Rebranding the New Orleans Pelicans into the “Skelicans”

[pelicanfan]

If you’re someone who pays attention to the Pelicans, you may have heard fans raving about this year’s City Edition line. To a point where many people are calling for the team to even rebrand into the theme. And honestly, its for pretty good reason. I’m not one to be impulsive but I really do think the Pelicans hit the mark this year and now have a great opportunity to rebrand (and i rarely give props to this team’s marketing.) 

 

Purple and green is a color combination rarely used in sports. Let alone purple, *lime* green, and black. Not only is this so unique in terms of sports, but it also speaks to the VooDoo and supernatural culture of New Orleans. It’s something i never thought of before and I personally find it way better than the surface level stuff the team has done like Red-White-and-Blue and Mardi Gras. RWB is just way too commonly worn and Mardi Gras just looks odd outside of Mardi Gras season. So alternatively I think this spooky VooDoo theme would be the perfect concept for a rebrand. 

 

So with that being said here’s my take on what a Pelicans “Skelican” rebrand would look like. Credit goes to the team for the coming up with the basis of all of this. I’m just branching off it. 

 

So for the wordmark i actually had to recreate the font myself. The font the team used was a custom made one so i had no choice but to piece together every letter i can find from promotional pieces. i tried to upscale them as much as i can, put them all together on a template, and then put it through an AI font maker to clean things up. So it’s not perfect but it’s close. 

 

For the middle logo, it’s of course the famous “Skelican” logo that many fans have been raving about. I couldn’t find any official file of it so again, i cut it and upscaled it myself. fun fact: there's still no official file of the logo anywhere so when you google for the Skelican all you can find is my edited version lol

 

And for the third logo, i have no idea if this would be legally allowed in the real world but i combined the old New Orleans VooDoo logo with the secondary "bird de lis" logo the team currently has. And then adjusted colors accordingly. This probably wouldn’t be allowed but it’s fun to imagine for concept purposes. And i’m sure the team can pull off something like this the right way if they wanted to. 

 

And for this main logo, this surprisingly took a long time to make, longer than anything else here. But long story short, i managed to combine the smaller city edition logo with the bigger official logo the Pelicans have used (up until this year they decided to remove it for no reason) Also added a little drop shadow to the letters mostly so the NEW ORLEANS doesn’t just blend in with the green bones. 

 

And for the jerseys, I actually wanted to do more but didn’t want to stray too far from the familiarity of the city jerseys. I have to admit I was not sold on the plainness of the official jerseys that came out so I added some more striping so the colors can pop more. 

 

For the City Edition jerseys here’s some designs of my own that take a less traditional route. The first one goes all in with the skeleton theme with a bone-like font, pinstripes made of bones, and a skull pattern all around the uniform.

 

For the second jersey i was inspired by the one of the retro Hawks jerseys with the big bird in front. with how much the fans love the logo i thought this would be a bold but slick way to incorporate the logo and let it do the speaking. 

 

And as a bonus here is my third city jersey concept, this actually came from an old concept I made before this season. As you can see I went for a ghosty teal color to pair with the purple. Added VooDoo doll stitching on the sides and used a haunted spooky font. Then i added the new logos and recolored accordingly

 

And if you’ve made it this far, congrats. I now lastly present my court design. Personally this is my favorite part as it required the most thinking from me. I was mostly inspired by the current home floor that includes Louisiana nature all around the border. So I took that same design and took it up a notch by using dead trees and *flying Pelican Skeletons* at the top. and at the very bottom of the court is the classic “Let The Good Times Roll” motto in French.

As for inside the court, I of course used the beloved “Skelican” logo at center court and in the 3pt arch’s I added more Pelican Skeletons. Is it a *little* horrifying? yea, but one can say that perfectly fits the vibe of New Orleans

 

edit: fixing some images that aren’t appearing let me know if there’s any empty pictures

[MCM0313]

15 minutes ago, pelicanfan said:

If you’re someone who pays attention to the Pelicans, you may have heard fans raving about this year’s City Edition line. To a point many people are calling for the team to even rebrand around the theme. And honestly, its 

for pretty good reason. I’m not one to be impulsive but I really do think the Pelicans hit the mark this year and now have a great opportunity to rebrand (and i rarely give props to this team’s marketing.) 

 

Purple and green is a color combination rarely used in sports. Let alone purple, *lime* green, and black. Not only is this so unique, it also speaks to the VooDoo and supernatural culture of New Orleans. It’s something i never thought of before and I personally think it’s a lot better than the surface level stuff the team has done like Red White and Blue and Mardi Gras. 

 

So with that being said here’s my take on what a Pelicans “Skelican” rebrand would look like. Credit goes to the team for the coming up with the basis of all of this. I’m just branching off it. 

 

So for the wordmark i actually had to recreate the font myself. The font the team used was a custom made one so i had no choice but to piece together every letter i can find from promotional pieces. i tried to upscale them as much as i can, put them all together on a template, and then put it through an AI font maker. So it’s not perfect but it’s close. 

 

For the middle logo, it’s of course the famous “Skelican” logo that many fans have been raving about. I couldn’t find any official image of it so i had to cut it and upscale it myself.

 

And for the third logo, i have no idea if this would be legally allowed in the real world but i combined the old New Orleans VooDoo logo with one of the secondary logos the team currently has. And then adjusted colors accordingly. This probably wouldn’t be allowed but it’s fun to imagine. And i’m sure the team can pull off something like this the right way if they wanted to.

 

And for the main logo, this surprisingly took a long time to make, longer than anything else here. But long story short, i managed to combine the smaller city edition logo with the bigger official logo the Pelicans have used (up until this year they decided to remove it for no reason) Also added a little drop shadow to the letters mostly so the NEW ORLEANS doesn’t just blend in with the green bones. 

 

And for the jerseys, I actually feel like i could have done a lot more but i didn’t want to stray too far from what the City Edition jerseys look like. I have to admit I was not sold on the plainness of the actual jerseys that came out so I added some more striping all around so the colors can pop more. 

 

For the City Edition jerseys here’s some designs of my own that take a less traditional route. The first one goes all in with the skeleton theme with a bone-like font, pinstripes made of bones, and a skull pattern all around the uniform.

 

For the second jersey i was inspired by the one of the retro Hawks jerseys with the big bird in front. with how much the fans love the logo i thought this would be a bold but slick way to incorporate the logo and let it do the speaking. 

 

And as a bonus here is my third jersey concept, this actually came from an old concept I made before the Pelicans came out with their City Edition stuff. As you can see I opted for a teal color to pair with the purple. Added VooDoo doll stitching on the sides and used a haunted spooky font. Then i added the logos and recolored accordingly

 

And if you’ve made it this far, congrats. I now lastly present my court design. Personally this is my favorite part as it required the most thinking from me. I was mostly inspired by the current Pelicans home floor that has Louisiana nature all around the border of the court. I took that same design and took it up a notch by using dead trees and *flying Pelican Skeletons* at the top. and at the very bottom of the court is the classic “Let The Good Times Roll” motto in French.

As for inside the court, I of course used the beloved “Skelican” logo at center court and in the 3pt arch’s I added more Pelican Skeletons. Is it a *little* horrifying? yea, but one can say that perfectly fits the the vibe of New Orleans

These are sharp, fun, and unique. Could we see a neon green jersey concept?

[Bomba Tomba]

OMG I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS

[verbi]

awesome work and job on these. i love this

[pelicanfan]

thank you so much everyone! glad you guys enjoyed my work

19 hours ago, MCM0313 said:

Could we see a neon green jersey concept?

I had a few ideas but didnt think anyone would actually wanna see a neon green jersey lol. but since you asked i'll probably add them and whatever other ideas i have as time goes on. i've got quite a few more

[verbi]

the voodoo doctor pelican logo is so tough

[johne9109]

I loe everything about this except PELS on the white jersey. Everything else is phenomenal and makes the Pelicans really stand out in a world where they are a very bland team as far as uniforms go.

[sailorsam]

Voodoo logo

 

reminds me of the New Orleans Voodoo Arena Football logo.  very kewl.

 

(how long before I can get an Avatar?)

Edited February 6 by sailorsam
trying to fix pic linque

[coco1997]

This is super fun and clever. Great creativity!

[loneranger158]

yo didn't know you were here lol

[Wildcomet]

This may well be the best thing I have ever seen done with the Pelicans brand! I've seen some darn cool uniform concepts before, but top to bottom with the logo, uniform and court designs this is awesome!!

[SoxSteeler]

everything here is great. The only think that is a little odd is the third city uniform looking more like a hornets alt with those colors. 

[pelicanfan]

Hey everyone just wanted to say thank you all for the positive feedback! This has been one of my favorite projects I've done. Here's part 2 of my jersey concepts.

 

I want to start off by introducing an upgraded version of the core 3 jerseys. My first set as i mentioned was something a little mores streamline and closer to the actual jerseys that were released. So i've been wanting to make a set that has my personal flare to it. It combines the boney pinstripes and voodoo stitching designs I came up with from earlier. I also felt like the red in all of this has been basically non existent outside the logos. So I added a dash of red with the crescent moon above the text for some added New Orleans flare. It is the Crescent City after all. I also adjusted the numbers to match with the text more and play into glow-in-the-dark theme. And got my hands on a cleaner PELS wordmark

 

 

And here's the fun part. The alternate jerseys. 

 

As highly requested, here is a green jersey. I chose carefully which design to use with this color as i know lime green is a pretty bold color to work with. I wanted to use enough black so that the jersey wouldn't be so "in your face." I was also inspired by the original New Orleans Hornets design and used a similar side striping design on this. 

 

For these jerseys, i was inspired by the African roots of VooDoo. So i used a font that uses African pattering within. And used an actual voodoo pattern all throughout the sides and trim of the jerseys. I also couldn't settle on if i liked the black or green base so heres both!

 

For this design, i felt like it was only right to make a "Monster" themed jersey when working with the palette of purple and green. I opted for a pretty wild monster-like wordmark and a flaming design all throughout the sides of the uniform. Just to embrace the full scariness of New Orleans. (yes fire is also associated with VooDoo culture)

 

And lastly, I wanted to balance out this series and make a white jersey. This jersey is inspired by the haunted statues of New Orleans. Admittedly, the first thing I thought of when thinking about the spooky side of New Orleans is all the haunted cemeteries that people tour around here. But... I think its better that i leave it as the jerseys being inspired by statues. All throughout the uniform there is a subtle stone-crack design. 

 

[PERRIN]

2 hours ago, BABE said:

Hi ....... very unique well done

i would post a REBRAND design for the New Orleans Pelicans

but forum rules dont  allow.

Only thing stopping you is the fact that you just joined. Once you post five times, you'll be free to create a concept thread of your own. Interested to see what you come up with.