Here is a for-fun rebrand proposal I've made for the Toronto North Stars, who in my opinion, need a shake-up to their identity more than any other team in the league. I've designed a brand new primary logo for the team, a new secondary logo, new jerseys, and a new colour scheme that draws from their history as a franchise.

Why rebrand Toronto?

Since I've joined the site, one of the teams with the most disappointing site branding, to me, has been Toronto. On top of the circular primary logo sharing too much visual similarity with Buffalo and Baltimore, the North Stars branding is almost entirely ripped from the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, in terms of its colours but especially when it comes to their primary logo. The primary logo puts such a focus on the Maple Leaf that the "North Stars" portion of the branding is practically non existent. There are elements of the logo that work great but ultimately the look leans too heavy on the Leafs branding, making for a Toronto branding in the SHL that feels lazy and uninspired. In addition, Toronto appears to be on the upswing in the sim, and is filled with so many new faces, that a new identity representing the future of the Toronto North Stars feels very fitting. With all that out of the way, let's look into the rebrand!

The Branding

Starting first with what I thought would be the easiest change (I had to cycle through a lot of colour options before landing on the final choices) was a new colour scheme. I wanted to pull from a mix of sources, including Toronto/Ontario's history as a region, drawing from both their city flag, provincial flag and coat of arms, while also diving into the North Stars own history as a team, and drawing inspiration from there as well. I played around with various shades pulled from all these sources before finally landing on the colour scheme I opted to go with. For the logo itself, my goal was simple: reduce the amount of Leafs influence baked into the current brand, and play up the "stars" portion of the team's identity. I tried to look at iconic imagery related to the city of Toronto as the focal point for the logo, but ultimately I couldn't avoid using the CN Tower as the focus of the logo, which has been a part of Toronto's branding since its early days as a franchise. Ultimately, all of these influences came together to create this:


The final result ends up being a branding with a much more unique identity, both as a sim hockey team in Toronto, and amongst the other branding in the SHL. The colours landed on here ended up being a blending of new and old, where the blue has been downplayed in favour of a colour scheme reminiscent of the colours the North Stars sported on their 2nd ever logo (pictured below). The North Stars actually still use this colour scheme today on the throwback jerseys found in their team info section! In an effort to not abandon all present branding, the blue acts as a balance between the warmer red and cream tones, effectively marrying the new and the old looks of Toronto to create a wholly unique new identity.


The logo itself draws on a lot of references, no part of this logo is there for the sake of being there (which is something I hate about circular sports logo), instead all pieces of the design serve a purpose. To show you what I mean, take a look below:


- The "T" at the bottom draws loose influence from the shape of the "T" on the Toronto City Flag.
- The shield encompassing the logo bears the same shape as the shield on Toronto's Coat of Arms.
- The CN Tower, Toronto's most iconic structure and a staple of previous North Stars logos, is used much more prominently in this logo.
- The accents around the CN tower are taken from the current logo, both emphasizing the tower and acting as a subtle nod to Toronto's current branding.
- The stars at the bottom are self explanatory, but help to strengthen the team's identity as the North Stars.

Aside from the main logo, the secondary logo again puts the "stars" branding front and centre, while also acting as a space to hold onto the maple leaf imagery, as opposed to fully abandoning it. No other Canadian team on the site plays up the heritage of their country aside from the Steelhawks secondary logo, which also features a maple leafs, so Toronto reserving the maple leaf for their secondary logo allows them to distance themselves from the Maple Leafs branding, while still cementing themselves as Canada's team on the SHL.

The Jerseys

Finally, we arrive at the finishing touches for this project: the jerseys! I've created a new home and away jersey for the team using this new branding and colour scheme, but I've also added a classic jersey to the mix, maintaining some of the current branding's look within the jersey set, as well as a Toronto sports staple: an OVO collab.


HOME/AWAY - Despite looking very different in terms of layout and colours, the home and away set actually follow a very similar striping pattern to the current Toronto home set. The red and blue are fairly balanced, creating a look that truly meets in the middle of the new and the old.

Classic - Not much to be said here, the North Stars currently use a classic jersey in red and cream as part of their current classic jersey, so this would simply replace that, maintaining the current brand's history within the new set

OVO - Made popular in the Toronto Raptors city jerseys (pictured below), the black and gold jersey is made in collaboration with Toronto rapper Drake's OVO brand. The logo is a reworked version of the main primary crest, housing the OVO letters within the design itself, and featuring the OVO logo (also pictured below) at the top of the logo.





And that about wraps it up! Again this was just for fun but lemme know what you think, thanks for reading.