Kingston Cricket Club Logo & Uniforms

[StoneRaizer]

My buddy was elected President of the Kingston, Ontario Cricket Club this past weekend and one of his first moves was to get a logo and uniform concept designed, which he asked me to do. My buddy loves what I came up with and he's presenting it to the rest of the council tonight. Now the question is, will CCSLC, a place that I got many design ideas (no gradients being the big one - I use a lot of them in projects but didn't in this).

A few reasons for design choices...

1. Since I have no idea what a cricket logo is supposed to look like, I got some ideas from various EPL soccer logos. Uniforms were inspired by various soccer kits as well.

2. The Shield is because Kingston is home to Fort Henry and the Royal Military College of Canada, and that one of the main points of cricket is to defend the wickets.

3. Kingston's also nestled right beside Lake Ontario, hence the waves.

4. The two colours of waves are designed to give a perspective effect. When you look out over a body of water, the colour is lighter in the foreground while darker in the background.

5. I hope the cricket stumps look like cricket stumps!

6. Yes I know I used three shades of blue and from what I've read on CCSLC that's frowned upon, at least when referred to the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys uniforms. I don't think the three shades is overkill in this design though.

[officeglenn]

This looks pretty good. One thing I would suggest is an outline on the wicket ? probably white, but maybe the darker blue. The yellow of the wicket tends to blend in with the blue of the sky.

As for the three shades of blue, I'm pretty indifferent. I can see the logic behind each use (sky vs. water, foreground vs. background), so I'm OK with it myself.

[gordie_delini]

Cut it down to four colors - replace one of the yellows with white, or, since you're using PANTONE® colors anyway, which are spot colors, to create your depth perception, use a screen percentage of once of the two blues, the same with the yellow - then you can cut your design color scheme down to technically two blues and one yellow.

[StoneRaizer]

Gordie - not quite sure what you meant by screen percentage, and as far as I know Pantone colours are process, not spot. I may be wrong on that though.

I did try your suggestion of replacing one of the yellows with white and it didn't look good. The stumps are supposed to look like rounded wood, with the two shades of yellow creating that effect. White made it look like it was a stripe painted on.

I appreciate your C&C and tried it, but IMO it doesn't look good. Thanks for your input though.

Glenn - Your suggestion of using the darker blue as a small outline was a great idea and it really does make a difference. Here's the update:

[gordie_delini]

Pantone colors are most definitely spot, unless you use process colors. Instead of using PANTONE Process 288 C, use solid coated. When I say screen percentage, when you look at the swatch in the color palette, you'll see a gradient going from the solid color to white - if you scroll over that you'll get the eye dropper. Click along there, and then drag the swatch from the toolbar to the swatch palette, and it will give you a number such as "PANTONE 286 C 73%" - would you like screen shots if you're still confused?

[Alphabet Man]

My only suggestion, coming from a cricket background, would be to interlock the KCC similar to what some teams do in Baseball. Maybe put the interlocked KCC in the sky, and drop the stumps down to the bottom of the sheild.

The team would also need whites, unless they play one-day games, teams wear all white or shades off white like beige and off-white. I think a couple of navy trims would work on whites.

[StoneRaizer]

Got word from the client about radical changes - they wanted a totally new colour scheme. The players wanted to wear black uniforms because nobody else in the league wears black. So, I recoloured the uniforms and logo to use black as a prominent colour, with gold as an accent because the local hockey team (Kingston Frontenacs) and university (Queen's) uses gold as a main colour.

So, here goes:

Personally I actually like the black/gold version better because it's less busy and because it ties in with city colours.

[BB61]

I understand why they wanted to switch, but alas, I think you need to go in a different direction if you're going to keep with those two colors. The black and yellow water / white sky does not work at all, and that color of yellow (it's too bright to be gold) clashes horribly with the white background. The only suggestions I can give to you are to switch to a darker color yellow / gold, and to use a monogram (interlock the KCC).

It's ashame that they had to change on you, because what you had really worked, and you were going in a good direction.

[HarperK]

am i the only one that, no matter how many times i look, keep seeing KFC at first look? The font just looks so familiar, and is the first thing that pops into my head when i see that.

[Primal]

My suggestion: take the first colour scheme and make the "sky" black. It makes it look like the wickets are rising into dark stormy skies, which matches up with the waves quite nicely. You could also change the trim line around the shield and inside the KCC to black as well. Wordmark too, in fact.

The uniform can stay predominantly black, but this excellent logo really doesn't work without blue(s) for the water. Give the uniform a simple blue and gold trim just to tie them together.