raysox Posted October 16, 2023 Share Posted October 16, 2023 Just in time for the NFL to wrap up it's 3-game London series for the season! I wanted to do a branding exercise, and one that really got my brain cooking was "what if there was a football league in Britain?" From now on, i'm going to call American Football "Gridiron", just so I don't open up to the same jokes about what they call football. Plus Gridiron sounds so cool. Obviously the market for gridiron football is growing over there, but there's only been games in London. The games have moved around between Wembley, Twickenham, and now Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. I envisioned a 10-12 team league, but since it's fictional, I plan to grow to 16 teams around England, Wales, Scotland, and hell - maybe a few more. I can get into more of the decision making for cities in each individual post. Amsterdam Admirals Birmingham Bulls Brighton Waves Bristol Concordes Coventry Titans Dublin Harps Greater Manchester Inferno Hull Norsemen Leeds Gallants Leicester Wolfpack London Hornets London Lightning Merseyside Shipwrights Newcastle Magpies Scotland Claymores Wales Dragons 7 Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 16, 2023 Author Share Posted October 16, 2023 Newcastle Magpies (1/16) I'll just start in the order I finished the uniforms! Newcastle United also uses this nickname, obviously due to their black and white colors. I adore the idea of a team named the Magpies. They're an angry bird, and that resonates with football. This actually isn't even my first concept to use this team name. Some older readers may remember when I did Premier League as gridiron football teams. Well, they're back but much better this time. I made an angry looking bird head, but tried to make it feel dark. Kind of like the Ravens in this sense. I used a flash of white to bring in some of the white feathers on the sides of the bird. The teal color ties to the color accent that magpies have when their wings are spread. The uniforms are meant to look dark and imposing, like a lot of all black sets. But I went with a bold sleeve panel that replicates the pattern found on the bird, but used sharp edges to show speed and fierceness. 16 2 Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyO93 Posted October 16, 2023 Share Posted October 16, 2023 Can't wait to see where the series goes. The Magpies are such a good start, the sleeve design is elite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VampyrRabbit Posted October 16, 2023 Share Posted October 16, 2023 The teal accents on the mags really needs to be darker, more saturated and with the green and blue on the RGB scale closer together to really imitate the colour accent of a European Magpie, as the colour looks washed out. This is a promising start though and I do like the designs of the uniforms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 17, 2023 Author Share Posted October 17, 2023 Birmingham Bulls What's a football league without a bull team? I really liked the alliteration, and so does the hockey team of the same name. I did a front-facing bull logo last year, so I went with an angled version to provide some depth and forward movement. The uniforms aren't revolutionary, but I want to have a few teams with really classic football looks. I made a striping pattern with the four colors used in the brand. The main feature is the horns on the helmet in the style of the Philadelphia Eagles. 12 Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VampyrRabbit Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 The Bulls look good. I would love to see the Bull with a ring through it's nose, as a nod to the market area the team is named after. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 17, 2023 Author Share Posted October 17, 2023 that's interesting, could you explain more? Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OchentaYOcho88 Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 Really looking forward to seeing the Claymores. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VampyrRabbit Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 32 minutes ago, raysox said: that's interesting, could you explain more? The Bull Ring is a market area in the heart of the city that dates from the 12th century and is the site of St Martin in the Bull Ring, the original Parish Church of Birmingham. The Birmingham Bulls BAFA team took their name from the area. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo_prankster Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 Nice start with the Bulls and Magpies so far. Also, will the Claymores play home games in Edinburgh or Glasgow? Will Belfast get a team? Southampton? Multiple teams in London? Could the BGL expand into the Republic of Ireland? If Manchester gets a team, are they gonna be called the Machine? Quote The Fictional Story of Austus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 17, 2023 Author Share Posted October 17, 2023 3 minutes ago, neo_prankster said: Nice start with the Bulls and Magpies so far. Also, will the Claymores play home games in Edinburgh or Glasgow? Will Belfast get a team? Southampton? Multiple teams in London? Could the BGL expand into the Republic of Ireland? If Manchester gets a team, are they gonna be called the Machine? Thanks! Claymores will be posted in a few days, but I had them mostly at Murrayfield in Edinburgh but also noted Ibrox Stadium. I didn't want to have a team in both, so think of it as a two city team. Murrayfield seems more suited since there's no permanent team, and the original team split time between there and Hampden Park in Glasgow. Belfast and Southampton no, two teams in London, and yes Dublin has a team since they host College Football. I was planning on not divulging this much information, but I'm open to Dublin name suggestions since I have a vision of their uniforms but don't want to just use the Harps or something. I think you're thinking of the Montreal Machine of the World League? Along that same line of thinking, the London teams aren't using the Monarchs name. Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 18, 2023 Author Share Posted October 18, 2023 Going to stick to my every other day concept post, but I wanted to make a minor tweak to the Bulls logo. I added a nose ring that @VampyrRabbit suggested, and worked on smoothing some perspective issues on the horns that started bugging me. 12 Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BengalErnst Posted October 19, 2023 Share Posted October 19, 2023 I’m a fan of the addition. Great stuff so far. 1 Quote THE Xtreme Fantasy Football League Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 19, 2023 Author Share Posted October 19, 2023 Bristol Concordes This is one of those names I've had kicking around for a while, much like the Magpies. This time, I tried making an OOTP save of British teams. The name I went for was the Bristol Concordes. If you don't know, the Concorde jet was a supersonic jet that could go from London to New York in around 3 hours (down from the usual 7). It was the height of luxury for the time, but somewhat unreliable and dangerous. Still, the Concorde was developed in western England in Bristol. Bristol has a big rugby culture, and that's what I chose them as well (plus they have a regional rivalry already baked in. No surprise but the colors came from the Seahawks. I made an illustration of the plane rising, while trailing a jet stream/sonic boom waves. I wanted it to feel simple, sleek, and fast and I think that's how it comes across in it's current form. The uniforms are pretty adventurous. I wanted to use this shape for a while, and it's been a turned off layer in my template for a year. It's inspired directly from the 2016 Pro Bowl uniforms, without the weird textures. The font also has a gradient inner stroke to also tie into the design of the uniform. 11 Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vtgco Posted October 19, 2023 Share Posted October 19, 2023 This is such a great start to the series! The Concordes jerseys are really cool, with a nice hint of Space Age! I like the little contrail inlines in the numbers. That logo would work so well for a Seattle Sonics return (beats my attempt at something similar, haha!) Only complaint is that the sonic boom rings feel busy (and redundant with that big ring container)... How does it look without them? Also, not necessary, but would you consider adding a blue triangular shoulder yoke on the road? Your Magpies logo gives Eagles vibes in a really good way; all the good things without the bad : D Jerseys are quite nice too, though I'd be tempted to make the top half of the sleeves black at home instead of white. I hadn't seen your old concept series before, but I do quite like it, especially Watford, Swansea, and Arsenal. Your angular, full body Magpie is quite nice in that series! Birmingham's jerseys look so classic, and the logo is nice (especially with the ring) in a modern way... Although I have nothing but praise to say about either on its own, it's almost like they don't really match with each other? IDK I don't really have any suggestions though... Excited to see the next entries! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJWalker45 Posted October 19, 2023 Share Posted October 19, 2023 I would probably got with a more abstract silhouette of the Concorde. I like the uniform design though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 21, 2023 Author Share Posted October 21, 2023 Scotland Claymores One of the two rehashed NFL Europe teams, and one that has such a strong name. The logo follows what the previous logo had done, but I redrew it to make it a little bolder, and dropped about 6 outlines. The uniforms were inspired by some of the previous ones as well, but these almost look like a cleaned up Brady-era Pats uniform, but with darker colored sleeves and collars. I'm a few ahead on designing and there are some really good ones coming, if you don't follow me on twitter. 11 1 Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomba Tomba Posted October 23, 2023 Share Posted October 23, 2023 Replace all the silver with light blue, and change the helmet logo, and it becomes a solid Titans look Quote If you read on the card you'll be cheating on your heart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysox Posted October 23, 2023 Author Share Posted October 23, 2023 London Lightning One thing I wanted to do was have London with two seemingly generic names, but make the brands strong and very different. I kicked around a few names, but loved the name Lightning for the alliteration. I tried a few things until I got it right, but I made an L with a lightning bolt for the horizontal bar. The font was italicized and felt fast. I tried about 5 color palettes doing this, but in a moment of inspiration watching the Washington Huskies, I went with purple and gold. Let me tell you, the Chargers really corner the market with great looking lightning-themed jerseys. No matter what I did, it ended up looking pretty similar. I wanted to come up with something that featured the bolt, but since it's not arched I went in a different direction than Los Angeles. The bolts point forward on the sleeve and helmet, seemingly to say CHARGE!! 6 Quote @MichaelDanger19 | Dribbble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJWalker45 Posted October 23, 2023 Share Posted October 23, 2023 The Claymores jerseys truly do remind me of the Patriots template that was actually being used in NFL Europe for a few years. I think using something similar to their initial uniforms would work better, and separate them from the templated era of the World League. Obviously with the logo on the sleeves instead of the front of the jersey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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