Fantasy Warfare

I'm a big fantasy sports guy. I started playing back in 2003 and have been in various fantasy leagues across all sport (yes, even a NASCAR league). One of the bigger pleasures of doing these leagues is creating a working identity set for some of my teams. So, with this, I'm working on a possible identity change for my Asylum League team, the Las Vegas Dragons.

2012 Asylum League Logo Sheet

This set is based off of a scrapped Arena Football League Logo (which is my current family Football League logo) and inspired by the Baltimore Orioles Script/Diamond with Chicago White Sox colors. The finished product added purple to the set, but the logos remain unchanged.

It was a quick and dirty set, but I never fell in love with it. So what to do? Re-brand and relocate.

For all intents and purposes, I'm leaving the locale off until my finished product. However, I'm going with "Bees" as the new team name and building the brand off the name and it's associations (honey, honeycomb, hives, etc.)

 

Some of these design elements will make the final cut, but there's also some items off the list. Now I just need to fine-tune what I have into a possibly great identity.

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Podcast-A-Go-Go

A friend from High School started up his own comedy company and is doing the stand-up circuit around Southern California. He's expanded the business aspect of it to include a podcast and so far, his ventures have been pretty successful. A while back, he had asked if someone would be willing to donate a logo for the podcast to help the cause. I had some ideas in my head, but never really went forward with it nor contacted him about it.

Original Podcast Logo

The original logo had that Island-vibe; reminded me of a Hawaiian luau or restauraunt. It had some personality, but it also had a retro-vibe which called out to me.

Here's the update (not mine)..

Jamal's new "logo" was ok in my opinion. From my perspective, it's a little generic and I'm really not feeling it. Though, the green, black and white are really cool colors to work with..

My version...

So, I finally had an idea and went with it. Wanted to play up the "Ass" portion of the name and I think the leaping donkey satisfies that element. I also wanted to keep the retro idea of the initial logo and tried to mimic some old-school radio logos of the past by using a radio antenna and lighting bolts.

I haven't sent this to Jamal, but I may later on (after some revisions of course!). I think getting a stronger branding will help his cause, but not sure how an unsolicited logo would go over.

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Just Imagine: Detroit Red Wings

Not going to lie: this was a hard one to re-imagine. You have a great look (but poor wordmark), classic uniforms and a timeless icon. I can see why this would be hard to touch and upgrade...

Wordmark is usually in Red, but you get the idea...

I took a real chance on this Original 6 team. The easy way out would be to go with an airline or nature theme, but that's not "Detroit". Detroit is the motor city; going against that wouldn't work on this concept.

Heavily influenced by Detroit's auto industry, I wanted the logo to reflect a classic hood ornament (though I did expand my search to retro style gas logos). Art-Deco Wings, chrome, the whole nine yards. The top logos are what would appear on the sweaters, while the script logo is just that: a script logo.



New look in the Motor City..



Yes, the "Red Wings" script is the same font as what I used my Rockets concept, but I honestly can see "Red Wings" on the side of a '57 or other classic hot rod. This font just matched up perfect with it. You can also see the inclusion of silver to the scheme. Red and white look really good together, but the silver reminds me of the chrome you would see on a classic car. I think it's simple, but understated and doesn't overpower the winged D shield.

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Just Imagine: Houston Rockets

I initially started the "Just Imagine" contest over on the AsylumBoards. Basically, the premise was off of Stan Lee's Just Imagine Comic Series (a series which he took the names of established DC Comics characters and gave them a complete new spin on it), but to do it with sports teams. 

Sadly, the idea didn't take off like I hoped it would (maybe next year!), but out of it came some really imaginative concepts (which was really the purpose of it). 

Oddly enough, the first "Just Imagine" concept I did was one for the Pittsburgh Pirates then the Detroit Red Wings (both of which are in sketch phase and in process of finishing for posting). Houston was just the brainchild of a thread I saw on the Creamerboards, followed by some geniune accidental design work.

Logo History of the Houston Rockets


 First things first: I had to scrap just about everything the Rockets used before and start fresh. Did my homework on various rocket designs and old NASA mission patches; chose colors which I felt best reflected Space and that "Astro" (for lack of a better term) look. Out are the Red/Gold and in are Navy, White and Silver.

First Concept..

So - there's a few things I did right.. and some I did wrong. From what others have told me, I pretty much nailed this on the first try. Complaints/Issues included too many outlines on the "Rockets" wordmark and the unnecessary "R" logo on the secondary.

Round 2..

In this version, I simplified the wordmark and removed the "R" from the secondary. It looks good, but something's off on the main logo..


Houston...we have lift-off!


I changed the wordmark altogether on this one to go with something more retro/space race-esque. While the modern may work, there's something about the simple script which works better in my eyes.

Uniforms based off of this design are a possiblity as I know people want to see how this works on a uniform set. Future update? Maybe..

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Girls of Summer IV

I went through many revisions of this one, but the one thing that stood out was the image of Mt. Baldy; it had been in every previous version of the logo, so I felt a sense of obligation to keep it there. I also started with a field design, but while I was initially happy with the beveled lettering and overall look, over time I really grew to not like this attempt:

Initial design with star at home plate.

Lightend up the silver and removed home plate star...

So - after many months and revisions, here's what I ended up with. The purple links to the city's official colors, while the mountains link to the view of Mt. Baldy which can be seen throughout the city (and the fields). The neon-yellow softball proved to be too much of a contrast, so to help balance the white and purple, silver was added to the design in various keystrokes and the stitching of the ball. The interlocking "RC" was based off of the RC used by the local high school and hopefully will be used for hats and coach's shirts (as they were using the RC cola logo for this).  

Off-hand, I should probably darken the purple more and remove the "RC" from the secondary. The mountain/ball design is strong enough to stand on it's own. I'll see about posting a revision later on (and later this week, not in 4 months!).

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Girls of Summer III

Well - it's time to start getting inspired. First off, I started with Pro Fastpitch softball logos:

Then I reference logos for the City of Rancho Cucamonga:

 

By the way, I love the interlocking RC. The Varsity Font style was on the RCHS football helmets my sophomore year there.

Anyway, as you can tell, purple is pretty predominate in all the city logos, so it's a pretty safe assumption that I'm going to go that route.

Next week, we start seeing what I'm working on!

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Girls of Summer Part II

Like many companies know, good R&D (research and development) is vital to overall success. In my design process, I like looking at other logos for comparison and inspiration. In the softball world I'm noticing that there's a lot of Brush Scripts and seemingly "Clip-Art" designs. Due to most Softball organizations being non-profit, budgets may not include allocations for proper branding as the majority of funds need (and should) go to the players and teams. 

Now - my first part of R&D is to scour the other local softball leagues to see what I'm up against:

 

In hindsight, the RC ACE logo isn't so bad compared to some of these. Anyway, from what I can tell in usage are: 4 crossed bats, 7 ball inclusions, 3 logos with script, 1 diamond and one field. Additionally, Eastvale, Chino and Upland use a near identical pitcher silhouette. With this, I have some ideas to base the new league logo on.. tomorrow, I look at inspirations and (hopefully) Friday I'll post my mock-up.

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The Girls of Summer



Aside from just designing and running reports, I also dabble as a head webmaster for the a girl's softball league. Maybe it's the designer in me, but I've never been a fan of the league logo. Since I've decided to make a formal proposal to the league, I figured I can go over some of my thoughts on the league's previous logos and tomorrow, show where I'm headed with my vision.

2002 Logo

The league was merged in late 2001 and  was officially known as Rancho Cucamonga ACE in 2002. Not sure where this logo originated or if it the "ACE" portion was thrown on to the exsisting Rancho Cuamonga Softball main logo. To me, the blue works as it ties into the Alta Loma district of the city (ALHS' colors are blue and white), but aside from the view of Mt. Baldy, this logo really had no personality..

2009 Update

In 2009 the "crossed bats" logo was unveiled. Definately an upgrade over the previous design, but still has its flaws. From what I can tell, the bats are two toned wood (similar to a baseball player), which doesn't fit well in the world of softball (which uses aluminum bats). Mt. Baldy has a more realistic look to it, bit seems out of place compared to the 2.0 wordmark, modern font and highlighted bats. Teal-ish blue and a weird shade of purple were used, but one of the many issues I saw right away is how this doesn't translate to grayscale very well. There's just way too much going on and too much information stuffed into home plate.

Tomorrow - Inspiriation and Research!

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Coming Soon

FDS' blog will be provide insight to my design process, prototypes, sketches and cutting room floor designs. My intent is to show the effort and thought process into one identity from start to finish.

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