Script Missouri State Wordmark

[Maroon]

Recently, notable college athletics programs have reintroduced historic script wordmarks to their brand identity, sometimes just in "retro" apparel and sometimes for the team uniforms – Bradley, Michigan State, and Mississippi State are ready examples. My alma mater, Missouri State University, also has a history of a script wordmark from 1950 to 1956 first reading “Southwest State” then later “Southwest Missouri” in two variations: a white jersey with a maroon script and a maroon jersey with a white script with an outline. It was with these uniforms that the 1952 Bears made a surprise tournament run to capture the 1952 NAIA national championship and repeat in 1953.

 

Thus far, Missouri State has not introduced any kid of script wordmark, so I thought I'd try my hand at recreating it using photos of the 1950s teams from digitized yearbooks. I am a complete amateur and have never done anything like this before, so I would love feedback. I tried my best to make them match the jerseys, but it was difficult because (1) when zoomed in these are very pixilated and I am unclear what the original details are such as precise curves or angles, and (2) there are variations between different jerseys from year-to-year and sometimes even within the same year so I had to sometimes choose between different styles.

 

I will accept any feedback, but especially covet critiques and advice on ways to make it better reflect the historic jerseys, places where curves, angles, and ligatures could be made better, and how to perhaps make something look better/cleaner/more consistent even if it doesn't follow the historic version perfectly. I created this by hand tracing with the CS5 Illustrator pen tool and absolutely believe there are areas for improvement. Thank you! 

 

EDIT: Updating the OP to include the most current versions of the script wordmarks. Many thanks to MDGB, johnrafael, and Ben5 for their suggestions that helped this become better. I am still very open to recommendations and potential improvements!

 

 

 

 

 

The original versions prior to suggested edits:

 

 

 

Photographs that inspired this wordmark:

 

 

 

 

[Maroon]

I initially did not want to make an individual "State" wordmark without "Missouri" or "MO" ahead of it, understanding that a maroon "State" would be more associated with Mississippi State. But on the Missouri State fan forum someone requested a design with "State" overlaying the shape of Missouri (thereby indicating that this does, in fact, refer to Missouri State). I made a few variations.

 

Maroon "State" against Maroon State Outline (and with yellow background to show white outline)

 

 

 

Smaller "State" within Missouri Outline:

 

 

Maroon "State" with Maroon Missouri:

 

White and Gold "State" with Maroon Missouri, with an alt color swap:

 

 

 

 

Maroon "State" with Gold outline against a solid and filled Missouri (probably my least favorite of the variations):

 

 

[Ben5]

The best way I've found to make a script like this is to take a script font, then edit the hell out of it to make it unique.

[johnrafael]

Another possible way is to trace the center line of each glyph with the Pen Tool, then defining the width of the line in a larger weight. When you have  the maximum weight, you can convert the linework to outline, then you fix the details of the letters and the ligatures. The image spoilered below is a quick, shoddy try of doing this. I'm not really that close to the result, but it's a start.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Maroon]

1 hour ago, johnrafael said:

Another possible way is to trace the center line of each glyph with the Pen Tool, then defining the width of the line in a larger weight. When you have  the maximum weight, you can convert the linework to outline, then you fix the details of the letters and the ligatures. The image spoilered below is a quick, shoddy try of doing this. I'm not really that close to the result, but it's a start.

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Thanks! That is really good advice that I honestly did not consider. I literally just used the pen tool and manually traced the edges, which was hard with often indefinite edges. Your method would have been much clearer and resulted in more automatic consistency in stroke width.

 

5 hours ago, Ben5 said:

The best way I've found to make a script like this is to take a script font, then edit the hell out of it to make it unique.

I appreciate the suggestion. I did consider that, but I wanted to avoid violating any license requirements (and maybe I wouldn’t have, I’m just not aware enough of how those work and was afraid I would on accident).

[Ben5]

10 hours ago, Maroon said:

Thanks! That is really good advice that I honestly did not consider. I literally just used the pen tool and manually traced the edges, which was hard with often indefinite edges. Your method would have been much clearer and resulted in more automatic consistency in stroke width.

 

I appreciate the suggestion. I did consider that, but I wanted to avoid violating any license requirements (and maybe I wouldn’t have, I’m just not aware enough of how those work and was afraid I would on accident).

 

Are you putting this on merchandise? Uniforms? Or just for fun? If it's just for personal use, you're good. Get yourself the practice of being able to edit and change things around until you make it your own.

[MDGP]

There are a few things I'm noticing looking at your scripts that I think will help a lot.

 

First, and this is a general good practice, is to try to have as few anchor points as possible in your line work. The fewer points you have, the fewer opportunities for the logo to have unsightly kinks and bends in the shape. You'd be surprised at the complexity of shapes that can actually be made with so few anchors. For example, take a look at the image I drew below.

 

 

The cursive S on the left is made with only 4 anchor points, now it's not great, but with only two extra anchor points in the right spots, I was able to make a really clean looking cursive S with only 6 points. Obviously if you're doing shapes instead of strokes, you'll have more anchors, but the principal is the same. On your design, the difference is really noticeable between your S and your T.

 

My second tip would be to really pay attention to the vertexes of where the stroke crosses over itself. The S is once again the best example of this. In a script logo we're mimicking pen real life strokes of pen strokes. Using a slightly altered S below, see how where the S crosses over itself, the outlines still naturally flow into one another? Making sure that the flow of your lines is consistent even through those portions will make your letters look a lot more like natural strokes.

 

 

Finally, one of the things I've struggled with a bit is making sure that the inner loop and outer loop are consistent. They don't need to be the exact same curve, but they should be generally the same shape (Note, this applies to all the letters, the S is just the easiest example to work with). On your S, the inner loop is almost a triangle, while the outer loop is a lot more rounded which makes the shape awkward in a few places. Really focusing on making those portions look more cohesive will drastically improve the quality and really get you to the place you want to be with the design.

 

 

Also, I hope this advice doesn't come across overly harsh. There's definitely a lot of potential here and I think you're a few tweaks away from having a really great design.

[Maroon]

2 hours ago, Ben5 said:

 

Are you putting this on merchandise? Uniforms? Or just for fun? If it's just for personal use, you're good. Get yourself the practice of being able to edit and change things around until you make it your own.

 

I appreciate that insight. Right now it is just for personal use and for fun because I want this concept to exist in the world and share it with fellow Bears fans (and I would not be using it to make apparel myself - ever), but I do have a few people I know to contact that are at the university and I want to at least suggest that they consider something like this for the university. Even if I would expect that if they like the idea (and that is a big if) they probably would have a professional recreate it and do a better job than I did. But what I wouldn't want to do is send something that uses someone else's intellectual and creative property that could accidentally be misconstrued as theft even if (very hypothetically) any final and official version was made using a different process. Does that make sense?

 

1 hour ago, MDGP said:

 

Also, I hope this advice doesn't come across overly harsh. There's definitely a lot of potential here and I think you're a few tweaks away from having a really great design.

 

This is incredibly helpful and not harsh at all. In fact, even showing your pen work with the paths helps me a lot, as I didn't create the "S" (or any of the letters) by creating a path that crosses over itself - I made an outline and then made another shape for the internal gaps. You make a really good point about the inner loop and outer loop. Now that you've explained your process and the need to make inner curves at least be generally the same as the outer curves, you can tell that the "S" has an inner shape is disconnected with the outer curve of the letter. 

[MDGP]

7 minutes ago, Maroon said:

In fact, even showing your pen work with the paths helps me a lot, as I didn't create the "S" (or any of the letters) by creating a path that crosses over itself - I made an outline and then made another shape for the internal gaps. You make a really good point about the inner loop and outer loop. Now that you've explained your process and the need to make inner curves at least be generally the same as the outer curves, you can tell that the "S" has an inner shape is disconnected with the outer curve of the letter. 

 

There are actually some benefits to doing it the way you mention in the bolded part (I honestly do it both ways depending on the circumstances), but when drawing the loops that way it just requires a bit more care and attention to get right.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention earlier, the advice with the flowing vertexes doesn't necessarily apply to the letter E. I've found in some cases having the letter flow works well, but in others you will actually want a corner in there. This is mostly just a stylistic decision that will depend on the rest of the script.

 

[Ben5]

2 hours ago, Maroon said:

 

I appreciate that insight. Right now it is just for personal use and for fun because I want this concept to exist in the world and share it with fellow Bears fans (and I would not be using it to make apparel myself - ever), but I do have a few people I know to contact that are at the university and I want to at least suggest that they consider something like this for the university. Even if I would expect that if they like the idea (and that is a big if) they probably would have a professional recreate it and do a better job than I did. But what I wouldn't want to do is send something that uses someone else's intellectual and creative property that could accidentally be misconstrued as theft even if (very hypothetically) any final and official version was made using a different process. Does that make sense?

 

 

This is incredibly helpful and not harsh at all. In fact, even showing your pen work with the paths helps me a lot, as I didn't create the "S" (or any of the letters) by creating a path that crosses over itself - I made an outline and then made another shape for the internal gaps. You make a really good point about the inner loop and outer loop. Now that you've explained your process and the need to make inner curves at least be generally the same as the outer curves, you can tell that the "S" has an inner shape is disconnected with the outer curve of the letter. 

 

Good luck! I hope they do use it.

[Maroon]

Thank you, each of @MDGP @johnrafael @Ben5 for your feedback and advice. Based on some of the recommendations and demonstrations here alongside requests by Missouri State fans I shared this with, I tried to make a new version with some sharper corners and points, that is a bit more "modernized" while trying to maintain the retro script feeling, and that makes curves and internal shapes more consistent. I'm sure there are still improvements to be made, but I like the direction these are going!

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: A Missouri State fan requested the "State" over the Missouri outline with an additional thin maroon outline around the white stroke.