Forest City Falcons logo & uniform set

[DelayedPenalty]

I posted these on the NHA board, but I figured most people don't venture down that way unless they're a part of the league, so I figured I'd post it up here and see what people thought.

My team is called the Forest City Falcons and they are based out of London, Ontario. Since about 1998 there has been nesting pairs of peregrine falcons in downtown London, affectionately known as George, Calypso, Orville, Hazel, and others. I thought it was a good representative for the city, an aggressive predator, always vigilant and ready to strike!

Here is the primary logo:

And the home and road uniforms, as well as a wordmark and crest:

Secondary logo and alternate jersey to come later (?)

C&C is always welcome!

[undead]

Everything about this is awesome! Great wordmark, and interesting color combination. You don't need the gradient on the bird though.

Overall solid identity and well executed.

[CAB]

Fantastic logo! I normally don't like gradients, but here it is very subtle and works really well. The jerseys look good too, and I love the color scheme. Nice concept here.

[9erssteve]

I agree with Undead on the gradients, I'd lose those for the simple reason that they would be a nightmare if not almost impossible to replicate on an embroidered patch which I'm assuming is how it would be produced on the front of the jersey? (sorry not to up on hockey jersey production methods).

I also agree with Undead on the overall presentation, it's well laid out, I like the jersey design, like the colours as well, never thought I'd say that about a brown sports uni (sorry Cleveland fans).

But with all that i think the Falcon head could do with some variation in line weight. Even if it was just on the black out line, pick a direction for your light source and make the line thiner there and thicker at the opposite side. It doesn't have to be a huge difference but it will make all the difference to the logo, right now it seems pretty static and i think even this small change could add some movement and action to the logo.

Sorry but IMO the word mark is terrible. I was taught calligraphy at college, yeah i know what you're thinking, whats that got to do with anything?, well the answer is again line weights. It looks as though you've tried to create something that has a hand written script feel to it, but the line weights (the thick to thins you get in scripts or pen written fonts) are all over the place. There's no consistency throughout the characters, heights all vary and the angle of characters differ, you need to go and look at other typefaces and see how they flow, as it is now yours has no flow. I like the idea but the execution needs alot of work if you want it to succeed. Right now it's dragging down what is otherwise a very competent and well executed piece of design and that's a real shame.

9erssteve

[DelayedPenalty]

Sorry but IMO the word mark is terrible. I was taught calligraphy at college, yeah i know what you're thinking, whats that got to do with anything?, well the answer is again line weights. It looks as though you've tried to create something that has a hand written script feel to it, but the line weights (the thick to thins you get in scripts or pen written fonts) are all over the place. There's no consistency throughout the characters, heights all vary and the angle of characters differ, you need to go and look at other typefaces and see how they flow, as it is now yours has no flow. I like the idea but the execution needs alot of work if you want it to succeed. Right now it's dragging down what is otherwise a very competent and well executed piece of design and that's a real shame.

9erssteve

The wordmark is my least favorite piece of this concept, for the reasons you stated. I wasn't so much going for a handwritten feel, but a jagged, aggressive, talon-like font. When typed out normally there are odd gaps because of the tails on the letters, so I tried to tighten them up, which meant some of them overlapped, so I tried varying the height and baseline of some of them. Obviously it hasn't worked quite the way I had hoped. So far I haven't had much luck capturing the feel I was looking for with any other fonts. I might resort to hand drawing one if I can find the time.

Thanks for your comments guys, very helpful so far! Glad everyone likes the brown!

[9erssteve]

Sorry but IMO the word mark is terrible. I was taught calligraphy at college, yeah i know what you're thinking, whats that got to do with anything?, well the answer is again line weights. It looks as though you've tried to create something that has a hand written script feel to it, but the line weights (the thick to thins you get in scripts or pen written fonts) are all over the place. There's no consistency throughout the characters, heights all vary and the angle of characters differ, you need to go and look at other typefaces and see how they flow, as it is now yours has no flow. I like the idea but the execution needs alot of work if you want it to succeed. Right now it's dragging down what is otherwise a very competent and well executed piece of design and that's a real shame.

9erssteve

The wordmark is my least favorite piece of this concept, for the reasons you stated. I wasn't so much going for a handwritten feel, but a jagged, aggressive, talon-like font. When typed out normally there are odd gaps because of the tails on the letters, so I tried to tighten them up, which meant some of them overlapped, so I tried varying the height and baseline of some of them. Obviously it hasn't worked quite the way I had hoped. So far I haven't had much luck capturing the feel I was looking for with any other fonts. I might resort to hand drawing one if I can find the time.

Thanks for your comments guys, very helpful so far! Glad everyone likes the brown!

So rather than tightening the kerning, why not open it out further? It would solve the overlapping, so you could keep the baseline consistent, which might help resolve the issue with certain letters looking like they are at different angles to one another. Once you've done that you could then create a shape based on an off set path or enlarged shape of the whole word mark that the individual letters could sit on, that way creating a unified word mark while avoiding overlapping serifs. It would also allow you to easily introduce the full colour scheme into the word mark as well.

It might work it might not, if truth be told i'm not a big fan of the font itself, but the above suggestion may be one way to solve the overlap issue if you are keen to stick with that font.

9erssteve

[Chief.]

Choose a solid green for the beak instead of a gradient. Where you have the black on the bottom beak, replace it with bold, black shading. That will add some contrast without a gradient. And I would just lose the other gradients all together.

Very solid work here, man.

[DelayedPenalty]

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm going to give all the suggestions a shot tomorrow, since I did all this while at work! Shhhh, don't tell my boss!

[Ted Cunningham]

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm going to give all the suggestions a shot tomorrow, since I did all this while at work! Shhhh, don't tell my boss!

I'm excited to see the update to the wordmark, as that was one of two weak points I can think of in this package. The other has to do with the falcon's head itself. The bottom half of the bill seems far too small for a falcon's and it gives the bird an 'overbite.' Falcons have very round bills and most have a sort of 'tooth' in the top half:

Another thing you can do is make the bird look less eagle- or hawk-like. Right now, the head looks more like an eagle to me than anything. Two things: first, most falcons' eyes are more round on both top and bottom, where yours has a bit more 'brow' over it (like an eagle's eye). Second, the majority of falcons have a 'tear stain' on their faces. (I think that's actually one of the coolest things about a falcon's plumage, and one of their most distinguishing features.)

The above is a fairly gaudy example of this type of coloration, but most falcons have a distinctive trail of dark color coming down from the eye. (Some falcons like the Peregrine have more of a blob under the eye instead of a streak, but it's still the same idea.)

I realize all this is super nit-picky, but I've always found birds to be interesting and thought I'd pass along that information. I realize also that as a sports logo, it doesn't need to be terribly biologically accurate. (Look at the two incarnations of the Atlanta Falcons' logo for instance.) But, making those two tweaks (the notch in the bill and the eye and tear stain) would make this bird easily identifiable as a falcon.

[DelayedPenalty]

Here are a couple of the photos I used for reference when I drew the logo.

I too am a bird lover, raptors in particular, and the peregrine is my absolute favorite. The peregrine doesn't have the dominant tear stain like most other falcons do, but have sort of a mask effect that wraps the top of the head, down to the neck or throat area. They do however typically have a light ring around the eye, which I didn't include.

The brow is more for effect on the logo, giving it a more aggressive expression, rather than a bulgy eyed look like I was getting before I put in the brow.

Looking at the beak, it is an issue, and I'll work on that. Though the first picture does seem to show more of an "overbite" than the other images.

[DelayedPenalty]

Okay, I've been playing around with the logo this morning, trying to take all the critiques into consideration.

I fixed the beak, making the bottom part a little larger, and getting rid of some of the overbite by making the top smaller. I eliminated the gradients, added the tearstain around the eye, and tried playing with a little bit of variation of line widths. I also adjust the shade of brown to make it a little closer to an actual peregrine.

Personally I'm kind of neutral on the changes, I don't feel it made it better or worse than when I started, just a little more accurate. C&C always appreciated!

Original/Update:

[DelayedPenalty]

Giving this a little bumpty bump to show off the tweaks to the logo.

[dgnmrwrw]

I like the changes. Very subtle, yet I think the difference in the beak makes for a much better logo.

[9erssteve]

Love the changes to the beak, and personally i think the varied line weight at the bottom really helps lift the design, i know i suggested it so you might think i'm biased but i do feel it was worth doing.

I'll be honest although the tear stain is more factually accurate i think i prefer the eye on the first one as the yellow stands out more against the main colour of the head.

I also like the fact that the gradients have been removed. All in all some solid adjustments if you ask me and it's really coming along. ANy joy with the updates to the logotype yet? I know you said you were going to take a look at that and i'd be interested to see the progress.

9erssteve

[afarough]

I prefer the original colours, those are probably my favourite combination, they just look so nice and classy to me.

[DelayedPenalty]

Love the changes to the beak, and personally i think the varied line weight at the bottom really helps lift the design, i know i suggested it so you might think i'm biased but i do feel it was worth doing.

I'll be honest although the tear stain is more factually accurate i think i prefer the eye on the first one as the yellow stands out more against the main colour of the head.

I also like the fact that the gradients have been removed. All in all some solid adjustments if you ask me and it's really coming along. ANy joy with the updates to the logotype yet? I know you said you were going to take a look at that and i'd be interested to see the progress.

9erssteve

The wordmark is a thorn in my side right now. I can't seem to get it to look right with your suggestions. I'm going to try the same font, but lowercase, as well as a few other fonts. I'm thinking more of a "classic" font, since the rest of the concept is rather traditional.

[DelayedPenalty]

Updates! I've finally gotten this concept to where I wanted it to be. My changes to the logo have come out great IMO, and I'm finally happy with the wordmark.

Logo evolution:

>> >>

From the last draft I just deleted the tear stain around the eye to make the yellow pop more. The brown is darker than the original and I adjusted the uniforms to match the brown.

The wordmark is a brand new one. I wanted a "jagged" font to show the aggression of the bird, but my first attempt wasn't cutting it. Since the rest of the concept is more traditional, I decided to find a font that was a mix of the two. A fairly simple block font with sharp serifs did the trick. I'm finally happy with it! I adjusted the inaugural season patch to match the wordmark, but adjusted the kerning. I think it looks just as good tight, or widely spaced.

Home ice: Autodata Solutions Center

[9erssteve]

Updates! I've finally gotten this concept to where I wanted it to be. My changes to the logo have come out great IMO, and I'm finally happy with the wordmark.

Logo evolution:

>> >>

From the last draft I just deleted the tear stain around the eye to make the yellow pop more. The brown is darker than the original and I adjusted the uniforms to match the brown.

The wordmark is a brand new one. I wanted a "jagged" font to show the aggression of the bird, but my first attempt wasn't cutting it. Since the rest of the concept is more traditional, I decided to find a font that was a mix of the two. A fairly simple block font with sharp serifs did the trick. I'm finally happy with it! I adjusted the inaugural season patch to match the wordmark, but adjusted the kerning. I think it looks just as good tight, or widely spaced.

Home ice: Autodata Solutions Center

I have to say I really like this one, I think the changes you've made to the logo have been subtle but really helped improve it. The wordmark is a million times better than the first, it's simple but far far more effective. Personally I'd probably look at thinning down the diagonal in the N it just seems to heavy compared with the other letters but still imo an immense improvement on the first one, so well done.

What can I say about the uni's other than this guy right here who knows very little about Hockey would willingly part with cash for the away one! I love it, it just works really well and I'd be happy to wear one and I cant think of any better compliment than that.

Great job, this is one to be proud of i think, and I'll keep an eager eye out for your future stuff.

9erssteve