*UPDATED* New Orleans Ramblers SC Concept

[GeauxColonels]

UPDATED logo and uniform concept can be found HERE

SECOND UPDATED uniform concept can be found HERE.

THIRD UPDATED uniform concept can be found HERE.

This is a soccer concept for a team based in New Orleans. My hope is to use this concept one day in a fantasy league (possibly one on here if I'm fortunate enough to get accepted). I decided to start working on a badge for my concept and decided that a big part of any design will be a crescent shape to pay homage to one of New Orleans' nicknames - The Crescent City. At the start, my hope was to stay away from using a fleur de lis as much as possible since that seems to be what every one, both real and fictional, is doing. Using a traditional Mardi Gras color scheme of Purple, Gold & Green I also attempted to draw up a crown like is seen on the Mardi Gras flag.

However, I just couldn't get one to look like I wanted so I abandoned the crown and went just with a "nola sc" wordmark. I came up with the "Ramblers" moniker as sort of a New Orleans twist on the traditional "Wanderers" and "Rovers" names found in English & Scottish leagues. A "Rabmler" can be defined as "a person who rambles, esp one who takes country walks" which works into the Mardi Gras theme as there are numerous walking "krewes" that ramble through the streets of New Orleans during the carnival season. Below are the initial three designs I came up with:

I wasn't quite happy with the initial three logos and decided that a fleur de lis would work better in the concept since it is so integral to the identity of New Orleans and has been for hundreds of years. So I took a design cue from the flag of the City of New Orleans:

So, using the flag as inspiration, I went ahead and replaced the "nola sc" text with the tri-fleur design;

Finally, I still wasn't completely satisfied and had other ideas going through my head. One thing that I decided to play around with was the crescent shape. I knew that the New Orleans Police Department's crest prominently features a crescent. So I looked it up on Google and had an idea for another set of possible logos:

I took the crescent in the logo and turned it downward like the NOPD crest and came up with a banner at the bottom for the club name. Up until this point, I had left white out of the logos (the green crescent logos do not feature white, but just blank space that would be the color of the medium onto which the logo would be applied). I took a stab at adding some white into the logo to break out the colors a little since they can be a little too much at times. Finally, I attempted to make the logo more reflective of my overall color-scheme thoughts that the prominent colors for the club will be Green & Gold with Purple used more as an accent:

So, I'm at the point now where I would like some feedback, comments, suggestions, critiques. Really, anything that you all might have done differently or don't think works, I'd like to know. Let me know which crest idea works best, and I'll try to focus on that to perfect it. Then I'll move on to kit designs. Thanks.

[Raymie]

Great idea. The third concept has a misspelling in every way. I think the gold makes the scheme too bright ? personally, I'd take creative license and go Northwestern purple-metallic gold-green.

[GeauxColonels]

Great idea. The third concept has a misspelling in every way.

Wow...can't believe I missed that! I'll get it fixed right away.

[GeauxColonels]

Thanks again to Raymie for the color suggestion and pointing out the spelling error. I may look into toning down the shades of purple and yellow just a little...but I just can't bring myself to move away from "athletic gold" to more of a "vegas gold" color. To me that just kills the connection to the Mardi Gras theme. Any other suggestions?

Raymie, did one design or set of designs jump out as being better than the others?

[Raymie]

Not really. I understand the inspiration, but in sports I think it needs to be more muted and classier.

[mcrosby]

Have you thought of something like "Crescent City FC" or "Crescent City Ramblers" for the team name? I would also like to see the banner more included in the logo. it looks like an 'addition to' instead of 'part of' the logo.

[GeauxColonels]

Not really. I understand the inspiration, but in sports I think it needs to be more muted and classier.

Not sure what you mean here. LSU, Green Bay, Steelers, Iowa and many others make use of athletic gold with a great deal of class. But I will look at darkening the green and purple just a bit.

[GeauxColonels]

Have you thought of something like "Crescent City FC" or "Crescent City Ramblers" for the team name? I would also like to see the banner more included in the logo. it looks like an 'addition to' instead of 'part of' the logo.

If you look at the first set of logos, I have one with "Crescent City Ramblers" in the roundel. I don't care for using "FC" in the US since we all call the sport "soccer". But I'll make a couple of logos with "New Orleans Ramblers SC" as well as some with "Crescent City Ramblers SC." The biggest thing that's a deterrent to using the "Crescent City" name would be that not everyone knows that New Orleans is called the "Crescent City."

[hjwii]

I'm going with the crescent and FDL, with Ramblers under it... Not a big fan of the colors, but then I hate LSU and am way over Mardi Gras. That being said, purple, gold and green are associated with NOLA, so so be it...

Now, when do we see a jersey? And I can;t wait to see if you chose a sponser. Too bad LA Seafood Industry is all sewn up

[mcrosby]

I got bored last night and took my own stab at this concept. I won't post it unless you would like me to GeauxColonels.

[GeauxColonels]

I'm going with the crescent and FDL, with Ramblers under it... Not a big fan of the colors, but then I hate LSU and am way over Mardi Gras. That being said, purple, gold and green are associated with NOLA, so so be it...

Now, when do we see a jersey? And I can;t wait to see if you chose a sponser. Too bad LA Seafood Industry is all sewn up

I'm not sure I want to respond to you if you hate LSU and Mardi Gras! Just Kidding.

I'll work on kits once I finalize a logo. I have ideas for home and third kits right now...just not sure yet what I want to do for an away kit yet. I have a few ideas for a sponsor. Did the Seafood Industry lock up the arena rights?

[GeauxColonels]

I've gone in a darkened the colors just a bit to tone it down but keep the integrity of the Mardi Gras theme. The original color scheme is on the left with the updated colors on the right.

[GeauxColonels]

Any other comments on this? What about the slight darkening in colors?

I plan on sitting down this weekend to try a few changes/tweaks.

[henburg]

I really like this, I always feel like New Orleans gets left out of MLS expansion talk. I do think that you need all of the letters to be uppercase, the lowercase just doesn't appeal to me, and it just some minor league.

[GeauxColonels]

I really like this, I always feel like New Orleans gets left out of MLS expansion talk. I do think that you need all of the letters to be uppercase, the lowercase just doesn't appeal to me, and it just some minor league.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll look at going full uppercase to see what I think. I was looking at possibly using a san-serif font for "New Orleans" while leaving "Ramblers SC" in that New Orleans-style font...but I couldn't find anything that I though paired well with it. But I'm not very good at pairing fonts...I'll be the first to admit that.

As far as New Orleans with MLS, I really doubt the area could support an MLS club at this point in time.

[GeauxColonels]

So I decided that the roundel worked the best for this concept. I made a couple of slight tweaks after the minor change to the color hues. Then I put together a logo package showing the logo in 3 single-color looks (purple, green, gold) as well as 2 in black and white. I also came up with three uniforms for the team. The third uniform takes complete inspiration from the city flag. I've recolored the logo in the city flag colors and mocked up the alt kit to match. I'm calling the modified color logo and alt kit the "Crescent City Classics."

C&C please. Thanks.

Also, the uniform template was one I downloaded a while back and had "Erik Chesonis" listed at the bottom as the creator of the template. So a big "thank you" goes out to him.

[GeauxColonels]

Bump for the day crew. I really would appreciate some feedback on the logo and uniforms, especially the number font. Not sure if going with a more traditional athletic number font wouldn't be a better option.

[mbannon92]

The unis look really good. The sash on the home does a great job of representing the Mardi Gras flag, and I love the split color on the road. Nice job with the third going with the NOLA flag colors.

I just have three complaints. First off, i like the numbers, but they don't really say "soccer" to me. Usually soccer numbers are pretty simple. I would think about changing them.

The last two are on the third set. I really don't like the black background on the logo. Maybe get rid of the background and make the logo blue. Also, I would make the numbers blue.

Lastly, I just noticed the socks. Nice subtle touches!

[GeauxColonels]

The unis look really good. The sash on the home does a great job of representing the Mardi Gras flag, and I love the split color on the road. Nice job with the third going with the NOLA flag colors.

I just have three complaints. First off, i like the numbers, but they don't really say "soccer" to me. Usually soccer numbers are pretty simple. I would think about changing them.

Thanks. I was thinking the same thing. I may look through the Nike catalogs and see if any fonts jump out at me to put in place of what's there now. Are the different colored numbers on the away uniform too much?

The last two are on the third set. I really don't like the black background on the logo. Maybe get rid of the background and make the logo blue. Also, I would make the numbers blue.

I don't either. I went with the black background because I've seen it done on several other uniforms. I'll look into going with a blue or black logo.

Lastly, I just noticed the socks. Nice subtle touches!

Thanks. I thought about keeping the home and away socks the same but I decided that the home socks didn't really pair well with the away kit.

[mbannon92]

The unis look really good. The sash on the home does a great job of representing the Mardi Gras flag, and I love the split color on the road. Nice job with the third going with the NOLA flag colors.

I just have three complaints. First off, i like the numbers, but they don't really say "soccer" to me. Usually soccer numbers are pretty simple. I would think about changing them.

Thanks. I was thinking the same thing. I may look through the Nike catalogs and see if any fonts jump out at me to put in place of what's there now. Are the different colored numbers on the away uniform too much?

No, I actually really like them. Although it wouldn't work for players with single numbers...