Big Sky Rebrand Proposal

[drdougfresh]

I attended NAU for my bachelor's degree, and I grew a bit fond of the (small, perennially underachieving) football program. During my time there, we were vastly overshadowed by Eastern Washington and Montana-- two of the conference's powerhouses (EWU just won the title-- yes, the guys with the red field).

News broke that the Big Sky was rebranding with the recent expansion and TV contracts, and SME was the firm they chose. I am a bit concerned, as SME came up with the Marlins' new look-- but they also handled the WCC well, and they're responsible for one of my favorite identities of all time, the Minnesota Wild. It could go either way, really.

Their current logo has always bothered me:

While I do enjoy the 'shooting star' aspect of the logo, the rest of it is very bland, especially for an area of the country with fairly distinctive topography. Another aesthetic issue that it creates is an ugly patch on uniforms:

With that in mind, I set out to create a new, fresh brand for the conference that would embody the culture, geography, and atmosphere of the (now 13) schools in the conference.

I posted it on Issuu, as it is a .PDF:

Link: Big Sky Rebrand Concept

I may expand this to the 13 football teams in the conference, as well. Lots of muddled and bland uniforms.

[SDX]

Really great concept, execution and presentation of your ideas. Very good work all round

[pianoknight]

I feel like I've seen this before. Did you post this a while back?

[walkerws]

I agree. The west coast is active and vibrant. You may want to do something like Arizona's mountain and it doesn't have to be a badge. Taking it out if the shield and adding a little more motion will let it pop. The font is OK but maybe a thinner width?

[Big A HG]

I think everything looks good, but your description of all the institutions being in mountainous, wooded terrain is a bit off when you are referring to, at least, the latest edition of North Dakota.

I am a UND alum and "wooded" and "mountainous" are about the furthest thing from reality in Grand Forks.

With that said, I love the concept and it looks and presents itself very sharply.

[Raymie]

A very nice rebrand, and what an upgrade it is.

[SiLeNt WaVe]

Being from MT, this looks like a ski resort logo instead of a athletic conference. Good but doesn't feel sporty to me.

[FUNKAFIED]

The rebrand and the presentation is phenomenal. I would love to see it be considered.

[NatsFan2004]

Wow, what an awesome concept. I really like it a lot, and I definitely think it'd be an upgrade over the current Big Sky logo. Only comment I would have is that there might be a tad too much color in the main logo, at least compared to other conference logos (ie, ACC, Pac-12, Big Ten, etc.).

[drdougfresh]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I'll respond to some o' it now:

As far as the ND issues-- I was primarily concerned about covering the majority of the conference area, and the topography of the region, which, is quite rocky. ND is actually the primary reason I added the "crop" marks on the ground below the mountain. I have family in SD, so I agree-- mountains and forests are not necessarily standard in that area.

pianoknight, never posted it here, but I have posted it in a couple other places. Maybe you saw it somewhere else?

As far as adding movement? Not planning on it. It's a athletics conference logo, not a team logo. I think the star adds a nice bit of motion without making it too over-the-top. Besides, most conferences have fairly static logos-- I wanted it to fit in but stand out, if that makes sense, and not be so text-based (especially in the interest of uniform aesthetics).

I agree, NatsFan- one color too many. The star was a necessary evil, and I wanted to keep the shield different from the scenery. Mountains had to be one color, water/sky another, and thus, 4 colors were used. I played around with this a lot, and I couldn't narrow it down to where I liked it-- so I kept it at 4. I did the knockouts and team-specific logos for this reason, though. The full-color would probably be used pretty sparingly.

[andrewharrington]

Inspiration Page. Vary some of the sizes of your photos, maybe make one of them really large, letting it breathe, all the way to the edge of the page. You've got this wide open, full page image on the front, and you seem really constrained on the inside. Far from inspiring.

Logo: A bit too complex. Try simplifying the elements until they're just shapes that allude to mountains and plains, then add in the things you absolutely need to communicate the ideas you want, if any. Thicker, stronger line weights will do this a solid. Maybe a simpler color palette as well, or at least one with a very clear hierarchy. More contrast? I would look into that more.

Presentation: On the page where you have labeled the primary logo, I find it redundant and cheesy to label the opposite page 'one-color primary logos.' That much is evident just by looking at it. You don't need to label the logos 'full color' and dark background' or 'light background.' Those are things you can assume and they don't add anything to your pages except clutter. The type you've used for your paragraphs is enormous, assuming this book is horizontal letter-sized or thereabouts.

[drdougfresh]

Solid C&C, Andy. I'll definitely play around with those suggestions/improvements. Thanks!

EDIT: The book is designed at half-letter size, so font should be about right, no?

[SiLeNt WaVe]

I came up with this one about a year and a half ago. Ended up making a different one for my buddy that owns bigskyfans.com which never got used either.