Continental Independent Baseball League: the Expansion

[cohenj21]

This is great. The logo you have is definitely working, much better than the plain old circle. This is a unique set that I'm really a fan of overall. Just a couple suggestions.

First, I like the striping motif you have going, the pattern is interesting and sort of colonial-looking, which is what I think you were going for. However, if you want to use it on the sleeves, particularly on the home jersey, I think you should incorporate more red into the pattern, as that seems to be the main color of the set in general, and the navy looks sort of out of place being used in such a small section of the jersey. So basically what I'm saying is to use the navy either more or less, decide whether you want it to be a big part of the set (which I think would look great).

Second thing is little. In the small semicircle at the bottom of the primary logo, I would use that same striping but arrange it to look like a baseball's stitching, with the star in between the stitches.

Great work once again.

[Greg_Fryman]

i think for the cap logos, you should go a little more out of the box. instead of making every cap logo a letter, try making it like a logo or something. other than that, great work!

The road uni is.

[Aussie Ry]

Just wanted to say I love your work and the idea of creating an entire range of teams for your own league is awesome!

I especially love the green bullfrogs uniforms / hat and I can't get enough of that font and the "B"!

Just a quick question, do you custom design all the fonts and wordmarks you use for each team or are they based on existing fonts and modified slightly?

I've always wondered how many peoples wordmarks / team name fonts are custom and how many are just variations of awesome looking fonts (that I can never seem to find!).

Anyway, I'll keep following the thread because I can't wait to see whats next!

Keep up the great work.

[jaha32]

I'm a little late to comment on the Bullfrogs but I like the script and the numbers have that "festive" feel which works great for a New Orleans team. My only nit-pick with the script would be in some places where the yellow outline touches the blue and creates small blue slivers and tension points, mainly that small sliver between the B and U, although I understand that it is almost impossible to avoid some tension points here.

I like Norfolk. It's clean and somewhat majestic. I like the angle. I didn't even see the bats right away. The Ottawa Senators could use something like the alternative logo. I would like the name more if it were Dominions with an S.

[dgnmrwrw]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm happy the set seemed to go over well, especially given my doubts about the primary logo.

i think for the cap logos, you should go a little more out of the box. instead of making every cap logo a letter, try making it like a logo or something. other than that, great work!

This is probably a valid point. So far, I've posted 15 teams. Of those, 8 are only letterforms; 3 are only images/logos; and 4 are a combination of type and imagery. In general, I like that balance, and I'm also partial to baseball caps that have letterforms, especially interesting monograms/ligatures (SF Giants, StL Cardinals, etc). But I'll keep an eye on it, and I do try to have some variation in the alternate caps.

This is great. The logo you have is definitely working, much better than the plain old circle. This is a unique set that I'm really a fan of overall. Just a couple suggestions.

First, I like the striping motif you have going, the pattern is interesting and sort of colonial-looking, which is what I think you were going for. However, if you want to use it on the sleeves, particularly on the home jersey, I think you should incorporate more red into the pattern, as that seems to be the main color of the set in general, and the navy looks sort of out of place being used in such a small section of the jersey. So basically what I'm saying is to use the navy either more or less, decide whether you want it to be a big part of the set (which I think would look great).

Second thing is little. In the small semicircle at the bottom of the primary logo, I would use that same striping but arrange it to look like a baseball's stitching, with the star in between the stitches.

Great work once again.

All good points. I definitely wanted to keep the red very dominant here, with the gold and blue secondary. However I think making the striping red instead of blue will really push the blue too far into the background. But I'll certainly give these suggestions a look.

Just a quick question, do you custom design all the fonts and wordmarks you use for each team or are they based on existing fonts and modified slightly?

I've always wondered how many peoples wordmarks / team name fonts are custom and how many are just variations of awesome looking fonts (that I can never seem to find!).

I've gone out of my way to do all of the fonts/type/scripts (except the generic nameplates) in this series from scratch: it's part of the reason that I wanted to do a baseball series. I'm pretty sure that everything I've done so far has been custom, but if anything isn't then I'll definitely make a note of it.

I'm gonna keep things rolling with the next team, especially since I'm running out of time in the year to get all the images I've already created with a "2012" on them (and I don't want to change and then re-export the files!).

[dgnmrwrw]

Oklahoma City Engineers

Oklahoma City, OK

Apparently, OKC has a history as a major railroad hub, so there ya go. The primary logo is straightforward: a speeding train, with metallic bevels in the type. The color palette is steel gray and dark blue, with touches of red. The cap logo is an OC monogram with the beveling (I tried about a dozen different arrangements of "OKC" and none of them worked to my liking). The alternate logo/sleeve patch is the speeding train. I had another idea, a baseball with railroad tracks as the stitches, but it felt a bit plain and was yet another circular/type logo. But if you guys think it sounds interesting, I can go back and finish it.

Clean uniforms; I tried to let this team's look be established by the unusual colors and the repetition of the metallic beveling. The road uniforms have a tint from the steel gray. The home alternate cap uses the train logo. A more detailed look at the wordmarks. (I didn't use the "Oklahoma City" mark on the road unis because it was just too long and would have to be very distorted or small to fit on the chest.)

[BKarchitect]

Love the color scheme especially the home alt with the seafoam top and red piping. The primary logo is great too, really has a nice motion to it. The one thing that was a little odd at first was the baseball's shape. I understand that the grill is set back from the beveled ring but it just made me pause a moment.

Also think some might say the "O" looks like a "D" a bit in the monogram.

But overall it's a gorgeous look!

[generalshepherd141]

Maybe on the hat you should do "OKC" instead of "OC"

It seems like there is a lot of red-blue involving schemes. Just saying. Otherwise, nice concept, especially the logo.

[randyc]

I agree with having OKC on the cap. Other than that this is great work, one of my favourite series I've ever seen on here, along with your Defunct NHL team re-do.

[jaha32]

I'm really liking the train. You did a beautiful job rendering a train. It has a just the right amount of metallic shine to it, not too much. The only thing that is throwing it off in my opinion is the baseball and front circle of the train. The whole train is not coming at a straight-on angle, but the ball is a perfect circle making it look like that baseball is coming straight at the viewer, while the rest of the train is not. Is anyone else thrown off by this, or just me? By making the baseball more of an up and down oval, it would fix this.

Also, you should try to make OKC work on the cap. When people hear OKC they instantly think of Oklahoma City. OC doesn't make people think Oklahoma City (I think Orange County) ... and like BKarchitect said, right now it looks like DC.

The alternative home uniform is cool. That shade of gray as a home top is. The socks are also nice and beveled numbers work well on this team.

[eriqjaffe]

The train is great, but the baseball/headlamp kind of feels like it's moving in the opposite direction. Maybe rotate the ball 45 degrees or so, so that the seams aren't quite so perpendicular?

[cohenj21]

Another nice overall concept here. My thoughts....

I love the train/Engineer brand, it's something unique but nice and simple and clean-cut. I also like the decision to use the OC mark on the road jersey, Oklahoma City is too much to fit on a jersey. I agree with a couple of the above suggestions.

jaha pointed out the fact that the baseball in the train is off-center, I don't know if that was your intention or not, but it looks sort of sunken and it might be better if you had it sort of bulge out from the opening in the train to make the logo more aggressive looking.

Also, I don't know whether you experimented with an "OKC" mark, but it is something that the Thunder have utilized well in their branding and it might work well on a road alternate.

Overall another solid concept with a clean, blue-collar brand and color scheme. Looking forward to whatever is next.

[dgnmrwrw]

Thanks for the comments... it's clear that I should go back and rework the monogram to be OKC instead of OC. (I think jaha's 'Orange County' comment made me finally see it that way.) So I've been working on some arrangements over the past few days in my free time, but I'm not quite there yet. I'm definitely going to finish it soon, but to keep things moving, I'm going to go ahead and post the next team.

[dgnmrwrw]

Omaha Thunderhead

Omaha, NE

This seemed like a region-appropriate nickname, so I hope it works. The color palette is purple, yellow, and gray. The cap logo is an O with a T/Lightning bolt striking through the negative space. The alternate logo/sleeve patch is the just thunderhead with lightning.

Very simple, clean uniforms here. The colors are unique within the league, so I let them (and the type) do the work. The home alternate cap uses the "storm" logo. A more detailed look at the wordmarks.

Disclosure: A variation on this logo has now been sold, and is owned, by someone else.

[Greg_Fryman]

Love the movement with this logo just amazing. That secondary is a work of art as well. Great job as always sir.

[jakemon08]

That logo is beautiful.

[BKarchitect]

Want that alternate hat.

[Philsphan]

The logo is fantastic, but I think you're going overboard with the half-shaded scripts. Otherwise, fantastic and great colors.

[JayJaxon]

Omaha is a fantastic design. The secondary is one of my favorites of all the logos you have designed.

[Raymie]

Awesome. The movement and colors are awesome!