You may remember from my previous two posts (or just scroll down to see them) that I have not been doing a whole lot of work lately, and the last three projects have been this fantasy baseball logo. So, a quick recap of the team's identity.
The very first incarnation was the exploding bat. I will admit that it was nothing special; just a decent idea with less-than-decent execution.
This was the intended redesign for last season: a shattered bat where the shards form the letters W and C, for Wood Chips. I got a good bit into the project in Illustrator, but was roadblocked at fully understanding how to read tutorials to make the shards multicolored to show depth in three dimensions. Then the season ended and I lost interest.
Now here's the build up to the new logo. Last week I was pressured (or encouraged, or motivated, or whatever) to get back to work on league logos, so I offered to have a league logo, two division logos, and a team logo mocked up in about a week. One week has passed, and the only thing I haven't touched yet was the league logo.
The two divisional logos are in a good stage, ready to be critiqued by the league. After I produced good-enough projects with those (which might be another post later when they are better/done), I had the new idea for the Wood Chips re-redesign.
Since Yahoo looks like garbage now, it has gone away with square-shaped logos to circle, so last year's logo became obsolete. I looked at the AL West logos for ideas, since every team has its own circular representation. That was my starting point and I sketched a couple simple ideas with minor adjustments.
You'll notice the similar themes in each of those being the text wrapped inside the larger circle, the use of the baseball bat again, and the letters W and C. I really enjoyed the crossed bats (lower-left) and the baseball as the inner circle (center), but I decided to instead incorporate ideas from the previous two logos into this one for consistency.
And here it is.
The ball and broken bat are from the first logo, and the shards of wood creating the W and C are from the second logo. Early drafts of the color scheme had maroon and gold, but I needed something that would blend better with a brown bat. Googling color schemes led me one place, following that led to another, searching for "brown" took me yet somewhere new, until I stumbled on this color scheme.
I loved the blue. I loved the brown. I added the white, and I altered the gray. It was as good as it was going to get.
It is now updated and my current team logo, fitting perfectly into its tight circle. The text is readable on the team page, but not so much on the league page, but whatever. I just hope it adds enough mojo to my team to make the playoffs for the first time.
Keep an eye out for the division logos sometime. Maybe.
