illwauk's National League

[illwauk]

Here's the Marlins roads with the other versions of the script. I wasn't planning on making any revisions until all the teams had been posted, but I figure since I already had these done, it couldn't hurt to post them.

Road v2 / Road v3

[illwauk]

Chicago Cubs

Home / Road / Alt

I figured that with so many Cubs fans helping me out with C&C, now would be a good time to post my ideas for the Northsiders.

From a design POV, the Cubs are a lot like Michigan football... the homes are an indisputable classic that has stood the test of time whereas the roads are constantly changing and usually contrasting. These particular roads are loosely based on the 1908 version with the current logos swapped in where appropriate. The biggest change with the alts is the C-Bear on the hat, but pretty self-explanatory besides that.

[IceCap]

I love that Rockies concept. I'm not sure if the pinstriped hats would work, but the purple ones are very nice. Purple, grey, and white can work as a colour scheme without black, and it's also nice to see a Rockies concept that didn't try to shoehorn a "R" into the cap logo. The C, as you proved, can work just fine on its own with the right font.

[drdougfresh]

I decided to lead off with the Diamondbacks because this was one of my favorite concepts to do as the American Southwest has a lot of elements that incorporate very easily into a baseball uniform. While I can understand why they abandoned their original color pallette, teal... or Arizona Turquoise if you prefer... is very appropriate for a team from this region, so I brought it back along with a lighter version of the original copper to use along with the current Sedona Red. I also gave a much needed update to the very dated A monogram.

The dbacks are a tough team to re-brand. I honestly am completely okay with how they have it now, because the city is already burdened by some other weak color palettes (Suns, Coyotes). I like what you did with the 'a', as well as bringing some of the old look back, but I don't like how the teal looks with the red. it's a bit too New Jersey Devils-sh for me. Great work, though!

[AnythingChicago]

Cubs: Road is a no, but alt is a yes. I absolutely hate everything about that road uniform: the ugly pinstripes, the lack of red, the pinstriped hat. Ew. But that alt makes up for a little bit of whatever you lost on the roads, which need to be completely rethought. For now, 6.5/10.

[illwauk]

That sucks that you don't like it since I was especially curious to hear what the actual fans of these teams think. I did do another version of the roads when I had a similar thought of not enough red, but I felt like I lost everything I thought made the 1908-inspired unis work in the process and wound up with change for the sake of change, which is why I ended up going with the first ones.

Road v2

When all is said and done, I may just end up linking to the mothership since it's pretty hard to improve upon what the Cubs use now. It's probably the best their roads have ever looked.

[fishheatcats]

Marlins is a sharp classic look. The teal is a winner in my book every time. I'm not sold on the execution of the Marlin/M but I like the idea and the art deco font. I think it would require a complete revamp of the marlin itself, as well as the primary logo, if you go the art deco route.

[The_Admiral]

Never been a fan of road pinstripes or the scavenging bear, so I can't sign off on this one. The best road script they ever had was the 1990 one, but no one could read it, so it doesn't work. The second-best was the 58-68 one, and I'd pair that with the same old blue outlined in red on the back, since HDTV has made white outlines unnecessary.

I do like the Cubs primary as a sleeve patch, as I feel that's a better choice than any of the various bear logos.

[illwauk]

fishheatcats: Thanks for the feedback! I agree with pretty much everything you've said, but unfortunately, executing most of those things the way you suggested is probably beyond my current artistic abilities. I would, however, be more than willing to do a collab with someone who can if you (or anyone else) is interested.

Also, based on the responses by the Cubs fan bloc, I'm back to the drawing board with my Cubs concept. I'll more than likely keep the alt though. But without further ado...

Los Angeles Dodgers

Home / Road / Home Alt / Road Alt / Alt Patch

San Francisco Giants

Home / Road / Home Alt / Road Alt / Alt Patch

I'm unveiling the Dodgers and Giants together because both are part of a special promotion I came up with to help me avoid having to design contemporary alts for teams that really don't need them. I remembered a NHL Heritage Classic concept that someone posted where the Flyers would wear special alternates that were stylized after the old Phily Quakers jerseys. With that, I came up with Pacific Coast League Heritage Nights. Essentially, these unis would be worn by teams in former PCL cities for at least two series (one home, one away) against each other former PCL city based team. The Giants alts are based on the San Francisco Seals and the Dodgers (or Los Angeles Dodgers of Hollywood, if you prefer ) alts are based on the old Hollywood Stars.

[Drakonius26]

Wow, I'm loving what you did with the Arizona, Colorado, and Miami concepts. Those are some of the best I've seen on the boards and the designs fit so well with the actual teams, so it just completes the look. As for the San Francisco concept, forgive me for asking, but why do the vest stripes not reach all the way down to the bottom of the actual jersey?

[Fox]

some of the other ones I wasn't crazy about, but the Cardinals and the Miami Marlins sets were awesome!

[illwauk]

As for the San Francisco concept, forgive me for asking, but why do the vest stripes not reach all the way down to the bottom of the actual jersey?

No problem. It's because they're based on what the San Francisco Seals actually wore in the 1930s.

[Drakonius26]

As for the San Francisco concept, forgive me for asking, but why do the vest stripes not reach all the way down to the bottom of the actual jersey?

No problem. It's because they're based on what the San Francisco Seals actually wore in the 1930s.

Yeah, I figured you didn't do that on purpose. I'm just not that familiar with baseball's retro jerseys, and more specifically, anything that's really before the late 1960's/early 1970's.

[illwauk]

Milwaukee Brewers

Home / Road / Home Alt / Road Alt

With all the talk about the Brewers in the Sports Logos folder, I figured this would be a good time to unveil my hometown club.

Unless you simply haven't been paying attention, you know that Brewers' old colors as well as the ball-in-glove logo are overwhelmingly preferred by the fans over the Crew's current look. For my 1/50th of a buck, the team never looked better than they did in the early 90s with the last iteration of the Ball-in-Glove era. However, I'm not a fan of bringing back old looks en masse, so my goal was to bring that look into the 21st century.

While I like how the current Brewers identity is similar to something that would be used by a beer company, there are no longer any major breweries headquartered in Milwaukee. Micros and brewpubs are what rule the modern Brew City beer scene, so I wanted to make the script more in line with something a craft brewery would use. It was only after recognizing that the 'k' in Milwaukee looked vaguely familiar that I realized I'd used the same font as Leinenkugel's does for their branding... cool, huh?

The Brewers have never had a truly strong M-monogram, so I brought back the traditional block M, but added some serifs to make it more baseball-y and less like something that Bo Schembechler would've worn. After liking how that turned out, I added serifs to the numbers to tie the whole look together. I also gave a slight update to the BiG. Overall, I can honestly say this is the best, most thorough Brewers concept I've ever done!

[mbannon92]

The Brewers look great! I love the scripts, and the serifed numbers look really good. My only suggestion would be to put Milwaukee on the blue jersey and make it the road alt, and then use a powder blue jersey for the home alt. I'm just not a fan of two grey jerseys with the only difference being the sleeve patch.

[ESTONES6]

Yeah those Brewers scripts are mint. Where did you get them?

[The_Admiral]

Oh, wow, those scripts are really cool. Excellent call to use the Leinie's font. Very clever.

[bigmike]

Man that script is beautiful, great job with the brewers!

[illwauk]

Thanks for the props, guys!

mbannon92: I added the powder blue set because I feel that its popularity amongst Brewers fans demands its inclusion even though I think the grey set looks better in this case. The idea here is that one or the other (likely the grey) could eventually be phased out as the other caught on. I did it like this because in hindsight, I think the Padres should have introduced a regular grey set when they debuted the sand roads and let it catch on with the players naturally. That probably would have prevented them from wearing the navy tops whenever possible which then necessitated the introduction of the most bland greys in MLB.

ESTONE6: My own noggin with an assist from a font called Saloonkeeper

However, I do like your idea and have decided to use it on another club that I've been struggling to come up with something for. I'll give you an assist when I post them

[illwauk]

After looking at some of these concepts on another computer, I'm realizing how different the colors look on my screen compared to how they must look on many of yours. In fact, my powder blue Brewers unis didn't look blue at all! So I took the liberty of changing the color on that one as well as tweaking the patches (Barrel Man is now on the primary and a modern M-Wisconsin is now on the alts). I'll likely go in and tweak the colors on the Arizona Diamondbacks as well after I finish the concepts I'm working on now.

Anyway, without further shenanigans, I present to you a pair of Central Division clubs.

Cincinnati Reds

Home / Road / Alt

Pittsburgh Pirates

Home / Road / Home Alt / Road Alt

The Reds are pretty straightforward. I removed all the black and attempted to create some of their classic looks while taking advantage of their gorgeous proprietary font including a slight tweak to their primary logo (used as a patch). I know some folks feel that using white outlines on road jerseys is unnecessary in the HDTV era, but I still like it as a stylistic choice for teams whose secondary color is actually white.

The Pirates look was adapted from a concept I was working on for the UWM baseball team which happens to use the same colors. In doing various concepts for my alma mater, I've gotten quite familiar with the ways black, athletic gold and white work together which is why the scripts and numbers have no outline on the road black jersey, but are double outlined on the gold home vest. I also added an appropriate alternate hat to go with the homes.