International Baseball Concepts - The Netherlands

[FlyingLamprey]

Ever since the WBC, I've been stuck with an itch to do some baseball designs.  The main issue - I haven't done any baseball designs before, so I'm not super sure on what I'm doing.  Regardless, armed with a template from @raysox (thanks man!) and many years of soccer design under my belt, I've decided to give it a shot!  This won't be a regular series or anything fancy like that - ideas will be posted whenever the muse strikes me, whether that be next week or next year.  Also, please note - this is literally the first full baseball concept I've ever done!  I'm still figuring out the template and what looks right, so feedback is greatly appreciated.
 

To start: South Korea!  What you may immediately notice are the colors and the wordmark.  Korea's past looks have generally used the same warmer shade of blue and white, with the occasional red as an accent.  In this year's edition of the WBC, however, they opted for navy instead of that blue, which makes them look a little too much like Japan for my liking.  So we'll let Japan claim navy and do something else for Korea.  I wanted to stay away from the blue/red/white that a lot of countries end up using in baseball, so I found something that comes off as more unique - double blue!  The main blue is darker than the previous warmer blue, while the addition of powder blue separates them from the herd (think Royals or Blue Jays).  As for the wordmark, don't get me wrong - I love their very fun and handwritten current script and cap logo.  But I wanted something new, so here we are!  At its core, the new wordmark is very simple - add a rounded outline to Baumans to give it more weight, and add the Taegeuk to the center of the O for that unique touch.  Simple but effective!

The uniforms aren't the most complicated design in the world, but it still stands out.  The main design component is the triple stripe cuff, taken from the four trigrams on the South Korean flag.  My original plan was to actually incorporate the trigrams into the striping, but trust me, it looked rough.  A last-minute change brought powder blue between the lines to add color to the home uniform.  I also put the triple stripe down the side of the pants and on top of the socks.  Home is standard white, while road uses powder blue (because if you have powder blue in your color scheme why wouldn't you use it as your road jersey?).  The cap logo is a modified version of the K from the wordmark with an added Taeguk for flavor.  This pairs with a darker blue cap and powder blue bill/button.  For the third, I wanted to do something different because I couldn't figure out how to make the wordmark look good on the darker blue.  I decided to take on the challenge of taking the Korean name of South Korea (한국) and turning it into a monogram that would make sense on a baseball uniform.  I ended up with something that came close to the font I was using, and I staggered the characters to make it appear more symmetrical.  This pairs with an all-blue hat with the white monogram, and I could see this cap being used as an alternate for the home uniform.  For numbers and name on back, I decided to keep the same font as everything else for consistency's sake, and I switched up the name order to be more like the proper Korean style than what they currently use on uniforms.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at baseball design!  It's a little simple overall, but I'm still learning the ropes, and South Korea feels like a team that I could actually see running something more minimalistic.  As always, C&C welcome!

[MJD7]

I would not have been able to tell at all that this was your first baseball design had you not said so!
 

South Korea looks great, I love the idea to use double-blue, and you chose the perfect team to use it for, I think. The font choice is great, and I love the light blue away and the royal alternate. 
 

I’d love to see you try to tackle some other countries, if you’re inclined to do so!

[edjb93]

That light blue uniform, for some reason, reminds me of Korean Air (not sponsored). Overall, this great look gives me a vintage vibe.

[coco1997]

This is fantastic work for being your very first baseball concept! I love pretty much everything about this design. If I had to make one suggestion, I would make the inner stripes on the sleeves and pants of the road set white rather than powder blue. 

 

Keep up the good work! I hope you try your hand at some more teams. 

[tylerking]

On 4/8/2023 at 2:00 PM, FlyingLamprey said:

Ever since the WBC, I've been stuck with an itch to do some baseball designs.  The main issue - I haven't done any baseball designs before, so I'm not super sure on what I'm doing.  Regardless, armed with a template from @raysox (thanks man!) and many years of soccer design under my belt, I've decided to give it a shot!  This won't be a regular series or anything fancy like that - ideas will be posted whenever the muse strikes me, whether that be next week or next year.  Also, please note - this is literally the first full baseball concept I've ever done!  I'm still figuring out the template and what looks right, so feedback is greatly appreciated.
 

To start: South Korea!  What you may immediately notice are the colors and the wordmark.  Korea's past looks have generally used the same warmer shade of blue and white, with the occasional red as an accent.  In this year's edition of the WBC, however, they opted for navy instead of that blue, which makes them look a little too much like Japan for my liking.  So we'll let Japan claim navy and do something else for Korea.  I wanted to stay away from the blue/red/white that a lot of countries end up using in baseball, so I found something that comes off as more unique - double blue!  The main blue is darker than the previous warmer blue, while the addition of powder blue separates them from the herd (think Royals or Blue Jays).  As for the wordmark, don't get me wrong - I love their very fun and handwritten current script and cap logo.  But I wanted something new, so here we are!  At its core, the new wordmark is very simple - add a rounded outline to Baumans to give it more weight, and add the Taegeuk to the center of the O for that unique touch.  Simple but effective!

The uniforms aren't the most complicated design in the world, but it still stands out.  The main design component is the triple stripe cuff, taken from the four trigrams on the South Korean flag.  My original plan was to actually incorporate the trigrams into the striping, but trust me, it looked rough.  A last-minute change brought powder blue between the lines to add color to the home uniform.  I also put the triple stripe down the side of the pants and on top of the socks.  Home is standard white, while road uses powder blue (because if you have powder blue in your color scheme why wouldn't you use it as your road jersey?).  The cap logo is a modified version of the K from the wordmark with an added Taeguk for flavor.  This pairs with a darker blue cap and powder blue bill/button.  For the third, I wanted to do something different because I couldn't figure out how to make the wordmark look good on the darker blue.  I decided to take on the challenge of taking the Korean name of South Korea (한국) and turning it into a monogram that would make sense on a baseball uniform.  I ended up with something that came close to the font I was using, and I staggered the characters to make it appear more symmetrical.  This pairs with an all-blue hat with the white monogram, and I could see this cap being used as an alternate for the home uniform.  For numbers and name on back, I decided to keep the same font as everything else for consistency's sake, and I switched up the name order to be more like the proper Korean style than what they currently use on uniforms.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at baseball design!  It's a little simple overall, but I'm still learning the ropes, and South Korea feels like a team that I could actually see running something more minimalistic.  As always, C&C welcome!

where did you get the template for the full uniform? I would love to use that as well

[mahnkej]

This was really well done! Would never have believed this is your first concept. I really like this take on South Korea, the light blue and touch of red really liven up their look nicely.

[FlyingLamprey]

Thanks for the kind words y'all!  I had a lot of fun making these, and I'm looking forward to making more!
 

On 4/8/2023 at 10:00 PM, coco1997 said:

This is fantastic work for being your very first baseball concept! I love pretty much everything about this design. If I had to make one suggestion, I would make the inner stripes on the sleeves and pants of the road set white rather than powder blue. 

That's definitely an interesting idea!  Unfortunately, it doesn't come out like I'd want.  It gives me vibes of the road and powder jerseys for the Blue Jays, which use white as the middle line of their lettering.  I feel like those would look more uniform if they were the same color as the jersey (i.e. grey or powder), but that's more my personal preference than an objective fact.  With home and road matching striping, it's kinda like a hockey uniform look, which I quite like.  I'll post a screenshot showcasing the idea to let you make a judgement call yourself, though.  Thank you anyways for the suggestion!

 

22 hours ago, tylerking said:

where did you get the template for the full uniform? I would love to use that as well

 

It's from raysox here on the forums, but he doesn't use it much anymore.  There's one I've seen floating around that was made by AusGiant and johnrafael, and that one seems pretty good!

 

Thank you to everyone who's commented so far!  Some stuff's come up this week which is making it hard to get regular work done, so I'll probably spend some of that time working on the next set!

[FlyingLamprey]

I've been chipping away at another idea for a uniform set, and I've landed on something I like for the Netherlands!  The Dutch have had some fairly simple uniform designs over the years, but nothing that really makes them stand out.  As such, I've decided on a kinda combination of eras that also includes some truly unique elements.

The colors revert to orange and black instead of the more Astros-like navy and orange they went with this year.  It's a classic look for the team, and it helps them stand out in a crowd.  The only minor change was adding a little more red to the orange like their inaugural uniform.  One thing the current set did that I adored was the wordmark, so like the perfectionist idiot that I am, I decided to recreate it by hand.  I'm honestly very happy with how it came out, all things considered! I also went with Nederlanden on the wordmark instead of the more "correct" Nederland.  This ties into the last WBC, where the team angled more towards the "Kingdom" part of the "Kingdom of the Netherlands" by including it in their wordmark and using the crown as their main symbol.  This makes sense - a majority of the team is from the various Dutch islands scattered across the Caribbean.  As such, I've decided to use Nederlanden on the uniforms, short for the Dutch name for the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Koninkrijk der Nederlanden). 

 

Speaking of the uniforms, I was struggling to find something that could serve as a symbol for all the parts of the Netherlands.  The crown from this year is nice, but I wanted to try something different.  Then it hit me - why come up with one symbol for everyone when you could do something both unique and unified?  Thus enters the main design motif of this uniform set - the seven symbols!  I've enlarged it here for detail:

 

For those unaware, the kingdom itself is made up of four states and three special municipalities.  So I came up with a set of symbols derived from the flags that represent each area (kinda)!  From left to right: diamond (Saba), sage flower (Sint Maarten), 4-pointed star (Aruba), tulip (mainland Netherlands), pair of stars (Curaçao), 6-pointed star (Bonaire), and diamond (Sint Eustatius).  You may notice that the diamond was repeated for both Saba and Sint Eustatius - this is because 1) they both use it in their flag 2) I had already spent way too much time on this 3) symmetry 4) these two islands have a combined population of 4,000 so they probably won't actually get a WBC-caliber player from there.

 

Now, the unique twist - each player's jersey is different.  In lieu of a number on front (which they've used fairly consistently), the symbol of the player's place of birth appears instead!  This gives each uniform a little more flavor, and it also means players can rep their home island a little more prominently.  This also translates to the flag patch - above the flag of the Netherlands is a smaller flag of their home island.  For the uniforms themselves, I was drawn to simple piping with the addition of the seven symbols on both the sleeves and the pants (similar to their '06 or '09 sets).  I also used the Nederlanden wordmark to create my own typeface for names and numbers (not for the text on the top banner, that's just Staubach).  Color balancing on the home was tricky, but I think my solution (orange w black lines) works well enough.  The away has a black shirt with grey pants, all with monochrome detailing, and the third mirrors the away but in orange.  The cap logo was inspired by @Victormrey's excellent concept (great work!) where they combined an N and L at the same stem.  I did the same with my own N+L and came up with both orange and black versions of the hat.  Of note - the whole set was created with the idea that everything could be mixed and matched at manager's or players' discretion (third as a road uniform, orange cap with away, black socks with third, etc).  

 

This was a lot of fun to brainstorm, and I'm happy with the result (even if I spent forever on some of the smaller details)!  C&C is welcome as always!

 

[Victormrey]

I'm glad you liked my logo! I think it really fits your set 

I love the idea behind the symbols, and how using them help to represent the Kingdom's territories in the Caribbean.  However, since there aren't enough jerseys to include all of them on the front, I'd keep them only on the sleeves, in order to have equal representation for each zone.

 

I also really like what you've done for South Korea! Specially with the Taegeuk inside the "O"  Personally, I think adding white to the sleeve piping on the powder blue jersey makes it look less Adidas-ish, so I think it works, and matches the home uniform.

 

I can't wait to see more designs!