Tuesday: Mistake on the Lake

Hi folks, welcome back for another Tuesday edition of the daily post. Last Tuesday was a spectacular day for concepts, with 3 receiving nominations and two entered in this week's COTW vote. What's even better, I could easily see today's batch of 5 concepts preforming just as well.

Two days ago, when I attended my first game of 2018. Driving up to Quicken Loans Arena, I enjoyed Grand Rapids Griffins taking down the Cleveland Monsters, scoring a touchdown on Super Bowl Sunday in a 6-3 rout. As a Red Wings fan, I appreciated the dominance on the ice from the Wings' future, but as an aficionado for all things design, I couldn't appreciate the enormous lack of parity in the brands, something I've been pondering since. Grand Rapids has an alliterative mascot, with an immediate connection to its parent club in wings, and still unique to call its own.

Source: Wikipedia

Up against, Cleveland Monsters doesn't flow well, and the logo made way more sense when the team was named Lake Erie. Without a real connection to Erie, that logo could be from anywhere, as could a monster; what makes Cleveland special? The team's biggest sign of identity crisis is its color palate: it can't decide if it wants to be red as it originally was, or switch to the Cavaliers' maroon (and yes, I know they call that shade wine). After solving that, it'd next have to settle on a primary, with black, yellow, and some shade of red currently in competition for the top spot. I think it's time for the team to take a serious look in the mirror and decide who's it's going to be. Anyway, that's my take. Is it time for a re-brand? Am I looking for problems that don't exist? Let me know in the comments!

Congratulation to Jake M. on taking home the Concept of the Year plaque! It was quite a concept to have set an unreachable bar on Day 1. The way to the top is through voting- take the timeout to vote for COTW, as well as Week 1 of the Season.

COTW Jan 26 - Feb 1 vote (ends Friday @ noon ET)

The Season Week 1 vote (ends Friday @ noon ET)

Do today's concepts match up to last Tuesday's? Let's see...

Avi S.- Columbus Blue Jackets

Today's concepts start with Avi's addition for the Monsters' parents down the road on I-71, with this third for Columbus. Here's an approach I can't recall seeing anywhere, a minimalist approach punctuated by thin stripes. I can see a connection in style to the blue banner in the logo, and recolored to stand out against the blue sweater. Going over the shoulder, and a chevron-like stripe along the elbow, and cutting off on the same stitching as the primary set is just about perfect for Jackets' brand. Taking out the thicker, red cuffs would go a long way in completely selling the theme. The blue collar is missing the excitement from the rest of the set, but since the Adidas template has an unnecessarily thick collar, Avi handled it in the best way possible to keep with the thin-stripe design.

Grade: A-

Dylan T.- 2019 Mountain Series

D.T. takes the AHL outside with a match-up pitting the Iowa Wild against the Colorado Eagles. Starting with Iowa, the blending of turn-of-the-century ideas in a modern aesthetic was handled admirably; the barber pole stripes up the arms, keeping the torso minimal, takes the essence of the older look while not being overwhelming. The Colorado takes the triadic logo stripes, over-sizing them with a blue yoke to keep the white jersey as interesting as its opponent's colorful look. The event logo is solid, though the one criticism I'll offer is the white portion of the mountains is unsure if it wants to be a highlight or a snow cap peak. It should be re-drawn to keep them from being arbitrarily random. I'm not sure why the shoulder patches aren't mirrored to the other shoulder, especially since the event logo is on the front. A major execution error is the omission of the sleeve (TV) numbers: a must on all of concepts.

Grade: C

Lucas D.- Semiahmoo Ravens

From our Semiahmoo competition, Lucas shares his entry. The design is far better suited for the orange jersey than the white. The strong black elements are well fit within the white boarders, much like the logo. Even the collar was filled in with the design pattern. The white doesn't have the same connection to the logo, and the bright orange is fighting the logo and pants, which stand out sharply against the white jersey and socks. With all the stripes on the jersey, the blank pants seem out of place. 

Grade: B-

Phil B.- New Jersey Devils

Phil looks out across the harbor from Long Island to seek out this Devils concept. Usually we see artists choose between green and black, but Phil bridges the two eras, a decision I can't get behind. The green and red look too bright to make this work. I like the idea, but the shades need to be tweaked. Apart from the shades, I do like how the colors are applied, green over red in white boarders, just like the logo. On the logo, it makes a nice transition from the large hem stripes to the thin yoke stripes. I wish the pants stripes were closer in thickness to the hem, since there's no transition as on the sweather. The helmet could use at least a wordmark to liven it up.

Grade: B

Taylor R.- Arizona State University Sun Devils

Our last concept is for the last team to join NCAA D-I, from the imagination of Taylor. There's lots of design decisions here that I just can't find justification for. I've never found the pitchfork logo to be strong enough as the crest. The four thin stripes seem to be one too many, especially since three could have better fit the aforementioned logo. Taylor wisely avoids yellow on white syndrome with a matching maroon hem and lower sleeves to the yoke. The black pants and helmet are strange to see, since nothing on the jerseys related to it. Similarly, the white numbers on the maroon sweater unnecessarily stick out, though the font is spot on for the Sun Devils. 

Grade: C-

The clear-cut winner this week makes an easy nomination for Avi S's Columbus Blue Jackets. Today was another fantastic round of concepts, but only one can get the nomination for me. There were several deserving concepts today, but were any of them more deserving than Avi's? Give 'em some love in the comments, and keep your stick on the ice.