Iowa State Cyclones REBRAND

[chestnutz]

UPDATES ON POST 12

I was looking around at college teams that I could do a kind of complete rebrand project for. Change the team's primary sports uniforms, rework the logos, etc. I finally settled on Iowa State...

PRIMARY LOGO

I first set out to make their logo set a bit better. I opted to give it that college feel with the block letters and such.

A quick rundown of past logos they've used...

Walking bird used from 67-82

Tornado used from 83-94

Cy used from 95-07

I STATE 2008

Some people like the one that they unveiled last year. I thought it had potential, but I wasn't a fan of how the State was just kind of pasted on top of the "I". So, instead of bringing back Cy (the Cardinal logo, whom ISU developed because they didn't think they could depict a Cyclone mascot) as the primary logo, I decided to edit the IState logo. I made the State into a banner, sans serifed arched, so it gels better with the I.

SECONDARY LOGOS

I really love the new secondary logo they made unveiled as well, depicting a muscular Cy forming a cyclone. Very cool IMO, so I kept it. I also made a tertiary kind of logo, with just a serifed ISU. It's not used on the uniforms at all, but it's good to just have a third logo.

COLORS

You'll notice with this whole project I went with a unifying theme, and that is a double outline. In their rebranding, ISU focused in on a darker red color a little bit more, putting it in their primary and in the secondary. I did the same, with the colors now (in order of importance) crimson, yellow, maroon. These three colors are used kind of interchangeably a lot with how each logo or number is placed on a certain color.

So, here is the logo sheet.

NUMBERS

I used a modern looking font for numbers, that again uses the double outlined. The numbers would be unified across all sports teams at Iowa State. Shown on white and red.

WORDMARKS

The wordmarks are a simple sans-serifed font (arial black, actually) that are vertically arched. Double outline used, and a full wordmark is included at the top that combines everything.

CONTINUED NEXT POST

[chestnutz]

FOOTBALL

The Cyclones haven't really sustained a complete identity, other than red jerseys at home and white away. Helmets have changed, striping patterns, etc.

Some quickies...

1991 "Cyclones" cursive script on yellow helmet, with yellow pants

1996 Plain red jerseys, Cy on helmet, white pants

1998 Same uniforms as 96 season, these are the aways

2000 My personal favorite. Love the unique striping on the cuffs, monochrome look actually looks good IMO

2002 Yuck. ISU started to use black more with some of their teams around this period. Looks bad here.

2004 simple red monochromes. Pretty nice.

2007 Added some yellow plain pants to the mix occasionally

Alright, enough flashbacks. In their rebrand, they went with a Syracuse Orange approach and went simple, getting rid of a lot of white. Many people think they look like a clone of USC. They also said they were going to let fans vote on a new helmet, which was supposed to be white. Because I love white helmets, I was disappointed when they completely forgot that and went with the red.

Since I wasn't IN LOVE with any of their past unis, and they hadn't really established a style, I kept with my double outline thing and applied it in a way to a striping pattern, which is seen on the helmet, the sleeves, and the pants. I went with a white helmet, red facemask, and put the primary logo on it. Cy is above the nameplate. I love the look of Oregon's white/white/green combination, and went with that for the away, substituting red of course.

I went Nike for the provider.

Alternates are just monochromes, of which I both like actually. ISU has used a white monochrome a lot in the past, so I kept that as an alternate and it looks fly I think.

BASKETBALL

Like I did with football, a quick rundown of the past 10 or so years of basketball uniforms...

1970 Ahh, everybody needs their dosage of short shorts!

1994 Boring...

1995 Still boring...

1996 Now those are unique! As you can see though on the wordmark and numbers, they're starting to use navy/black more.

1997 The away uniforms

1997 Adding yellow to the mix

1998 Still using navy

2000 Not bad, fits their look nicely I think.

2003

2004 Minus the blue, I really liked these, and was thinking about using a pattern like this for my concept.

2005 A yellow alt

2008 They also had a yellow alt (ugly)

I decided to roll with that last one, and using some generic Nike shorts I have for inspiration, came about this concept.

I kept out a primarily yellow uniform, because I think yellow looks absolutely disgusting most of the time. I went with SOD, since I'm using Nike and SOD has really grown on me. So a pretty plain jersey with some shoulder stripes, the wordmark, and the primary logo on the collar. The shorts are where I went less plain, kind of rolling off of their 2008 idea like I said. Cy is on the shorts. Overall, a solid identity for the team.

So, there's my ISU rebrand! Tell me what you think.

I'm not sure what college I want to do next, so suggestions are welcome.

[bigmike]

FOOTBALL

The Cyclones haven't really sustained a complete identity, other than red jerseys at home and white away. Helmets have changed, striping patterns, etc.

Some quickies...

1991 "Cyclones" cursive script on yellow helmet, with yellow pants

1996 Plain red jerseys, Cy on helmet, white pants

1998 Same uniforms as 96 season, these are the aways

2000 My personal favorite. Love the unique striping on the cuffs, monochrome look actually looks good IMO

2002 Yuck. ISU started to use black more with some of their teams around this period. Looks bad here.

2004 simple red monochromes. Pretty nice.

2007 Added some yellow plain pants to the mix occasionally

Alright, enough flashbacks. In their rebrand, they went with a Syracuse Orange approach and went simple, getting rid of a lot of white. Many people think they look like a clone of USC. They also said they were going to let fans vote on a new helmet, which was supposed to be white. Because I love white helmets, I was disappointed when they completely forgot that and went with the red.

Since I wasn't IN LOVE with any of their past unis, and they hadn't really established a style, I kept with my double outline thing and applied it in a way to a striping pattern, which is seen on the helmet, the sleeves, and the pants. I went with a white helmet, red facemask, and put the primary logo on it. Cy is above the nameplate. I love the look of Oregon's white/white/green combination, and went with that for the away, substituting red of course.

I went Nike for the provider.

Alternates are just monochromes, of which I both like actually. ISU has used a white monochrome a lot in the past, so I kept that as an alternate and it looks fly I think.

BASKETBALL

Like I did with football, a quick rundown of the past 10 or so years of basketball uniforms...

1970 Ahh, everybody needs their dosage of short shorts!

1994 Boring...

1995 Still boring...

1996 Now those are unique! As you can see though on the wordmark and numbers, they're starting to use navy/black more.

1997 The away uniforms

1997 Adding yellow to the mix

1998 Still using navy

2000 Not bad, fits their look nicely I think.

2003

2004 Minus the blue, I really liked these, and was thinking about using a pattern like this for my concept.

2005 A yellow alt

2008 They also had a yellow alt (ugly)

I decided to roll with that last one, and using some generic Nike shorts I have for inspiration, came about this concept.

I kept out a primarily yellow uniform, because I think yellow looks absolutely disgusting most of the time. I went with SOD, since I'm using Nike and SOD has really grown on me. So a pretty plain jersey with some shoulder stripes, the wordmark, and the primary logo on the collar. The shorts are where I went less plain, kind of rolling off of their 2008 idea like I said. Cy is on the shorts. Overall, a solid identity for the team.

So, there's my ISU rebrand! Tell me what you think.

I'm not sure what college I want to do next, so suggestions are welcome.

These look preety nice, I am going to suggest Duke for your next thier my favorite Basketball team, and I would like to see new logos and stuff like this for their football and basketball, just a suggestion though, Very Nice Work! Great Job!!!

[HarperK]

Football jerseys looks great, just not so sure about the number font... a bit generic feeling.

Basketball jerseys i also like, the only thing id pick out is the white outline on the red shorts, stands out too much imo

Overall fanastic presentation and quality work

[The NSL]

Savannah State, for real. I'm asking you if you can redo Savannah State.....

[scottysprings]

Great job putting all this together, but I'm gonna be tough on you anyway.

First off the logos: I do like the double outline theme but I don't like a few things. First off, I'd suggest thickening up the "ISU" block lettering in the secondary mark. It's too little primary lettering and too much offset path. I also think you should increase the letter spacing in the ISU mark. Onto the main mark.. My two major critiques have to do with the "STATE" banner. First of is what I think is one of the biggest flaws in the whole package: the Arial Black. You must've known you were gonna get a little flack for that one. Try using a block font there as well, I just don't like the mix of block with the standard sans throughout the package; I mean maybe it's just the Arial bias but I don't think Helvetica would look any better, let alone any of similar font. Second, I thing you should raise the banner up on the "I" so the whole banner and drop shadow group is centered on the "I" rather than just the banner it self. I'm not sure I'm correct on this one, we're gonna need a professional to confirm or refute.

Next onto the wordmarks, numbers, and lettering: I love the numbers and letters but once again the Arial Black just drops the ball. Even though it wouldn't be my first choice, even the font you used for the lettering (futura condensed?) would be a lot less generic and boring than Arial. Once again I suggest going back to the block font here. You really don't need that deep red block background thingy either.

As for the uniforms, I really like both designs. Two small mistakes I see are the use of the Arial on the red jersey rather than the number font you had previously displayed, and on the hoops unis, you left the Adidas NBA tag in the white jersey.

Overall great work here, keep it up, I really look forward to seeing more redesigns

[chestnutz]

Thanks for your critiques scotty. Gah, I knew I messed up the numbers on the football unis, stupid stupid. And right when I posted the bball unis I realized I left the adidas tag on. Just shows how much of an amatuer I am haha.

I knew I was going to get blasted for the arial. I just felt a mix of serif and sans serif could work, and I guess I just couldn't make up my mind. Some things I'll definitely keep an eye out for on my next redesign.

Besides Savannah, does anyone have any schools they'd like to see done? I'd rather do a bigger school.

[bigmike]

Thanks for your critiques scotty. Gah, I knew I messed up the numbers on the football unis, stupid stupid. And right when I posted the bball unis I realized I left the adidas tag on. Just shows how much of an amatuer I am haha.

I knew I was going to get blasted for the arial. I just felt a mix of serif and sans serif could work, and I guess I just couldn't make up my mind. Some things I'll definitely keep an eye out for on my next redesign.

Besides Savannah, does anyone have any schools they'd like to see done? I'd rather do a bigger school.

Duke!Duke!Duke!

[scottysprings]

Thanks for your critiques scotty. Gah, I knew I messed up the numbers on the football unis, stupid stupid. And right when I posted the bball unis I realized I left the adidas tag on. Just shows how much of an amatuer I am haha.

I knew I was going to get blasted for the arial. I just felt a mix of serif and sans serif could work, and I guess I just couldn't make up my mind. Some things I'll definitely keep an eye out for on my next redesign.

Besides Savannah, does anyone have any schools they'd like to see done? I'd rather do a bigger school.

I agree you could pull off the serif-sans combo but Arial is certainly not the way to go. As for ideas, I'd say Rutgers, Stony Brook, or Saint Johns.

[eRay]

Hmmmmmm. This is interesting. The whole look is too generic for my tastes, plus the whole sans serif & serif thing with the fonts. The colors are nice, and I think you spread them out very well on the unis. I like the football looks very much, except the monochrome Red because the White helmet looks a little bit out of place. The numbers and shoulder stripes almost make it work though. Every other look is great. The basketball unis could look great with a new simple varsity block for lettering and numbers. On the whole I would stop trying to force the whole double outline thing. Just make everything look good, that will be enough to tie it all together. Imagine those basketball uniforms with simple one color block lettering, like a lot of the SOD unis. It would be great. Oh, and I would move the shorts logos to behind the shorts swoops. They are too crowded on the front and there is actually room out back for them. Well, not the back, but the side/back. Kind of like the GS Warriors I guess. Altogether the whole project is decent, and one or two changes could go a long way to fixing every problem. All the font choices is where I would start. Nice work, and I appreciate the presentation.

As for the next school.....I would say Austin Peay would play right into your hand design-wise.

[tBBP]

My turn. You knew it was coming...

...first things first--ehh...scratch that. Let me back this up and go us Army AAR-style on you (AAR = After Action Review.), in which I give (at least) three sustains, three improvements, and three recommendations.

SUSTAINS

- EXCELLENT IDEA to utilize the two-tone red (maroon and crimson). I knew at some point some team HAD to try this, what with all the two-tone blue out there in the world of sports aesthetics. You win two stars for that alone. I think that the two-tone red + asthletic gold really fits Iowa State well.

- Good on you for expanding out your presentation. (Following someone's lead, perhaps? Nah--just kidding.) It's good to see just how in-depth you were willing to go with this, or how deep anyone goes eith any rebranding concept. That you also reached into the basketball world is a plus. (Not even I have gone that route yet, for some dumb reason.)

- On the football uniforms, I'm loving the striping arrangements. They are all quite cohesive--that is to say, they all work together quite well. It lends a "classic" look to the overall set, which is a plus in my book.

IMPROVEMENTS

- I'm not really the biggest fan of any of the new primary "I-State" monograms. (But then...I ain't even a fan of the fact that Iowa State decided to tag itself as "I-State".) Mainly because the banner is a little too small in relation to the block letter "I" it surrounds. Adjust that, perhaps, and you might be on to something. While I'm on that topic, I don't mind the main wordmark logo, either--I don't even mind the font choice all that much. But I think it'd be better served with a gold outline around the whole thing. As is, it looks a bit unfinished. Reference your "I-State" logos for a better idea of what I'm talking about.

- Throw some stripes on the white football socks. Might help the white-socked sets jump out a little better, especially the white-over-red set.

- On your basketball set, not sure if you were going for the SOD look or not, but if so, two minor nitpicks. One...the Nike logo is usually about mid-calf on the basketball shorts, and something about NCAA basketball uniforms rules prohibit manufacturer logos on the jerseys. Don't know if you knew that or not, just bringing it to your attention. And two...to "complete" the SOD look, you might consider extending the border trim of the shorts panels on up the backs of the jerseys. Oh..and the "Cy" logo on the shorts sorta looks like a "tack-on" where it's currently located. Might try moving that above the nameplates on the back of the jerseys (especially since you did so for the football jerseys.

RECOMMENDATIONS

- As I've said, I really don't mind the choice of font used for this rebrand. But if possible, I'd keep it to one main one. I'm seeing two--one appears to be either Arial or Helvetica--can't really tell--the other looks to be Hattenschweiller, or however that's spelled. Of the two, I'd go with the modified Hattenschweiller, since it has a bit more character (read: less plain-Jane). However, as one poster noted, it's worth testing to see how a blockier typeface might work with this entire set here. May work for you, may not.

- As far as your display window is concerned...what I've started doing is darkening the background (among other things) to help anything white jump out more and appear as such. You might try shading the background with something like a 5% gray or something like that. Just a thought.

- This is just for your own sake...try to come up with some type of watermark design. We've already seen instances of people right-click-stealing work up off these boards (or anywhere else they might appear) and claiming it as their own. Again...just a thought.

CONCLUSION

I'm mighty impressed with the depth of thought you put into this here. And from the looks of things, I doesn't appear you used a vector program for this. If that's the case, then thank you for proving that nice, clean designs CAN BE DONE IN RASTER. (Let that serve as motivation for those who might believe otherwise). Just takes time and effort, as you've done here. Keep up the good work, bro.

(One side note: if you do decide to try your hand at Savannah State, it'll be interesting to see what you come up with, being that Savannah State is also on my HBCU Project radar...but hey, the more the better, right? )

[chestnutz]

Thank you very much eRay and brandon. I've been trying for ages to get some of the big designers of the board to critique some of my concepts, and I've finally done it hahaha.

Brandon, the fonts I used are the following: arial for wordmark, tw condensed bold for the nameplates, and Y2K analog legacy for numbers. I always hear how important typeface is in design, and considering I've taught myself everything I know, I don't know much about fonts

I did get the idea to go in depth from you though. I found people really enjoyed when the conceptier or whatever you want to call it gave some more details about the program and such, so I decided to do that as well. Originally I was also going to do baseball too, I probably will for my next concept.

And I do use vector, is that a diss to say it looks like I don't? hahaha.

I never thought my work was good enough to watermark anyways

Thank you all, hopefully I'll be able to do some updates!

[chestnutz]

UPDATES

LOGOS

I made the banner a bit bigger and moved it up. Also, got rid of all non-serifs in everything, replacing it with a normal block font. ISU logo the letters are a bit more spaced out.

WORDMARKS

Again, changed the font.

NUMBERS

I just couldn't find it in me to change these, for some reason I really like how they look.

FOOTBALL

Took brandon's suggestion and added stripes to the socks.

BASKETBALL

Moved Nike logo placement on jersey and shorts, moved Cy above nameplate.

Oh and Brandon, now you know the reason I asked for your action templates. If you're still giving them out, I'd love to use them for my next team.

[Spearhead]

Yes to the logos and wordmark.

No to the football togs.

[Coheed]

I really like what you have done. I've always liked Iowa State's uniforms, and I love the way yellow/gold and red go together. As for ideas for another school, my vote is Mizzou .