]

[GoCubsGo]

Very intrested to see the whole project together. Also, is that Scranton your giving a team to?

[VampyrRabbit]

5 minutes ago, GoCubsGo said:

Very intrested to see the whole project together. Also, is that Scranton your giving a team to?

Scranton,  La Havana, Dover and Atlantic City. Having three teams in small cities that near to Philly which all have average income per capita under $50,000, and the other in the Capital of a nation under a US embargo is an interesting choice.

[CLEFAN94]

5 hours ago, VampyrRabbitDesign said:

Scranton,  La Havana, Dover and Atlantic City. Having three teams in small cities that near to Philly which all have average income per capita under $50,000, and the other in the Capital of a nation under a US embargo is an interesting choice.

That embargo was ended some year ago wasn’t it? Either way, should be interesting to see! 

[WestCoastBias]

8 hours ago, VampyrRabbitDesign said:

Scranton,  La Havana, Dover and Atlantic City. Having three teams in small cities that near to Philly which all have average income per capita under $50,000, and the other in the Capital of a nation under a US embargo is an interesting choice.

 

And only two teams in California too. No Portland or Dallas. 

 

Northeast Bias?

[Bomba Tomba]

The Scranton team better have Dunder Mifflin as their sponsor lol

[MDTrey4]

19 hours ago, VampyrRabbitDesign said:

Scranton,  La Havana, Dover and Atlantic City. Having three teams in small cities that near to Philly which all have average income per capita under $50,000, and the other in the Capital of a nation under a US embargo is an interesting choice.

There were definitely some interesting city choices here. Mainly I stuck with ones that I could think of designs for. You'll notice another star over a town called Fairless Hills, my home town. In this alternate universe, these smaller cities are hotbeds for soccer so they were able to sustain success enough to become top tier professional teams. And that one that looks like Atlantic City is actually Wildwood, more to come on that.

 

10 hours ago, WestCoastBias said:

And only two teams in California too. No Portland or Dallas. 

 

Northeast Bias?

There is a definite Northeast bias to the teams that I was able to knock out first. As I said, I have the NAL2 uniforms done but not the logos. That division includes two more LA teams, San Diego, Oakland, Vancouver, and a few other surprise western cities so it will all balance out.

 

7 hours ago, Bomba Tomba said:

The Scranton team better have Dunder Mifflin as their sponsor lol

Up until the moment that you mentioned that, I never even considered making Dunder Mifflin the kit sponsor lol. I just always wanted to stick with real companies and that never even crossed my mind.

 

I will post the first club later on today..

[MDTrey4]

In the first installment of NAPL 2.0, we have the team from my adopted home city, Pittsburgh. My main goal with Pittsburgh was staying consistent with the rest of the city's branding. I've always thought that more cities should use a consistent color palette.

 

The crest has two of Pittsburgh's most iconic symbols, the Roberto Clemente Bridge and the Keystone. There has always been an old timey feel to the way Pittsburgh plays on the field, tracing back to their roots as a steel town, and that's where the old ball comes into play. I honestly don't have an explanation for their secondary logo other than it made me think of a manhole cover and would evoke the steel industry as well.

 

 

The home and away kits are mirrors of each other. The basic uniforms of their past mimicked the city flag. This year's took a slight twist on that with the individual stripes. The black used on the away kits is more of a slate, meant to symbolize the soot that came from the steel mills at their peak production. They sometimes wear the mono-color combos but that's very rare. 

 

 

As for the alternates, they take elements from a few different places. The checkers come from the city flag and the divider lines are a tribute to the 3 rivers that run through the city, The Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela, which form the area known as The Point.

 

Let me know what y'all think!

[VampyrRabbit]

Two of the kits are gold and black, and the other is mostly black, that's a big problem right there in terms of contrast, the third should really be white dominant and having all three pairs of socks be black doesn't help in that regard.  One pair of black socks, one pair of gold socks and another pair of white socks would be a great help. The stripes going over the checkerboard on the home and third socks isn't plesant and it would be a massive improvement if the checker pattern was moved to the turnover or had a gold border.

 

The crest isn't bad, but that halved effect makes it look like a product of around 2009-2012 and the Est 1949 could stand to be bigger and with equal space between the crest outline and the pillars of the Roberto Clemente bridge.

[Bomba Tomba]

8 hours ago, MDTrey4 said:

Up until the moment that you mentioned that, I never even considered making Dunder Mifflin the kit sponsor lol. I just always wanted to stick with real companies and that never even crossed my mind.

You can always say that it's actually NBC and/or Staples (who used to make actual DM paper to tie in with the show) who's paying for the sponsorship 

[MDTrey4]

Spoiler

Two of the kits are gold and black, and the other is mostly black, that's a big problem right there in terms of contrast, the third should really be white dominant and having all three pairs of socks be black doesn't help in that regard.  One pair of black socks, one pair of gold socks and another pair of white socks would be a great help. The stripes going over the checkerboard on the home and third socks isn't plesant and it would be a massive improvement if the checker pattern was moved to the turnover or had a gold border.

 

The crest isn't bad, but that halved effect makes it look like a product of around 2009-2012 and the Est 1949 could stand to be bigger and with equal space between the crest outline and the pillars of the Roberto Clemente bridge.

All good feedback here. I made some of those changes below. Mainly evening out the space for the Est 1949 and updated the sock situation. I decided to get rid of the old Nike features on the socks since it was just a feature of the old template. I also raised the checkers to be above the Nike logo so that they didn't bleed together.

 

As for the contrast trouble, one of my main goals with the Pittsburgh team was using as little white as possible. I always thought the pro teams should lean into black and yellow a little more, a la the Steelers color rush jerseys. As I looked thru the rest of the league, there is only one other yellow team whose away kit has a red shirt so it wouldn't be a problem in that case. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll hopefully post the next team today. 

[MDTrey4]

Finally getting around to posting the next team in the series. I've always liked the idea that some European teams are named after the neighborhoods that they're in like Chelsea or Fulham in London. So for my DC team, I didn't want to just have Washington or DC in the name.

 

The crest takes the shape of the current NFL shield (which in this universe is not nearly as popular as the NAPL) and highlights the namesake of the club: Capitol Hill. The shield was updated recently to include a more modern cursive font as well as stars on the dome of the Capitol building to make it look like a soccer ball. The stars and bars in the background and on the partial logo are taken from the DC flag:

 

As for the uniforms, I always liked the idea of stars and bars dictating the home and away of a team in Washington. For the home, we have the bars edition. Instead of just plain hoops, these have the gradient hoops that nearly meet in the middle but not quite. There is also a DC flag detail on the sides of the shorts as well. The home can be worn with white shorts if need be:

 

 

The away is the stars edition for Capitol Hill. The stars radiate out from the left chest in a repeating pattern, just below the shield. Ideally, these jerseys are worn with white shorts but can also be used with a monochrome look as well:

 

 

As always let me know what you think!

 

[VampyrRabbit]

4 hours ago, MDTrey4 said:

Finally getting around to posting the next team in the series. I've always liked the idea that some European teams are named after the neighborhoods that they're in like Chelsea or Fulham in London. So for my DC team, I didn't want to just have Washington or DC in the name.

 

Chelsea are actually based in the London Borough of Fulham, though they are named after the area called Chelsea.

 

I like the club crest, but why is there a 39 on it? And while the socks look nice, they would look a lot nicer if there were 3 stars on them and the nike logo wasn't over the stripes. A third kit wouldn't go amiss either, considering the team plays in two of the most common colours in football.

[MDTrey4]

1 hour ago, VampyrRabbitDesign said:

Chelsea are actually based in the London Borough of Fulham, though they are named after the area called Chelsea.

 

I like the club crest, but why is there a 39 on it? And while the socks look nice, they would look a lot nicer if there were 3 stars on them and the nike logo wasn't over the stripes. A third kit wouldn't go amiss either, considering the team plays in two of the most common colours in football.

I appreciate the feedback on this one. The 39 is there as their established year, I must've forgotten to put that they're one of the oldest teams in the league. I can definitely add the second and third stars to the socks, they were more meant to match the sides of the shorts.

 

As for a third jersey, these two were made a long time ago before I was thinking of thirds for every team. Recently, I've been toying with a cherry blossom themed one.

[VampyrRabbit]

4 hours ago, MDTrey4 said:

I appreciate the feedback on this one. The 39 is there as their established year, I must've forgotten to put that they're one of the oldest teams in the league. I can definitely add the second and third stars to the socks, they were more meant to match the sides of the shorts.

 

As for a third jersey, these two were made a long time ago before I was thinking of thirds for every team. Recently, I've been toying with a cherry blossom themed one.

Cherry Blossom sounds great. With a white and red home and a blue alt, a third is justified.

[MDTrey4]

Back after a little break with one of the NAPL's biggest rivalries. The idea behind these two was a play on Inter and AC Milan. These clubs share the same stadium (hence both having Soldier Field in their presentations). They both share the vertically striped home look. What they don't share however is the same geographic fan base. This rivalry is very much like the Cubs and White Sox. The North Side supports Chicago United and the South Side rides for Red Star Chicago.

 

Here is the set for Chicago United:

 

 

 

And here are the sets for Red Star Chicago:

 

 

 

As always, C+C is welcome

[VampyrRabbit]

The Cubbies actually have their stadium in Lakeview and the Pale Hose play in Armour Square in the South Side. You haven't explained how two teams who play in the same South Side stadium actually have support from different geographical areas.

[MDTrey4]

19 hours ago, VampyrRabbitDesign said:

The Cubbies actually have their stadium in Lakeview and the Pale Hose play in Armour Square in the South Side. You haven't explained how two teams who play in the same South Side stadium actually have support from different geographical areas.

Playing in the same stadium is only a recent development. These two clubs are much older and therefore have more established geographic fan bases in the city

[VampyrRabbit]

Just now, MDTrey4 said:

Playing in the same stadium is only a recent development. These two clubs are much older and therefore have more established geographic fan bases in the city

That's fair, just I was wondering how it came to pass that one team represents the North Side and the other the South Side (Works team, patronage, starting out in a particular district or other social factor).