Alabama Hammers

[stealthfrog]

I made this for a friend's fantasy baseball team. I want to incorporate the bird's (yellowhammer) claws/talons into the full-body logo but I'm not sure about the placement of it. Any comments/critique would be appreciated.

Wordmark and uniforms to follow...

[Sterling84]

This is a classic example of not quite having command over your medium.

I mean that in a really nice way.

At this point the shapes and balance you've achieved COULD look like any comic-style pro logo out there.

Thats the good part. But the shapes have taken over and the naturalistic properties of how we see things are being lost.

Where the front neck/throat meets the breast.......whats happening there? Looks like he swallowed something sharp.

The far wing has a highlight (or white feather coloring detail whichever) that pushes it to the forground with the near wing......negating any spacial dynamic you were working for.

And on the beak.....one would think the mouth is open here.....but that could be fleshed out with more acuracy.

I like the palette, I like the idea, I like taking a nebulus name and assigning it to a real creature. Very good conceptualizing. But you need to take control of the swooping sharp shapes here to make them do what YOU want or the effect is lost.

[Sterling84]

DISCLAIMER::

I do not hold this up as THE answer here. Not at all. I whipped this up in about 10 minutes JUST addressing the three areas I brought up.

Were it mine, I'd still explore further.

But now the far wing looks further away, the beak looks open and the breast runs smoothly into the head.

[slapshot]

The zigzags and color scheme remind me a lot of the Bruins third jersey.

I agree with Sterling's statement...there's a lot going on, and it's hard to make out anatomically how the bird is positioned. I can't make out the front wing from the back one. And the beak looks more like an arrow than anything.

I think if you can make it less busy and more defined, this will look really cool.

[J23P]

i like it.

the only thing that comes to my mind if you didnt have a brief description was that it was a yellow finch.

[stealthfrog]

Wow, Sterling, that looks really great! I especially like your treatment of the beak and eye. I'll try to simplify the wings and re-form some of the body, as you suggested. Thanks for all the critique. I really appreciate it.

[DawgPacPBH]

to add to sterling's idea, maybe if you want to keep the design you could keep the foreground/.background more seperated by some sort of extruding line from the yellowe outline like i demonstrate here....maybe not.

its my solution to everything haha.

[teenchy]

No artisitic criticism of your logo intended, but are you sure you chose the right bird?

Yellowhammer: 1. A small bunting (Emberiza citrinella) of Europe and western Asia having bright yellow plumage on the head, neck, and breast.

2. See yellow-shafted flicker.

Yellow-shafted flicker: A large woodpecker (Colaptes auratus) of eastern North America, having a black crescent on the breast, a conspicuous white rump, and yellow shafts in the wing and tail feathers. Also called yellowhammer.

Given that the ?yellowhammer? that is the state bird of Alabama is the yellow-shafted flicker, I?d suggest that you design the logo based on the American woodpecker rather than the European bunting.

[andrewharrington]

Well, the above statement has merit, but thats artist's discretion. You could make yours work with a red-orange head and a longer beak if you wanted to.

Anyway, I love your color palette. It is a shame more people do not use sunique palettes like this. If you wanted to go the woodpecker route, I think a red-orange would work especially well with the colors you have selected. I love rich golden yellows, and is that a dark warm grey, or is it a brown? I love those hues as well, and I often say they are vastly underutilized in visual identity.

That said, here is what I have discerned from this. Whichever bird this is, I think the tail feathers need to be larger; your bird looks top-heavy to me, and biggher tail feather woud help to balance it out.

Sterling is right on with the beak, wing, and breast if you ask me. A white highlight in the outside wing like you have might still be feasible, but maybe one not so jagged as would help to simplify the chaos of the original. A little less yellow than you have, and no whiteat all, could add depth to the far wing, but it must recede from the other.

The shapes you have in this drawing all seem to be gold or white and outlined in brown, but the eye is brown outlines in white. I think it would unify better and be more defined on the gold plane if it was white outlined in brown, though I see the merit in a dark eye here because birds eyes are in fact dark.

It could benefit from some further streamlining, as has been noted before.

[andrewharrington]

I forgot to add this before. What about a light grey outline instead of yellow. The bird is predominantly yellow, thus I think the yellow as an outline is a wee bit too much.

To see a great example of receding far shapes and bringin the close ones forward, check out Greg's INVASION logos with the wheat stalks. Little highlighting on the far ones, lots on the near ones.