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

[mbannon92]

Good update on San Juan.

Anchorage looks good, but it doesn't scream "Alaska" to me. If you were trying to avoid that though, then that's your choice.

Really like IRFC. The Iowa/Scotland connection is kind of random, but the set looks great.

[Saathoff]

Great job with Iowa Rangers. Being from Iowa, the Scottish connection is weird. Were a mostly German heritage state and little bit of Dutch. (Pella, IA) Either way I like it. Nice to see Hy-Vee get some love and sponsor a team!

[crashcarson15]

Honestly, it was all entirely random and just adapted from something else I was working on so there's that... I'm also sitting on a lot of concepts either completed or in the development phase so let's see how long it takes me to post all of these...

Oklahoma United FC

The current soccer situation, I feel, has been pretty well documented on these boards so I won't get too much into that (two teams have been awarded to the city, one in the NASL and one in the USL) but OUFC came around after a merger between the two clubs when they realized they couldn't both compete for the same market in the city. The name United was chosen very naturally and I'm okay with it here because, well, this concept really is a unification of two clubs.

Anyways, as far as the actual concept goes, I had set out to do a few different things with the concept than I ended up doing. I was originally planning on Thunder colors for the concept and for an OKC wordmark in the middle of the crest but ended up going in the direction you've seen. The club crest was exactly how I sketched it originally when I was thinking of doing this as a straight OKC Energy concept and I was really thrilled with how that came about. I was looking for some inspiration at raysox's OKC concept in his series when throwing this together and the idea of putting a geometric feather in the center of the crest to represent the state's Native American heritage could work well. The colors ended up orange and navy because, well, I thought they looked good together and if you can't tell, I enjoy design elements like chevrons. (In reality, I started by putting the logo pattern on the jerseys and just colored in a few). I also like putting the crest in the center of the shirt in some cases and just thought this looked a lot better with the crest there than over the heart as per usual. Hertz is the sponsor as they apparently have a decent presence in OKC? and I can't get enough of this damn template... C&C would be great!

[raysox]

I wrote my story and said the two teams merged and I realized I missed my chance to do United. But that looks fantastic, love the colors

[crashcarson15]

We're back with not one, but two concepts! I've gotta start this by giving credit to raysox for getting me thinking in this direction with his Milwaukee Bavarians concept and I tried to make sure to distance mine from his. These two clubs are, of course, natural rivals and their stories run together so it's why I'm releasing both of these concepts together.

Madison 56ers

Fielding teams at various levels since 1956, the 56ers are one of America's longest-running soccer clubs and currently field a team in the NPSL on the fourth tier of the American soccer pyramid. Alongside the Bavarians (see below), they opt to make the move to the professional level in 2016 and join the United Soccer League in this version of the universe.

Onto the concept itself, the crest was designed to maintain some level of continuity with the club's current identity. The "56" is stacked to avoid it from being vertically stretched to a ridiculous amount and "Madison" is replaced with simply a bold "M." The symbol between the "M" and "SC" on the left side of the crest comes from the flag of Madison as do the colors for the road kit. The club's sponsor is The Onion—founded in Madison in 1988—and the kit design is slightly based off of what clubs like Leeds United and Milton Keynes Dons are wearing this year.

Milwaukee Bavarians

The Milwaukee Bavarians have been fielding teams since 1929 and have a storied history, having won 6 national championships throughout their history. The club's identity is firmly rooted in Bavarian identity and they'd have made the move alongside the 56ers, contesting the Battle for Wisconsin.

Onto the identity, I wanted to try and distance myself from raysox's concept and feel like I did a decent job. Despite (I think) using the same sponsor—Miller—I wanted to keep my focus on blue and thus went with a light blue / navy blue color scheme, much like Manchester City uses this campaign. The kits retain the club's current blue shirt with white sleeves look and features a sublimated Bavarian flag pattern on the shirt. A lot of cues are taken from things TSG 1860 München have done over the years with the change shirt navy blue, much like many of 1860's kits.

[-kj]

Hm. There are some interesting ideas, but overall they feel like misses.

The Bavarians' crest is a cool idea, but there are some problems. If the pattern's supposed to be from the Bavarian flag, it's not at the right angle. Also, the outlines on the text render it pretty illegible; one-color text would work a lot better.

The kits aren't bad, but you have the same angle issue with the pattern. The white/navy shoulder trim on the home doesn't really work for me; it competes too much with the sublimated pattern.

As for Madison, I'm not feeling a lot of it. Compared to your other work, that crest looks sloppy and amateur. I know the symbol's from the Madison flag, but the first thing I see is New Mexico. The text arrangement seems like it's just kinda thrown together; it's definitely not helped by the choice of font and the outlining on everything.

The kits are alright, but feel a little uninspired. I also keep seeing that green onion on the red background and my eyes can't take it anymore. *heh*

Sorry to rip this apart, but this feels way below your usual level.

[mbannon92]

Oklahoma United looks great. Very unique crest shape. Love the pattern on the kits.

Madison's crest also isn't doing it for me. Seems very...Microsoft Word-ish. I do really like the kit design though.

Aside from the incorrect pattern angle for Milwaukee, I like it overall. I agree that the text in the crest is a little hard to read. Navy with no outline would work much better IMO.

[VictoriaGooner]

All great stuff....love the looks!

[crashcarson15]

Answering some feedback on that last batch: For Milwaukee, I went with that vertical pattern because that's what the club uses. I've been sketching out a redesign for that one the last two weeks and I think I've finally got some time tonight to get down to work and get that done. It'll be a different focus, that's for sure. As for Madison, it was one of those concepts that I really wanted to do—namely because of the nickname—and probably put forth a concept that wasn't anywhere near a good finished product. I think I've got an idea for how I want to progress with that one though, so in a rare move, expect a couple of changes coming from me on those concepts sometime soon.

Colorado 14ers

We've got a new template! And a new club! And more centered crests! Yay!

Apparently Colorado Springs has been assigned a USL team for 2015 named the Switchbacks? I just read that on Wikipedia. Anyways, I both had this concept done and dusted before reading that so whatever. The name is the same used by a D-League team a few years back (which would probably mean they would have to buy the name from the NBA but meh, whatever) and I loved the name from the first time I saw it. I'm a sucker for nicknames involving numbers and with the connecting that 14ers has to the area (Colorado's 14,000 foot + peaks, including Pikes Peak right outside of Colorado Springs), I knew I wanted to do something that revolved around that for the Colorado Springs club. I didn't think that having two "Colorado" clubs was too much of an issue because they were at two different ends of the pyramid and would only meet in the USOC. Hell, we have situations like this as is in sports, so...

Additionally, I absolutely LOVE the Colorado flag and there are motifs from it running through this set. The crest, thus, draws inspiration from the C on the state flag with a 14 set inside of it similar to German club crests (and well, my earlier Charlotte identity). It's a look I really like and this is pretty damn simplistic, which I was going for. I wanted to let the "C" speak for most of the concept and I think I did that well. The home kit is also very much based off of the Colorado flag, with the PSG-style center stripe inspired by the white stripe on the state flag. Sublimated within the shirt is a mountain pattern (it's on the center stripe, too) with the mountains serving to illustrate a bit of a gradient as you go down. The road kit is the same template, just with red and yellow as the focal points of the shirt rather than the blue. Coleman's the sponsor of these kits because they do a lot of camping and outdoorsy stuff and, well, if you don't get the connection past that, I feel bad for you.

Looking forward to getting some good C&C on this concept, lads!

[VictoriaGooner]

I am liking how you used Coleman as the sponsor for Colorado 14ers...nice tie in

[DS729]

I really like this one, It reminds me of a basketball concept I once made of the same name, the color scheme reminds me a bit of Barcelona (Especially the clash!), and the crest is pretty cool as well, Colorado IMO, has one of the more unique state flags in the country, and I wish Colorado teams would incorporate it more. Similar to what the Ravens and Orioles do with Maryland's beautiful flag.

[crashcarson15]

Update Time! Going back to fix a couple of flawed concepts from a couple of weeks ago... let me know if I did better or not!

Madison 56ers

The kits here are pretty much the same—just some color swaps on the change kit—but the crest is where the change is at. The concept's now kind of based off of an idea that a sloppier version of this has been the club's long-time crest (it hasn't been) and that the new one is a "clean" version of that idea. I'm not sure how much better it is but I'm hoping it's at least cleaner.

Milwaukee Bavarians

This one's where the changes really are. I've known for a couple of weeks now what I roughly wanted to do to fix the crest and while it's evolved from a diamond to an eight-pointed star (mainly to fit the "M" and the "B"), it's pretty much the same idea. I went with black and gold just because I felt they fit the rest of the concept better and tried to really overhaul this with the "correct" Bavarian flag direction. On the kits, I stuck with the raglan idea but went with black sleeves on the home and a white change kit.

Hit me up!

[Moser316]

Sorry, but the Madison crest looks even more generic than it did before. I liked your previous idea where you based it off the city flag much better, and it could definitely be perfected. I'd possibly start by incorporating the diagonal sash from the flag (and by the way, Kev, that's not supposed to be a zia symbol, it represents the shape of the state capitol building in plan).

[PackerFan98]

Update Time! Going back to fix a couple of flawed concepts from a couple of weeks ago... let me know if I did better or not!

Madison 56ers

The kits here are pretty much the same—just some color swaps on the change kit—but the crest is where the change is at. The concept's now kind of based off of an idea that a sloppier version of this has been the club's long-time crest (it hasn't been) and that the new one is a "clean" version of that idea. I'm not sure how much better it is but I'm hoping it's at least cleaner.

Milwaukee Bavarians

This one's where the changes really are. I've known for a couple of weeks now what I roughly wanted to do to fix the crest and while it's evolved from a diamond to an eight-pointed star (mainly to fit the "M" and the "B"), it's pretty much the same idea. I went with black and gold just because I felt they fit the rest of the concept better and tried to really overhaul this with the "correct" Bavarian flag direction. On the kits, I stuck with the raglan idea but went with black sleeves on the home and a white change kit.

Hit me up!

Great fixes!

[crashcarson15]

I'm going to start trying to post these in pairs where they fit together, so...

Gateway FC

In some year (let's say before the 2016 season), investors from St. Louis buy the struggling and unwanted Chivas USA franchise and relocate it to their home city. Instead of going with a traditional name involving St. Louis, they went with a name inspired by the Gateway Arch to add some variety to the league's naming conventions. Just something different if you will.

The crest is in a little bit of a 1980's-style with the font while the crest shape draws from both the Gateway Arch on top and the Mississippi River on the bottom. The fleur-de-lis in the center of the crest comes from the city's flag and serves for the center spot in the crest. The colors are loosely based off of the flag's as well, with the red, blue, and gold motif coming from there. I decided to go with darker shades of the colors as I think raysox did with his St. Louis concept in his series and with Scottrade as the sponsor on the front of the shirts. Stripes in those colors looked good, so that's where I landed. I wanted to do something a little different on the road kit, so Gateway FC "glows in the dark" when away from home.

Orange County Blues

I had this one finished last weekend but wanted to hold off on posting it to see what Mykl did with his Anaheim Blues concept. After Chivas left LA, MLS still wanted to have another team based in the metropolitan area and solicited applications for an expansion franchise to start in 2018. Multiple bidders arose but the guys in charge of USL side Orange County Blues—back to playing at Fullerton's Titan Stadium—won the rights to the second franchise as they were able to offer more due to not having to groundshare with LA Galaxy in Carson. The club would renovate Titan Stadium into a great soccer-specific stadium and of course, OC Blues are a club that currently do exist and have a hideous identity, so I wanted to go in another way.

The crest is really basic and it's what I set out to do. In non-jersey applications, the crest would be accompanied by an "Orange County Blues" wordmark to help identify the club but I knew after the cluttered mess they currently had that I wanted to go simple. I drew orange into the identity because the club is based in Orange County and everything else there should be pretty self-explanatory and admittedly there's not much symbolism in the crest. As far as the kits go, I started playing around with some things and ended up with a quasi-sash on the front of the kits that I really liked. I went with Disney as the sponsor on the kits because, well, Disneyland but also because I thought it looked good and fit the quasi-retro look I was going for, which was also the inspiration for the retro Adidas logo on the kits.

Looking forward to getting some C&C on these... and more on Madison since it's either a really bad attempt at a fix or a great one... any ideas on that? Cheers!

[crashcarson15]

Nothing? From anyone?

[DS729]

I like both, but maybe on OC, you could use the striping from the crest on the jersey?

[burgundy]

I love the St. Louis crest. It looks like a more standard crest that has been flipped, and it works perfectly.

I think the OC crest might be better if it had a sash/stripe to match the shirt, instead if the vertical stripes.

[raysox]

I love this thread man, I'm sorry it's not getting any responses. But OC is super clean, great job.

[macalesterscots]

Like others have said for the Blues, I would say to keep the striping consistent between the crest and the kit. Right now you have stripes on the crest and and a sash on the kit. I would either more prominently feature the stripes on the kit or put a sash in the crest. Quite a few solid concepts here, I hope you get some more responses