Continental Independent Baseball League: the Expansion

[dgnmrwrw]

Charlotte's been updated and finished. I changed all the lettering to match the newer style, and I also tweaked the wordmarks to include a gold outline and drop shadow. The gold alternate is staying, and I used the crown logo on the road alternate cap.

Next team up shortly.

[dgnmrwrw]

Columbus Comets

Columbus, OH

No real deep meaning regarding the team name; I just liked the sound of it and the possibility for a different style. The Comets' colors are charcoal, neon green, silver and gray. The primary logo features a stylized comet--shaped like a C with a baseball as the head--swirling around the wordmark, on top of a circle of stars. The cap logo is the c-comet, and it doubles as the sleeve patch.

The unis feature a unique striping pattern, with neon green and charcoal steaks over the shoulders and on the pants. The home uniform is white, the home alternate jersey is neon green, and the road uniforms are the dark grey. All of the gray and silver stitching (such as in the sleeve patch and the road alternate numbers) would be shimmery. A more detailed look at the home and road wordmarks.

[oaklandhusker]

Love the colors. Everything looks good, but didn't you use the same template for another team already?

[cohenj21]

The logo and color scheme are pure perfection. Two small things you may want to consider.

-The gray on the road jersey seems very dark. I feel like that might be better with a lighter shade of gray like the Monarchs.

-The script on the front of the road alternate seems a little off with the green outline. You might want to try a darker outline for that script.

Other than those very little nitpicky things, another great concept and looking forward to more!

[aci]

I love love love that colour scheme! The primary logo and the cap logo are both awesome as well, and I'm really digging the pointed pants stripe.

The home and road uniforms looks pretty good becauuse the shoulder striping matches the pants, but the other two seem to miss the mark a little bit. I'm also not fond of the mismatching front and back numbers on the home jersey.

[zpqmaowl]

If the comet goes to the right in the logo, why does it go to the right on the jersey?

[jaha32]

The detail on the rock itself is so real, almost too real for a logo, but nonetheless a great rendering. It's really really good.

I do think this could be simplified alot. There are so many plain stars and the thick black outline takes away from the more important elements in the logo in my opinion. A few stars would get the point across. Also, the streak behind the comet almost fits perfectly along the inner circle line, but it breaks the perfect circle in a few spots which looks awkward. If something is so close to fitting perfectly, in my opinion, it might as well find a way to fit, so it doesn't ruin the flow of how the elements interact together, otherwise it just looks like a bunch of object thrown together without much thought. Usually I find your work almost flawless, but this one isn't my favorite. I think it could be refined to flow better.

EDIT: I also just noticed a "tension point" between the U in COLUMBUS and the comets green outline.

[dgnmrwrw]

Thanks to all for the feedback so far. I think there's still a bit of work to do on this one.

If the comet goes to the right in the logo, why does it go to the right on the jersey?

Basically, it has to do with the positioning of the front numbers; it has to "fit" the space allowed by them.

The detail on the rock itself is so real, almost too real for a logo, but nonetheless a great rendering. It's really really good.

I do think this could be simplified alot. There are so many plain stars and the thick black outline takes away from the more important elements in the logo in my opinion. A few stars would get the point across. Also, the streak behind the comet almost fits perfectly along the inner circle line, but it breaks the perfect circle in a few spots which looks awkward. If something is so close to fitting perfectly, in my opinion, it might as well find a way to fit, so it doesn't ruin the flow of how the elements interact together, otherwise it just looks like a bunch of object thrown together without much thought. Usually I find your work almost flawless, but this one isn't my favorite. I think it could be refined to flow better.

EDIT: I also just noticed a "tension point" between the U in COLUMBUS and the comets green outline.

All of these are good points. You're dead right about the tension in the type; I'll fix that. And I always felt iffy about the clear disparity between the amount of detail on the comet vs. the amount detail on everything else. The comet needs to be simplified.

As far as the primary logo goes, I built it backward, starting with an initial sketch that became the finished cap logo--the comet--and retrofitting everything around it. That obviously created some problems, and I did fix some of them. But I think I should probably go back and simply re-render the entire primary logo, tweaking the necessary areas to make a better overall composition.

Keep the comments coming... I'll have an update as soon as I can.

[Raymie]

That is an excellent and innovative color scheme. This league would certainly be fun to watch!

[dgnmrwrw]

I've been playing around with a few potential new primary logos for Columbus, and I thought I'd share the most promising look and get some feedback.

Basically, I wanted to thicken up some lines and give the logo more space to "breathe" and be more free-form. So I've increased the negative space (charcoal), tweaked the type, and minimized the size and color of the background stars. And instead of the circle, I also used a larger star as the background form. It seems to fit both the theme and Columbus as a capital city.

Original on the left, newer version on the right. Thoughts?

[cohenj21]

I like the newer version simply because baseball has too many circle logos. Good update.

[dgnmrwrw]

I forgot to include the (potential) updated wordmarks. Home and away, with the original on the left and the new versions on the right.

[Whittier S]

There's a lot to like about the star-shaped logo, nice tie-in to a capital city.

[Ragone]

Wow I absolutely love the logo and the colors you chose for the the comets. Also, I love the Buffalo Freeze logo as I am a fellow "Buffaloian" and am sick of seeing the Buffalo being incorporated into every sports team. Excellent job overall.

[knnhrvy16]

I REALLY love the new Comets primary option. The star shape is really great, I'd most certainly go with that. As previously mentioned, it helps to separate from the many circular logos in baseball. I also love the colors. Great, great choices.

[jaha32]

I like the updates to the Comets. There's a lot to like about it.

What I like:

-With the elimination of the big black circle, the focus is now all on the comet and the atmosphere you created around it.

-Again without that big black circle, there is only one circular shape (that being the streak) so the two circle aren't competing.

-Now that the comet is placed before a mostly black background, the background looks like outerspace, giving the the feel that the comet is traveling through space rather than the greenish background.

-The greenish outline around the letters is now less prominent which is good in my opinion.

The only nit-pick:

-There are still a lot of little stars, maybe too many. I feel that if you made some of the stars slightly different sizes like you had before, it would look more like the actual night sky with stars of all different brightnesses.

But really nice updates. It's another nice addition to the league.

[dgnmrwrw]

Columbus has been updated and finished. Quick notes:

@jaha: I get your point about the stars. The main reason I went with smaller, uniform stars was to downplay their prominence relative to the comet. I did try to use different levels (white, silver, gray) to imply differences in brightness. And to me, that's a more true indicator of what the night sky looks like (since all distant stars tend to resolve into points, instead of some of them being 200% or 300% larger, as in the original logo). But I agree that they were still a little to dominant, so I took their values down to 35% screens to sort of force them more into the background.

Others had mentioned possibly changing uniform elements, such as regularizing the striping or changing the road unis to a different gray. First, regarding the striping, I lexamined keeping it the same throughout, but it simply looked too odd, especially on the home alternate where there would have been "floating" charcoal stripes over the shoulders. Secondly, regarding the road gray, I really like the look of the dark gray (it was the only thing I was a fan of about the Blue Jays' previous rebrand) and it helps to make the neon green stand out, so it stayed too.

Next team up later.

[dgnmrwrw]

El Paso Friars

El Paso, TX

The Friars' colors are red, black, and orange. The nickname comes from El Paso's founding by Spanish Franciscan friars. The primary logo features a friar--wearing a hood, cross, and eyeblack and holding a baseball bat--set inside a home plate-shape, with the team name circling beneath. I wanted this logo to have a more open feel--a la the Royals or Astros--as opposed to a more condensed, overly composed ("minor league"?) look. The cap logo is an interlocking stylized EP, and the alternate logo/sleeve patch features a diamond shape framing a setting sun, mission, and the EP monogram.

The Friars' unis are pretty simple, but feature a distinctive red-orange-black striping pattern. The home uniform is white and the home alternate jersey is red, and all of the home socks are plain red. The road uniform features the EP monogram on the chest, while the red road alternate features an arched "EL PASO" wordmark, and all of the road socks have stripes. A more detailed look at the home and road wordmarks.

[oaklandhusker]

that logo is a thing of beauty, and the secondary is awesome, too. I also think they would look great with the stripes down the sleeves, a la the Houston Astros of old.

[cohenj21]

Alternate logo in particluar is incredible. Road jersey is great, cap logo is good, and primary is also great. One small complaint, I don't like the way the word "Friars" arches on the home jerseys, that should just be flat IMO. Other than that, great job. The Padres should use this as a branding example!