A11 Football League Branding

[MJWalker45]

marron, champagne and light blue should stay. I'm actually surprised that outside of San Francisco there doesn't seem to be a team that would have black as a primary color. Strange how much things have changed since 1983.

[drdougfresh]

There are a lot of things I would change about that Panthers identity, I'll say that much. The neck seems rather large and long on the first two, and I'm not a big fan of the type. Doesn't really fit with the logo. I like the last one, but like Matt said, it's very reminiscent of the Houston Cougars logo. I wasn't a fan of the original Panthers identity all that much anyway, so I think it would've been cooler to modernize it a bit more and take a new approach, especially with color (maroon, champagne, light blue, silver, AND white? Good lord...).

Michigan’s offense potentially could feature a two-headed quarterback monster of current Canadian Football Leaguer Dan LeFevour (Central Michigan) and current Jacksonville Jaguars “offensive weapon” Denard Robinson (Michigan).

[GFB]

I don't think it's awful by any means. It's rendered fine, it's just that the eyes are a mess. But they are also on the Dolphins' logo. This seems to be kind of that style/Carolina Panthers style. Negative space and sparse lines.

Awful? Not at all.

No, it has nothing to do with the style. I love the original Michigan Panthers design. IMHO, this an extremely amateur take on a classic logo.

This was the very first concept I posted on these boards, almost a decade ago. I know it's not perfect, but I was 15.

[CreamSoda]

I don't think it's awful by any means. It's rendered fine, it's just that the eyes are a mess. But they are also on the Dolphins' logo. This seems to be kind of that style/Carolina Panthers style. Negative space and sparse lines.

Awful? Not at all.

No, it has nothing to do with the style. I love the original Michigan Panthers design. IMHO, this an extremely amateur take on a classic logo.

This was the very first concept I posted on these boards, almost a decade ago. I know it's not perfect, but I was 15.

IMO, awful, just awful.

[BrandMooreArt]

http://a11flmagazine.blogspot.com/2014/02/michigan-panthers-will-make-spring.html

i totally agree with Matt, this is a surprisingly bad identity by a designer who is actually really good. animals don't seem to be his strong suit (and i can't fault him for that, i hate drawing animals too) and that shows through here. lets give this a run down critique top to bottom. i got time. . .

primary (oval) logo - i think it is very similar to Houston. it does look like he referenced that logo, but that is a non issue for me right now. the lines in this logo do not create any form or unified direction. they are shapes on top of shapes, and some shapes are outlined and then stop at another shape. they seem to be there just to be there. every piece of it has a different flow from front of head to the back. it seems the head wants to go forward (see Houston logo) but the neck line is stopping it, abruptly changing direction. there is a lot is visual tension in the face and ear area with these lines being close together and the gold and blue vibrating a bit. the large amounts of negative (red) space gives off a really clunky and unfinished appearance. the worst part is, i think the gold and blue should be swapped. gold should be the highlight color. this is a solid concept and when done well it can be a cool mark, again see Houston. the difference between the 2 marks is just that one of those designers is far more experienced in the sporting animal category, and has a better understanding of how to draw those types of logos, giving proper form to something that is on a flat surface.

icon with word mark - it's a standard "angry mascot over text" sports logo, but the type and cat are so disconnected. the cat is too tall and it's neck looks more like a horse. it's trying to be tied together with the gold key stroke, but it's a different width around the type than the cat and created more disconnect between the two. the angles of the two are also moving differently. it's a bad word mark, but it had no chance of sucess because it's such a bad font to begin with. PANTHERS has so many different angle cuts, widths, sizes, and inconsistent space between the letters there is just nothing to do to make it work. MICHIGAN is so thin it gets lost in there, made worse by the blue-on-gold combo (GFB even at 15 understood the readability and importance of this issue and place blue on maroon) and i just dont think the two fonts pair well. contrast is good, but this goes too far. but again, nothing would pair really well with the main type.

helmets - the color application and general feel of the helmets are good. i think the gold helmet has a lot of potential, but the logo application is off here. the head of the panther is far too small and long sweeping neck just looks odd. it would be a huge improvement ot just make it's head bigger and kill some of the neck area. you could still get the same amount of color coverage without the shrunken head look.

[NCCoachArete]

Anyone up for a redo?

[Brian in Boston]

It would seem that a reminder is in order...

Everyone within the CCSLC is entitled to his, or her, opinion regarding the launch of the A11 Football League. The same holds true for the launch of the various components of the A11FL team identity packages. So, in this thread, feel free to share your opinions with regard to what you consider to be the merits and shortcomings of said branding components.

That said, moving forward, let's steer clear of sharing our opinions of other CCSLC members' OPINIONS.

The opinions of another person are THEIR OPINIONS. As such, they are welcome to them... and we are unlikely to sway them from holding on to them. Frankly, why should we want to try? After all, we don't want anyone berating us for our own opinions.

There's been a slow, but steady rise in the level of general incivility out here lately. Words such as "stupid", "ignorant", "moronic", etc. are being tossed around a bit too freely. Simple differences of opinion are quickly escalating into flame-wars. So, let's do our best to combat that trend, shall we? We can begin to do so by THINKING whatever we like about another CCSLC member's opinion, while electing to refrain from SHARING said thoughts.

Discretion is the better part of valor... and civility.

Now, if you're truly having a problem dealing with another CCSLC member's BEHAVIOR, feel free to call that to the attention of a member of the moderating team.

Thanks... AGAIN.

[buckeye]

Maybe if the state up north's team gets enough flack for the logos they could try a redo.

I posted this as well in the Sports in General thread for the A11FL. The video is a pretty good interview with the commissioner of the A11FL, not posted for the Tebow reference...

http://www.denverpost.com/paige/ci_25209145/paige-tim-tebow-could-return-denver-play-new

[apate93]

For the most part, I'm ok with this logo. The big issue for me is that font. Fix that and clean up the bottom logo and it's a really nice set. I agree the neck may be a little long, but I thought it was pretty long on the original Panthers' logo too.

[kwmoore]

The main objection is the lack of width. Look at the original. It may look better on a helmet but the new one just reminds me too much of the Sabres buffaslug logo.

[rams80]

*looks at bottom Michigan Panthers logo*

*motions to rename them the Michigan ThunderCats*

[Slammersman]

WOW thundercats Hoah

[kwmoore]

Now that I've had the chance to see it in the helmet series, it doesn't look so bad. It could be improved on....

[EJ_Barlik]

marron, champagne and light blue should stay. I'm actually surprised that outside of San Francisco there doesn't seem to be a team that would have black as a primary color. Strange how much things have changed since 1983.

except the Bandits and Generals......

agree that the wordmark for the Panthers needs some work

[stonehou]

On a broader note, here's an interesting look at the process of branding the A11FL and some of the proposed logos for the league:

http://www.liquidagency.com/us/studies/a11fl

[CJworks]

Yikes, didn't even know these were realeased. I'll shed some light on this...

I was a part of this whole rebrand during the beginning of 2013. It was a real exciting opportunity for me and, although my designs were eventually scrapped, the final designs are pretty remarkable. It's odd to me, however, how much effort they put forth to cap my creativity and stay deadset on using traces of the old USFL logos, while they let the current designer roam free. I know a few other designers who were a part of this as well. They probably dropped a big buck on this whole rebrand strictly because they were unsure of what they wanted.

Oh and that Stag helmet looks awfully similar to a concept I had made for my fictional league, so much so that they even left "Rage" in the bottom right corner of the display. Hmm.

[NCCoachArete]

CJ, do you have your proposals posted on Behance or Dribbble by chance? I know some of the designers posted their cutting room floor designs there. I generally like the looks, but I'm a little disappointed in the Chicago and Michigan look the most. I'm assuming Denver is the third team and it appears if so, Miners will be their name. That could be a great look/logo, so I'm curious what it will/would look like.

Did they limit you to certain color patterns for each team...I'm suspecting they did.

[BrandMooreArt]

Yikes, didn't even know these were realeased. I'll shed some light on this...

I was a part of this whole rebrand during the beginning of 2013. It was a real exciting opportunity for me and, although my designs were eventually scrapped, the final designs are pretty remarkable. It's odd to me, however, how much effort they put forth to cap my creativity and stay deadset on using traces of the old USFL logos, while they let the current designer roam free. I know a few other designers who were a part of this as well. They probably dropped a big buck on this whole rebrand strictly because they were unsure of what they wanted.

Oh and that Stag helmet looks awfully similar to a concept I had made for my fictional league, so much so that they even left "Rage" in the bottom right corner of the display. Hmm.

wow, i never knew about that. they contacted a lot of designers to crowd source this project. they got a pool of designs for each team and selected the design they like best. i was one of them (i didnt do anything more than sketches, mostly because i was working on the Orlando soccer stuff at that time. priorities) but the brief was very open. some teams were considering multiple names, colors, etc.

for the Staggs, they were definitely loose about what they wanted. i have the brief here which says ". . . envisions the Chicago Staggs logo taking advantage of a large deer or antler type concept but would like to leave the concept open to the creativity of artist performing the creative work. the initial Staggs color palette has been set at blue and white with an accent color of red. however, the league would like to leave the color scheme open to suggestion by designers."

i dont know what the designer's process was on the Staggs or why they used "rage" or what happened post submission to the league, but i hope you got at least a kill fee for the work you put in. looks like your work was at least an influence on the final product

[drdougfresh]

It's funny CJ -- there were a few "unused concepts" in the brief that reminded me a lot of your style... Invaders and Panthers come to mind if I'm remembering correctly. That makes a lot of sense, then

[Gothamite]

Oh and that Stag helmet looks awfully similar to a concept I had made for my fictional league, so much so that they even left "Rage" in the bottom right corner of the display. Hmm.

So let me see if I understand this correctly - they contracted you to do some preliminary design work, which they didn't end up using (fair enough), but they then stole a concept you did that wasn't part of your work for them?