My (Personal) Football League Redesign

[Panhead1]

#10 New York Lightning

Next Up: #11 Portland Huskies

This next concept turned out to be extremely frustrating to me as I've trying to fit this into my busy schedule. I've also had trouble developing an identitity for a team with such a long history for the same color scheme, green and gold, that in a way was very difficult to stick with. To modernize this, I went with 'midnight teal' and athletic gold with touches of silver and neon. I've ended up deciding to stick with what I have as far as the concept goes thus far. As for the team itself, I decided to go down a different path than others may associate with the word lightning this time around. I recently took tabs on the Greek god Zeus for this project, having some rough knowledge on the subject that he was the god of lightning. This sparked me, and is the reason for the menacing head of Zeus with a beige outline as the primary. I've had many tries at this logo and couldn't get it to the point where I felt I've perfected this, and the current one I feel met most of my standards. The secondary was going to be a Medusa head on the shield of Zeus (after researching the subject, I found out that Zeus' shield is the head of Medusa, correct me if I'm wrong.) After many goes at that logo as well, I felt as if the product wasn't presetable, so I decided to work more with it on the side. To take it's place is an 'NY' monogram with a bolt. The script follows the same font style, the word 'Lightning' on a dark teal backdrop. I may go back and add an updated version of the fist and bolt logo, it wasn't as strong as the other two, I feel. Again, the bolts were used on the uniforms more prominantly, specifically as pant, helmet and sleeve stripes

Home

Away

Alternate

All in all, I feel as if this might be one I wanna go back to when I have more time, but I decided to hear out all of your opinions before I start again. And before anyone says anything, YES I tried adding a bolt stripe to the helmet, but the fact of the matter is, it did not look right on the type of design. It would be very hard to render a symmetrical lightning bolt down the middle without making it look like a pine tree. It just looked awkward. Anyways, C&C if you will...

**UPDATED 7/12/10**

I'll be honest. Too many of your teams use blue.

[Panhead1]

#16 Charlotte Prowlers

Up Next: #17 Las Vegas Crows

With these last few concepts, I've tried to pay attention to detail and improve on the secondary logos, and this one is no different. As you may (or may not) know, I'm a HUGE Carolina fan, I was born there and grew up as a fan of the Carolina Panthers and UNC, so this concept may seem a little biased. The Charlotte Prowlers are a team modeled after the Panthers of the NFL, but I tried to create some individuality of some sort for this team. The colors are charcoal, Panther blue, and silver with touches of grayish-navy (that's as descriptive as I can be).The primary is a roaring black panther head outlined in cyan. I've had alot of trouble correcting the perspective of the mouth and cheeks, and this may not be a logo that's completely finished. The primary is a profile image of the secondary, a full-bodied roaring black panther. The tertiary is only used on the collar, as it's a simple C with three scratches(which is also used for the numbers). The script, made of a custom font, is of the same style: Charlotte Prowlers in silver with scratches. The uniforms are as follows:

Home

Away

Alternate

Let me know what you guys think. By the way, still taking any name suggestions for the teams with asterisks here. Thanks!

Love the Cyan alternate.

[Panchito]

The NY Lightning update is a great improvement! The helmet looks awesome and the uniforms are very unique, nothing like the Chargers now. Good job!

[CJworks]

Thanks for the comments. Again, I'm trying to knock out a team a day; still looking for any other opinions on New York.

#19.10 Cleveland Bandits Update

Up Next: #19.11 Washington Knights Update

I wasn't really pleased with how the first concept turned out, so I'm dropping all of the logos, and attempting to completely recreate the identity. First off, no more solid black; it's replaced by a darker charcoal color with hints of blue (which I felt contrasted well against the athletic gold). The gold is now more of a mustard color, and I've also added cardinal red for some accenting. The primary is much more detailed than before, and is now a streaking bandit with an athletic gold stetson cowboy hat and bandana. I wanted to try and incorperate the hat again somewhere, so the secondary is a two toned 'CB' monogram with an athletic gold stetson hat ontop of it. While I'm adding this cowboy feel to the package, I feel that I still need to consider where this team is located, Ohio, which isn't famously known for cowboys, so I took the state flag and gave it the team colors, with a red C for Cleveland in place of the red circle. This is used as the tertiary, which is not very prominant in the uniforms. I also steered away from the curly Bandits font I used before, and I replaced it with a western font; 'Bandits' in gold.

Now, I still have two other teams that are synonyms of a bandit (the San Jose Outlaws and San Antonio Desperados), so I'm also saving some other ideas for those two teams.

Home

Away

Alternate

Let's hear some thoughts on the new-look Bandits.

[DPV713]

The Bandits updated concept look amazing! I can give or take with the primary, but the secondary logo is godly. The new font realy looks good too, definately fits the "Bandits" theme.

[lenardo]

i like that you made it look alot less like the steelers, almost looks like cav's colors. anyway i like it

[mcrosby]

On the lightning wordmark-instead of using the wavy effect inside the letters maybe use something a bit more jagged.

[EJ_Barlik]

On the Bandits --- didn't we see this before? What changed? I mean - read the writeup, but it so looks to me like something we've seen before - just can't place my finger on where.....

[kbaker19]

I don't ever remember seeing this before, edge1....I think it's great, although I'm starting to see a pattern in your wordmarks. You really like the wavy two-tone effect. It's cool, but it's not necessary for every team.

[CJworks]

On the Bandits --- didn't we see this before? What changed? I mean - read the writeup, but it so looks to me like something we've seen before - just can't place my finger on where.....

I already edited the original post, so if you want to see the first concept, let me know.

[Panchito]

wow the improvements made on the updates have been fantastic so far, keep it up! i like how the bandits have 3 main colors (black, yellow, red)

[JH42XCC]

One word describes the newly-updated Cleveland Bandits concept... FANTASTIC!!! I totally dig the new secondary & script logos, which gives the team a Western-esque style (although they're a Great Lakes/Midwest team).

By the way, I'd suggest new names for the San Jose Outlaws and San Antonio Desperados (just to avoid confusion with the Cleveland Bandits). I would name the San Jose team the Seals (due to Seals and Sea Lions being a common marine animal in California -- especially in the San Francisco Bay Area), and the San Antonio team the Stallions.

Also, I think I have settled on Mastodons for the Detroit team. And for New York team #2, after thinking about it for a while, I think Admirals would be a good name.

[dgnmrwrw]

Interesting stuff here. I have to admit, I think the Lightning concept was stronger before. I do agree that you've done a good job pushing it further away from the Chargers look--that's a definite improvement--but I liked the original colors and logos better. I think the addition of beige, especially when paired with the gold, dulls things and doesn't really remind me of lightning. It's just too desaturated. The new NY logo is okay, but I loved the simplicity of the old one. Also, the new NY depth looks very forced, almost like you were determined to overlap the bolt even if it wasn't the best solution. The Zeus logo is a great render and logo. But I don't like all the long hair (it really shifts the balance), and I still feel like it's a weak primary for this team.

The Bandits update is pretty good. All the logos are well done, especially the secondary and tertiary ones. Colors and uniforms are solid.

I do also want to reiterate what someone else mentioned about these concepts (especially all the new updates) getting redundant. They were talking about the overuse of blue, which I must agree with. Counting backwards, the Bandits, Lightning, Talons, Sharks, Rhinos, Pirates, Dragons, Aztecs, Skyhawks, Grizzlies, and Mountaineers have all used some sort of blue prominently, many of them as the primary color. Add to that the Knights, Wildcats, and Prowlers, and that's a lot of blue. Granted, some have used it less than others, and some of the blues have been pushed toward the gray or black ends of the spectrum, but that's still eleven straight concepts and 14 out of 19 so far with prominent blue. It would be great to see you force yourself to use more variety. What about more green or purple or orange or brown as primary colors?

It also seems like you're falling into a bit of a rut with the wordmarks: the last five consecutive ones have been pretty formulaic with their use of the two-toned team name. You could do some custom scripts, or play with skewing, warping, or 3D effects. That one doesn't bother me as much as the overuse of blue, but it is something to keep an eye on as you progress.

The last thing I've been noticing a trend toward is overuse of shading (and thus color) in logos. For instance, look at the Bandits primary logo. By my count, every single color (except the white in the eyes and the beige outline) has its own lighter or darker version. All told, that gives you blue, blue-gray, gold, soft gold, red, light red, brown, dark brown, white, and beige as colors. That's ten colors in one logo! Besides the logistical problems with recreating ten colors in all production, I don't think you need it. Granted, it makes for a pretty illustration and gives nice depth, but (at least in my opinion) all colors you don't absolutely need should be eliminated. Everything else being equal, economy of colors tends to make for a stronger logo.

[CJworks]

I can see where you're coming from, and your critiques are very well put, and I can understand that. I really wanted to go with the same uniform design as the older Lightning concept, so I was aiming for a vertical based logo to go on the shoulder, so it adds some sort of movement when looked at from the side. I actualy felt that the other Zeus logo didn't have long enough hair, as Zeus does have exceptionally long locks.I wanted to create the logo as if Zeus was 'coming in for the attack'. The NY logo, I admit, was where I had the most trouble. I tried to keep the same 'effect' as the previous, but I stumbled a bit as I tried to use the newer font that I used in the wordmark. I'll take any suggestions for that one.

The Bandits is where I probably got out of hand with the colors. I wanted to add depth but at the same time make the logo look effective. I could probably tone down the colors to about 5 or 6.

I have been in some sort of a 'streak' with the dark navy, just because I felt it looked nice as a base color. I have about three or four updates left that use blue, out of the six I have left, so I'll be steering away from that towards the end. I'm trying to stick with the same colors as before, maybe tweak them a bit, but for the most part I'm sticking with them.

As for the wordmarks, yea I got into a two-toned frenzy, but the only one I've got left in my arsenal is for the Knights, who've had it before.

I really value the input, I'll take this into consideration. I have ideas in mind for what I want the new updates, I just take time during the day to get some sketches done, and take it to Inkscape to try and touch it up. Knights should be posted later today.

[kbaker19]

I just thought of a potential name for the Milwaukee team. The Clippers. The Milwaukee Clipper was a ship that transported materials from Muskegon, Michigan to Milwaukee during the World War II era and is now a floating museum in Muskegon. I thought the name would be kinda cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Clipper

http://www.milwaukeeclipper.com/index.html

EDIT: nvm, I see you moved them to Racine. lol oh well.

[CJworks]

#19.11 Washington Knights Update

Up Next: #19.12 San Diego Wildcats Update

First off, new color scheme: charcoal, soft gold, and light royal blue. I used the blue sparingly in the logos, and the only real reason that blue is in this color scheme is because the first concept included the blue, and I felt that it looked pretty decent, but only needed a few tweaks. I went with a more 'knightly' theme here, including a shield/coat of arms, a sword and a knight. The primary is a golden knight with white highlights with royal blue feathers. The secondary features a two toned(yes, two toned. The only reason I really used it here was to mimic the armor) W for Washington with a knight sword behind it. The script is in the same style as the secondary, without the sword. The tertiary, used on the pants, features a coat of arms type logo: a shield featuring the flag of Maryland and a silhoette of the Capitol building in front of two crossing swords. The uniforms haven't really changed, except for a number font change.

Home

Away

Alternate

What do you think?

[DPV713]

The new set for Washington is amazing! The tertiary logo is amazing, as is the primary. The new uniforms are great too. Can't wait to see the San Diego update.

[skier14]

That update is great. Great work!

[fkaKrock5cent]

The re-done Washington set looks awesome, but there's one thing that's off. In the tertiary you used the Maryland state flag. Why not use Washington's flag? Is the team playing their games in Maryland (Like the Redskins)?

[CJworks]

The re-done Washington set looks awesome, but there's one thing that's off. In the tertiary you used the Maryland state flag. Why not use Washington's flag? Is the team playing their games in Maryland (Like the Redskins)?

Yes, they do play in Washington D.C., Maryland.