The America League

[Philsphan]

Nickel City: I like everything about this one except for the colors. As it is, they look like the Chargers' soccer playing cousins. I would think a team calling itself Nickel City would use nickel silver as a color. That's what the Bills did at first.

LASC: I like the change kit much better than I like the primary kit here. I think the palm tree pattern comes off much nicer tonal than contrasting.

Tijuana: Awesome. Wouldn't change a thing.

+1 illwauk said it better than me

[NDFreek]

These jerseys...... If they were real, I would have a reason to watch soccer.

Most of the thread is flawless, perfect execution.

Can't wait for more!

[pcgd]

OKC Soccer // Premier League

Oklahoma City had a team join the America League in 1982. T. Boone Pickens was the primary investor for the team and played a major roll in getting the team not only to the America League, but also to the Premier League by 1990. As his personal wealth grew, the team's payroll grew with it and they've been able to bring some of the world's best to Oklahoma City. Pickens sold his controlling share to the fans in 1996 which lead to a number of changes including a new logo and color changes. The team is now one of a handful of teams in the league to be majority owned by the fans.

Oklahoma's badge is based off a dream catcher from Native American culture which plays a big roll in Oklahoma's history. A old school soccer ball is the main element (used because it looked more like strings than a traditional ball) with 5 feathers hanging down which represent the 5 major supporters groups for OKC Soccer. The team's colors are taken from the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

The kits utilize diagonal pinstripes which starts off close together and gets further apart as it goes down the jersey. The pattern continues on the socks. Primary is all maroon while the change is white/maroon/white.

From the earliest stages I wanted to do a soccer ball/dream catcher. I changed my mind on the style however going from a classic look to something more clean and modern as I designed it.

[pcgd]

Memphis Soccer // America One

Remember back when the Grizzlies moved from Vancouver and there were rumors that FedEx was going to own them and call them the "Express?" Well where they failed, Memphis Soccer succeeded. Spurred by the NBA, FedEx decided they loved the idea of a sports team that carried the company's color and could be used as advertising so they decided to start a soccer club. The team was named Memphis Soccer and was officially known as the Express. However most fans hated the nickname an instead call them the Hounddogs which is a play off the failed NFL Expansion name. FedEx not only named the team after themselves but the stadium as well. Eventually they gave in to fan pressure and put the nickname on the inside of the team's uniforms.

The logo takes it shape from the Memphis seal while the record is a nod to the famous blues musicians such as Muddy Waters, BB King, and Issac Hayes that called Memphis home. The colors are taken from their parient company FedEx.

The uniforms are airily straight forward with big bold color blocks and of course a FedEx logo across the chest.

The sketch for Memphis is below and as you can tell its pretty much how it ended up.

[pcgd]

Fort Worth SC // America Two

Fort Worth SC was part of the 1982 expansion which saw the largest influx of teams since the founding of the America League. Fort Worth is one of 5 Texan teams in America League and the newest. They live in the shadow of Dallas Athletic and are their biggest rivals. The winner of the Metroplex Derby wins a golden cowboy hat trophy every year. Fort Worth has only won it 5 times in its existence.

The team's mark is a beveled lone start with a circle monogram in the middle: FWSC. The team's colors are kelly green and gold.

The uniforms are the first we've seen that use a split jersey design. White and Gold on the primary to make teams wear their (hopefully) darker change kits in the Texan sun.

The change kit is a fairly basic kelly jersey with gold stripes down the arm and cuffs.

Like most of the teams, I didn't figure out the socks on the initial sketch but I did have everything else planned out at the early stages for FWSC. I did change the colors a bit to make them a bit different from Hollywood SC.

http://pcgdstudios.com/america-league-okc-soccer-memphis-fort-worth-sc/

[El Dandy]

I've just been sitting back on this thread and watching the awesomeness unfold, but I must say that the use of the Flaming Lips on the OKC neck tape is awesome.

[pcgd]

I've just been sitting back on this thread and watching the awesomeness unfold, but I must say that the use of the Flaming Lips on the OKC neck tape is awesome.

Holy crap I forgot I put that on there! Yeah them being from OKC I thought perhaps the fans might embrace one of their songs and thought "DO YOU REALIZE" wold sound pretty BA being sung by a crowd of people.

[Guest darkpiranha]

Great stuff as always. Sad that we're already almost at the halfway point. Hopefully after you've given us all 68 that you have some other cool stuff about this league coming our way. You teased us with a fourth and fifth division, so we're going to hold you to that!

And for everyone who is enjoying this as much as I am, be sure to check out Patrick's web page for this. The blog posts he links to are pretty much exactly as posted here, but if you click on the "America League" link in the Projects Gallery, you'll find all the teams laid out in a nice grid. Clicking on each one gives you a mini-gallery of most of the same stuff we see here, but there are a couple of extra graphics in each set that you won't find here, especially one that is sort of an info-card for each team.

[sparkychewbarky]

I've just been sitting back on this thread and watching the awesomeness unfold

Me too, El Dandy...

My God, pc...do you not sleep?

You've got every colour combo, and every possibility of stripes, plaids, argyles, shapes, gradients, etc.

Every concept is solid and unique.

It's hard to find fault...Ummm, maybe the green palm trees on the tan unis should be a little more subtle?..I don't know.

I'm bookmarking this series for reference purposes.

Great stuff.

[joechicago]

Really solid thread and work! I love the Carolina and Emerald City jerseys.

The only ones that I've seen where I would have any sort of criticisms would be the Chicago sets and the Denver set. Denver the colors just don't work, and the way the mountains are cut reminds me of "twin peaks" and hoping that there's a women's team that wears those. The Chicago sets, well, I hate the fact that one jersey reminds me of one of the most corrupt local governments in the nation and a horribly-indebted place run into the ground by machine politics and the other reminds me of the Mexican national team. It's a scenario where I would've rather seen one of the two teams just adopt the Bears or Blackhawks color schemes.

But overall this is amazing stuff. Look forward to more!

[lancealot]

I've just been sitting back on this thread and watching the awesomeness unfold, but I must say that the use of the Flaming Lips on the OKC neck tape is awesome.

I have been doing the same thing and it is so awesome. There are a few things I would change but not many, one think I have noticed though is some of the photoshops are a bit rough but other than that everything looks great

[Philsphan]

Love these! The histories are really cool too. The unis are unique, but traditional and not over the top. A+

[illwauk]

This round was a bit underwhelming, but you've set a standard that can't possibly be maintained; and even then, OKC is still one of the better badges in this series.

Really solid thread and work! I love the Carolina and Emerald City jerseys.

The only ones that I've seen where I would have any sort of criticisms would be the Chicago sets and the Denver set. Denver the colors just don't work, and the way the mountains are cut reminds me of "twin peaks" and hoping that there's a women's team that wears those. The Chicago sets, well, I hate the fact that one jersey reminds me of one of the most corrupt local governments in the nation and a horribly-indebted place run into the ground by machine politics and the other reminds me of the Mexican national team. It's a scenario where I would've rather seen one of the two teams just adopt the Bears or Blackhawks color schemes.

But overall this is amazing stuff. Look forward to more!

'MURICA!!!

(Now can we please leave the politics out of this thread?)

[BKarchitect]

Love the OKC crest...just to repeat what everybody has said, this whole series (concepts, designs, execution, story) is amazing.

I am disappointed that my hometown is like the one major city not included especially given the soccer-crazed fanbase here with Sporting and suburb Overland Park named the #1 small-to-mid sized city in America for soccer. But hopefully you'll eventually get to a KC concept in tier 4...maybe you can give us a good back-story like a once proud, mighty club that fell into financial disarray and eventually was disbanded only to start completely over with new local ownership in the very basement of The American League.

I can hope anyways

Anyways, until that time, reading this thread is one of my favorite little activities of the day.

[GalwayGuy88]

I also love this. You've obviously put in a lot of time and effort into the design, as well as the history of the league and its clubs. I'm sad to see my adopted city is missing, as BKarchitect mentioned, but I'm sure we'll see a KC club...or maybe even a split of the old, proud KC club into one KS and one MO club. That could be the reason they're both in the lower divisions.

Also, I wish we could see more neighborhood clubs in the biggest cities. If we wanted to take the London model, New York City/LA/Chicago would have more than they have in the America League. Would sure love to see more clubs steeped in Irish culture and I would love to see a New Amsterdam club in the NYC area as well.

I'm a huge fan of Emerald City's kits, especially the change kit. Also, I'd like to see a few more clubs with traditional crests, including Latin mottos and all. Just a thought. Keep up the great work.

[GotPixels]

Amazing detail and research. I'm really partial to the Texas looks. I like how you fused Dallas FC with the Texans Toro. That's a really nice crest for Dallas.

[jcampo6]

Yes, this may be my favorite detail so far. BTW, as a soccer noob, is the "five championships equals one star" something that real world leagues do?

Yes it is. Many European leagues do this most notably Germany and Italy. Here in the U.S. MLS does so too with each star on the kit representing one MLS Cup.

Patrick this is a great series and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I too like the tradition of European soccer and the promotion and relegation system. Am hoping someday in the near future MLS might consider adding a second division (MLS-2) and have promotion and relegation between the two.

[curswine]

I don't know if it's too soon to comment again but what the hell.

Still a great series, I seem to be finding it harder to keep up than you do making these. Is there any chance that the first post could get transformed into some sort of index?

EDIT: Just notice that the Fort Worth logo has a bit of Bolton in it, quite cool to see.

[pcgd]

Just to be clear, everything is made already. I'm just releasing them 3 at a time.

Here's an index of all on my site:

http://pcgdstudios.com/america-league-2/

[pcgd]

Gonna have to take another night off, might be the whole weekend. I'll get up what I can though! Hopefully be back at it with 3 a night Monday for sure!