American Soccer Concepts - Colorado Rapids (Update) & Vancouver Whitecaps

[crashcarson15]

After I finally finished my Tim Horton's National Soccer Association concept series last month, I decided to embark on a new project, what is essentially an "MLS/NASL/USL 202X" series. While I'll probably make note of the league the team would be in (not getting into pro/rel), it's not going to be the major focus of the concept. What I'm trying to do here is just make a bunch of random concepts that have somewhat believable storylines and see where they lead. No specific target goal of clubs or anything, just throwing something together whenever something comes to mind. So without adieu, I'd like to present to you the first club in the series...



América 96 - Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

After the USL found success in San Juan (more on that later), the league found it natural to try another Caribbean market (The Antigua Barracudas thing doesn't work out here) and with Santo Domingo being the center of the Caribbean economy, no other city really made sense. The two clubs contest the CaribeClasico derby and matches between the two are always fierce and tense affairs. América 96named not after the Mexican Club América but rather Santo Domingo's place as the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the Americas, founded in 1496.

Anyhow, onto the concept itself, I wanted to keep the design pretty basic as, well, that's how a lot of Latin American soccer crests are. The crest draws a decent bit of inspiration from LDU Quito's triangular-shaped crest, with the triangular crest itself a reference to La Trinitaria, the secret society that led the Dominican independence movement circa 1840 from Haiti. The club colorsblue and redare based off the colors of the Dominican Republic, with the quartered shirts a direct reference to the country's flag. The road kitwhite with a blue and red sashis based off of a sash worn by the Dominican president while the club's kit sponsor, Claro is the country's largest telecommunications provider, part of Carlos Slim's empire. And yes, I know the crest spells out "SAD." Oh well.





Thanks for checking this out guys and any C&C would be greatly, greatly appreciated!

[marble21]

Great work, a lot of thought put into this. I like the reasoning behind all of the elements including the sponsor logo choice - which I think is a good choice aesthetically too.

There are plenty of foreign teams whose names spell out different meanings in English, eg Deportivo Wanka so SAD is nothing to worry about really.

I look forward to more if each one goes into as much detail as this one.

[crashcarson15]

For the most part, I'll try to go into a good bit of detail when putting these together—most of the time I try and do some research beforehand so I can sound like I know what I'm talking about.

I should have another one up later tonight but in the meantime, any more comments on América 96?

[Guest]

Really like what you have here Alex, good balance in the jersey. Personally I like a more traditional placement of crest [left side] and manufacture logo [right side] but what you have here seems to work. Refreshing to see some thought/research being put into the concept opposed to the paint by number concepts that seem to fill the board daily.

Look forward to the next installment.

[crashcarson15]

Miami Athletic

As we all know, David Beckham has his option to purchase an MLS club and we know it'll probably be in Miami. So that's where this concept's storyline starts. An ownership group including Beckham gets a stadium sorted and the club begins play as the 22nd MLS club in 2017. Being owned by Beckham (and just being in Miami in general), the club can attract top DPs and they make soccer in Miami a success again. I couldn't use Miami FC so I opted for Miami Athletic to give the MLS a different Euro-style name here.

Onto the visual parts of the identity. I drew largely on a couple of former Miami sports teams for the inspiration for most of this one. I started by looking at the Miami Fusion—South Florida's original MLS club. While most of the identity was uninspiring, I ended up drawing heavily from the half-sunburst, half-pinwheel that featured in the background of the crest. As for the colors, I turned to one of my favorite identities in sports history, going with the pink and orange of The Floridians' fame that I felt fit Miami and the look I was going for particularly well. I considered naming the club the Miami Floridians but there would certainly be copyright issues there. Regardless, the vertical striping on the kits are an homage to the Floridians' now famous jerseys and the font used throughout the package is a bit of an homage to the famous Art Deco District of Miami Beach. The home kit's all-white and the road's all-black. I almost went with orange Arsenal-style shirts for the home kit so I threw that look in as a third kit. Let me know what you think of them! The sponsor is HP—their Latin American base is located in South Florida—and yes, bright orange is one of the colors of the HP branding guide.

Let me know what you guys think... hopefully this one gets a little bit more action with the added excitement!

(And yes, I know the images are a little choppy... I'll try to work on better exporting them down the road.)

Cheers!

[JamieRose]

Both of these so far are really solid, well thought out concepts.

The Miami Athletic crest could possibly benefit from either a black roundel or the removal of the stroke and changing the letters to pink. At the smaller size (and from a distance) the letters kind of bleed into themselves.

Looking forward to seeing more!

[Soarindude]

I love the kits for Miami Athletic. I love the name as well. Miami Floridians<Miami Athletic.

[marble21]

Nice incorporation of HPs official colours. It is very 'Miami' overall which is a good thing.

The adidas logo needs to be put on the shirt, top right as the player wears it. It will help balance out the assymetry and also the two circles competingagainst each other for prominence.

Lastly, I think the orange and pink look good next to each other but not when put on top of another. Eg the shoulder stripes on the alternate. I also dont particularly like how the pink stroke on the orange numbers came out. I feel how Jimmy feels about the logo too. Minor fixes at most.

Overall though, there is a lot more good in this concept than bad once again. Keep it up.

[crashcarson15]

Gonna reply to a few things from the last concept and then post the next one!

Jimmy, I originally started with a decent amount of black in the crest design and ultimately decided that I wanted to keep things bright and left most of the black out.

Marble, I definitely spaced the Adidas logo—I tend to forget one thing per concept so we got that out of the way on that one. I tend to agree on the alternate's shoulder stripes and if I update this thing, I'll probably make it like the Timbers' kits are now up there and probably remove the stroke on the crest. Thanks for the feedback though, lads!

Austin FC

When I was going down the list of cities that could be next up for this series, Austin was one that stood out to me as having some potential—the city's generally known for being a pretty chill place and everything I've heard about the culture would seem to indicate they could have a team of their own. San Antonio's down the road but with the Scorpions' eventual move to MLS (hint, hint) the NASL wanted back in the Texas market and Austin was the clear choice.

Onto the concept itself, Austin has been known for years as the City of the Violet Crown and this imagery is prevalent throughout the design. The name comes from the violet haze that falls over the city at sunset—thanks to the Belt of Venus—and I thought it'd be a good place to start. The home kit color—violet—and the (clipart*) crown on the crest are direct ties to the city's nickname. The shield itself is based off of the city's seal, with the shape and inner colorway as a direct link. I wanted a more classic look here for whatever reason so I went with an interlocking "AFC" as the focal point of the crest. The home kit is somewhat Arsenal-esque (you'll find that I love contrasting colored sleeves) while the road kit takes direct influence from the crest itself. Cisco is the shirt sponsor due to the company's strong ties to Austin and the kits are by Nike.

*I had attempted to find a crown to trace but a search of "crown" on Google reveals mostly clipart so I just used something I found there for this minor part of the crest.

[crashcarson15]

Bumping this with an updated thread title.

[crashcarson15]

FC Maryland

It's nearly been a month since the last installment of the series and I'm back with another one. Baltimore's a city with a lack of a club at the moment but as the Gold Cup this summer showed, it's a market with potential. The NASL's tapped it in this concept with the club starting play in 2016.

Onto the concept itself, most of it's pretty self-explanatory. The concept is heavily based off of Maryland state imagery with the kit supplier as Baltimore-based Under Armour. I went with the red home shirt to tie in with the University of Maryland while the black and yellow striped away kit is a direct reference to the flag of Baltimore. Anyways, we'll get onto to the concept because I'm a tired college student who wants to go to bed.

[marble21]

FC Maryland

It's nearly been a month since the last installment of the series and I'm back with another one. Baltimore's a city with a lack of a club at the moment but as the Gold Cup this summer showed, it's a market with potential. The NASL's tapped it in this concept with the club starting play in 2016.

Onto the concept itself, most of it's pretty self-explanatory. The concept is heavily based off of Maryland state imagery with the kit supplier as Baltimore-based Under Armour. I went with the red home shirt to tie in with the University of Maryland while the black and yellow striped away kit is a direct reference to the flag of Baltimore. Anyways, we'll get onto to the concept because I'm a tired college student who wants to go to bed.

Nothing to complain about here.

I'm not really keen on the Maryland flag being used everywhere just because it looks kinda cool, but the people of Maryland don't seem to mind - especially with the college football team. So with that in mind there isn't any issue.

You have executed it well here and used appropriate colour schemes.

I would maybe prefer MARYLAND FC rather than F MARYLAND C in the crest. I would also maybe move the banner up so that it is aligned vertically with the split in the quarters of the flag, rather than just below. Just my opinions though. Great concept as usual.

[raysox]

These are all top. Great looking stuff, Crash.

[mbannon92]

Great looking stuff here crash! The Miami crest is very nice and the colors are great for the city. And Miami is the one city that could pull it off. Maryland looks really good too. Love the shape of the crest and both kits.

[crashcarson15]

Western Reserve SC

A few years down the road, the NASL sees Cleveland as a potentially successful market (which IMO it is) and establishes an expansion club there. The vision would be for a suburban stadium—one that would allow to draw fans from Akron and potentially Youngstown in addition to Cleveland like the Cavaliers did at the Richfield Coliseum. Thus, the team does not carry the "Cleveland" moniker, rather the "Western Reserve" moniker that stems from the area's status as the former Connecticut Western Reserve (which is seen today most notably in the name of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland).

Onto the concept itself, I really wanted to do a concept with brown and orange and figured there was no better place to do it than northeast Ohio. I threw in the "vintage white" if you will for a "retro" feel (well, and I just thought it looked good) and the kits themselves are an homage to the kits of the Cleveland Force—an indoor soccer team that's played on and off since the 70's (they're currently "off"). Progressive—based in the Cleveland suburbs sponsor the kit and the crest's trees stem from Cleveland's status as the "Forest City." Sorry I didn't put the Cuyahoga River on fire in the crest.

[crashcarson15]

Las Vegas Gamblers

It's back! I've had this one sitting around for quite awhile and I'm just now getting around to posting it. Las Vegas seems to be a market that could support second-tier soccer given the right investor (after all, what mixes better with gambling than the Beautiful Game? ). It's a market that doesn't have many sports options as it sits now but has a pretty respectable population so the NASL springs to add Vegas to its lineup.

Of course if you're in the NHA, you'll recognize the crest but if not, the explanation's pretty straightforward. The poker chip motif for a Vegas or Reno team is something I'm fairly certain I've seen on this forum before so apologies if this looks like something you've done! The spade seemed to be the suit that fit the crest best and I've gotta give props to Conrad on his font pack as the Glades Bold font has been used here! Amazon-owned Zappos.com is the shirt sponsor here—it's probably the most notable company based in the Vegas metro—and the kits should be fairly self-explanatory.

[marble21]

I am not massively sold on all of the logos being vertically aligned - maybe that is just personal preference to traditional layout though. Other than that it is a well rounded identity suited to Vegas.

I like the use of red and black, as it may have been easy to use neon colours given the amount of neon lights in Vegas. However, I think those types of colours have already been used by Miami, so this helps the Gamblers stand out. Red and black stripes is also a familiar look in Soccer, mainly because of AC Milan. So this helps your concept too.

My only real concern is whether a team name actively advocating gambling would really exist in/beyond 2013. I guess all Soccer I watch is split with multiple gambling website adverts. Maybe it could happen.

I also have to say that is a great font too.

[crashcarson15]

Hartford Athletic Club

We've got ourselves another installment of the series and we're heading to the Insurance Capital of the World for a USL expansion! Hartford AC—"the Hearts"—are sponsored by Aetna, a Hartford insurance company with a pretty logo.

Anyways, the crest is a heart because, well, Hartford. Get it? (Also, I kind of like Heart of Midlothian.) I decided to go with a double-red motif for the colours and kits, focusing on an all-red home kit. There's not all that much to this concept—trying to mix a bit of a traditional feel with a more modern feel at the same time—but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Let me know!

[mbannon92]

Solid work on these last two. Crests, kits, and colors are solid on both. Not so sure about the FSU font for Vegas though...I would go with a simple sans-serif to reflect the style of a lot of neon signs.

[DS729]

Somehow I missed these, these are outstanding work. The amount of really great soccer concepts that have come around in the past 6 months or so have really been amazing, and this series is one of them. My favorite is Miami Athletic, I love it when the sponsor logo is colored to match the uniforms. Outstanding work!!! Can't wait for more.