Premier Lacrosse League City Announcements and Rebrands

[raysox]

The PLL announced today the cities that each team will play in after 5 seasons of a touring model that saw the league play weekends in various lacrosse markets. Each team had at minimum a minor brand change, with only one team completely rebranding to better fit their market. Below is the new primary logos & alternate logos
 

• Boston Cannons
• California Redwoods
• Carolina Chaos
• Denver Outlaws (formerly Chrome)
• Maryland Whipsnakes
• New York Atlas
• Philadelphia Waterdogs
• Utah Archers

 

 

 

[TBGKon]

Have Carolina, Maryland and California announced actual venues?

 

Based on those colors, safe to assume Maryland plays somewhere around the U of Maryland and Carolina in Raleigh?

[raysox]

Just now, TBGKon said:

Have Carolina, Maryland and California announced actual venues?

 

Based on those colors, safe to assume Maryland plays somewhere around the U of Maryland and Carolina in Raleigh?

Not that I've seen, but based on where the PLL has been a few times - Charlotte would be where Chaos play, and Baltimore would be where the Whipsnakes play.

Fwiw i've heard Irvine for the Redwoods, probably at Championship Soccer Stadium

[SSmith48]

As sad as I am to see the unique Chrome brand go away, I am stoked to see the Denver Outlaws back! Glad they kept a lot of the same branding elements too.

[raysox]

Full logo sets:

 

[DCarp1231]

I’m from Maryland and I gotta be honest…

 

I don’t know what the :censored: a “whipsnake” is.

 

Also, that tertiary logo is literally just a recolored Orioles sleeve logo

[Jake3roo]

I can't help but see NY's nose as another face

[raysox]

24 minutes ago, DCarp1231 said:

I’m from Maryland and I gotta be honest…

 

I don’t know what the a “whipsnake” is.

 

Also, that tertiary logo is literally just a recolored Orioles sleeve logo

For what it's worth: "whip" is a lacrosse term, whipsnake is a kind of snake, and they have a LOT of former Terps on their team so they were always considered the team of Maryland.

Also it's the state flag in a roundel, neither is necessarily groundbreaking.

[Fowler]

Boy, look at all those Redwoods in Southern California. 

[McCall]

Nice tertiary logo for the Utah Astros... I mean, Archers.

[4_tattoos]

• Carolina Chaos: Overall the branding is improved from the previous years. Kind of digging the scorpion tail C.
• Denver Outlaws: Solid. No complaints. Will miss the Chrome logo though.
• Utah Archers: I like the arrowhead on it's own and the state as the negative space in the A's of the word marks. Not wild about the rest of the branding.
• California Redwoods: I like everything about this rebrand. Especially it appears they've gotten away from that highlighter shade of yellow to a more "athletic gold" shade.
• Philly Waterdogs: Still the worst name in the league. At least the new dog looks better. Not impressed overall.
• Maryland Whipsnakes: Let me start off by saying I will miss the Whips original colors. With that said, Maryland is my home state so going with the state's color is a very easy pill to swallow (sidenote, also the colors of my high school alma mater). I really like the M secondary logo. They could have done a lot more to differentiate the tertiary roundel from the Orioles roundel, or even not included it as part of the package.
• New York Atlas: The new bull logo looks worse than the original. Serious downgrade there. I like the NY logo though
• Boston Cannons: Solid, no complaints.

[sky1324]

By default the Chaos will be my team, but I feel no connection to the name or branding package. It needs some blue to feel like a real Charlotte team. I would've rather had the Hounds brand back, but I understand why they kept most of the old cityless names. The Carolina + scorpion tail logo feels squished horizontally. Not a fan of using Maryland over Baltimore, either. Philly, Cali, and Utah are excellent though, no complaints there.

[4_tattoos]

1 hour ago, CDCLT said:

By default the Chaos will be my team, but I feel no connection to the name or branding package. It needs some blue to feel like a real Charlotte team. I would've rather had the Hounds brand back, but I understand why they kept most of the old cityless names. The Carolina + scorpion tail logo feels squished horizontally. Not a fan of using Maryland over Baltimore, either. Philly, Cali, and Utah are excellent though, no complaints there.

In the state of the league video, Paul Rabil specifically pointed out NC State and the Carolina Hurricanes of the NHL in regards to them wearing red. They may plan on giving the team a significant presence in the Raleigh area. They may have more than one home within in NC.

 

They likely went with Maryland over Baltimore in an attempt to keep fans in the DC metro counties of Maryland on board. I know many people in that part of the state that don't support the Ravens or Orioles simply because they don't view them as their local teams (which is true geographically speaking). Some of those same people did not support the Baywhawks when they had Baltimore as the market name. Have a feeling the Whipsnakes will play in Annapolis like the Baywhawks ultimately did. 

[Pharos04]

Glad to see the Cannons back in proper fashion

[4_tattoos]

I need this on a hat. Well actually on three hats. A baseball cap, a bucket hat and a winter beanie.

 

 

[Sport]

I would like to see these brands in the hands of a more deft designer or team of designers. I hate to be mean, but these are not good and loaded with fundamental errors, amateurish construction, and lots of decisions made through either poor taste or an untrained eye. This is part of a larger pattern in sports branding that I'm noticing. I'm calling it the Growing Acceptance of Mediocrity - More people than ever have a cursory knowledge of vector software, which can be confused for the ability to craft good work. It's the difference between knowing how to play covers on the guitar and knowing how to write a great song. If you want good sports logos then hire and pay what it costs for the people who are good at sports logos. There's maybe 500 of them in the world and it's extremely unlikely that your in-house social media content employees are one of them, but they are increasingly becoming the people who get tasked with this sort of assignment because they're already on the payroll. Just because Designer is in their title doesn't mean they'll be good at designing sports logos. It's an entirely different skillset.

[officeglenn]

16 minutes ago, Sport said:

I would like to see these brands in the hands of a more deft designer or team of designers. I hate to be mean, but these are not good and loaded with fundamental errors, amateurish construction, and lots of decisions made through either poor taste or an untrained eye. This is part of a larger pattern in sports branding that I'm noticing. I'm calling it the Growing Acceptance of Mediocrity - More people than ever have a cursory knowledge of vector software, which can be confused for the ability to craft good work. It's the difference between knowing how to play covers on the guitar and knowing how to write a great song. If you want good sports logos then hire and pay what it costs for the people who are good at sports logos. There's maybe 500 of them in the world and it's extremely unlikely that your in-house social media content employees are one of them, but they are increasingly becoming the people who get tasked with this sort of assignment because they're already on the payroll. Just because Designer is in their title doesn't mean they'll be good at designing sports logos. It's an entirely different skillset.

 

[leopard88]

I find it interesting that most of the primary wordmarks emphasize the city/state name over the nickname.  I guess that makes sense for trying to build local ties, but it's definitely not the norm in professional sports.

[4_tattoos]

I'm on board with the PLL bringing back the Denver Outlaws brand. I'm also on board with their decision to put a team in Utah. I just don't get why they decided to put the Archers in Utah given how similar their color scheme is to the Outlaws. I know whenever they play each other they'll be wearing contrasting jerseys (at the very least), but I feel like most teams in rival cities tend to have different colors. Might have been optically better to have placed the Waterdogs in Utah. Purple vs Orange  would have been a better color matchup between these cities than orange, navy blue & white vs orange, black & silver.

 

With that said, so far it appears the Outlaws will emphasize black, while the Archers will emphasize orange. We'll have to see what each team does as far as uniforms.

[DCarp1231]

Not a huge fan of any of the identities. Denver probably the strongest and Carolina the weakest.