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jackkmart · 11-01-2022, 07:38 PM

We venture north

3 new teams, all in the land of hockey; Canada! Having only proposed American teams so far, I felt as though it were finally time to journey north and create some Canadian concepts for all the big-time Canada fans in the SHL (and J). It's only been about a week since the last one but I've been doing a lot of design stuff recently so I easily made time for some new J expansion concepts.

New teams in new locations for the J, although, some may be located very close to other existing teams, possibly birthing new rivalries. Arguably though, due to hockey's popularity in Canada, a sizable city/ region could still easily support two minor league teams, if not more.

Series contents:

Team 1
Team 2
Teams 3 & 4
Teams 5, 6 & 7
Teams 8 & 9

Shorter introduction this time. Thank god.

Branding

The Halifax Expedition. Another team where I'm not too confident about the name, but I think the concept turned out well. This team's logo and name make reference to Nova Scotia's nautical traditions but the idea for the team was originally inspired by the Franklin expedition and other arctic explorations like it. Hence the name. The name and motif just generally work well with it being a maritime province team. The logo itself is also referential to the real-life Halifax Mooseheads of the CHL.

Color-wise, I just picked a classic red, navy, and white scheme which is not present in the J yet is one of the most common colorways in professional sports in real life. Also, I feel like this is fitting for a naval team that was initially designed to make reference to British naval exploratory expeditions.

This team also naturally could be rivals with Newfoundland (due to relative geographic proximity) and Anchorage, as the battle of the boats, even though they both sit at opposite extremes of North America.

Logo time.

As mentioned before, the H mark is based on the Mooseheads logo and serves as the first 'lettermark' logo of the teams I've created so far. Forming the bridge of the H is a Brig surging on the waves. The red is especially bright to create a better contrast with the navy and white features of the logo, increasing the visibility of both the H and the ship.

The secondary logo is an anchor with a Canadian maple leaf at the hilt(?), it's basically a rip-off of the Kraken's secondary anchor logo, but there's no space needle in Halifax so the maple leaf will have to make do. The third logo is a roundel logo meant to resemble a compass with the same maple leaf in the center. You know, cool nautical stuff.

Jerseys

It's pretty hard to make navy, red, and white look bad to be honest, so there's not too much to speak on here. However, these are loosely based on the Winnepeg Jet's heritage classic jerseys but with more white elements, because it looks nice I guess. I decided to forgo any shoulder logos and instead put player numbers on the lower shoulder to achieve a more 'classic' look, it also helps with color balancing.

Again, I think I prefer the away jersey slightly. It just looks nice and simple. It just works. Not much to say, to be honest, this team isn't too interesting, I just thought the overall package looks nice so I made it anyway. Alternate jerseys.

The first alternate here is obviously a Canadiens jersey but with Halifax colors, because I didn't have any other ideas and they needed a red jersey. They both also have letters (or a combination of letters) as logos so it looks decent enough. The second alternate is a slightly more interesting jersey meant to evoke modern naval vibes with a steel-like silver color as a base with the military-esque compass logo sitting on the front. This team is almost an amalgam of the Canadiens and Jets in terms of branding.

Not a particularly interesting team, but, the logo looks nice enough in my opinion so that's that.

Next team!

Branding

The Nunavut Nanook! This team is a little more interesting and in a place totally unserved by pretty much any professional sports, real or fake. The name is based on some light research that yielded the Inuktitut word for polar bear: ᓇᓄᖅ - commonly anglicized as 'Nanook' - also represents the idea in Inuit religion that a polar bear is a form of deity and master of the bears. Originally this team was meant to be represented by a simple polar bear logo, but, I later decided to create a polar bear-man hybrid to create a more unique identity for the team and more accurately represent the name as being both an animal and native deity. There is also a silent film from the 20s which depicts an Inuk man and his family surviving in the Canadian Arctic, so the brand and name are also partially based on that film. I also tried not to be offensive here but I'm not an Inuit cultural scholar so maybe I have done an oopsie, I hope not though.

For the colors, I chose a dark purplish blue and a lighter blue to contrast the white of the bear, these choices will make more sense when we look at the jersey designs. But, generally, I wanted something that evoked a mystical, arctic feel to the team, as they are based on a deification of an animal and are located in one of the coldest environments on earth.

Alright logo time.

So the primary, as I stated above, is meant to represent a man in a polar bear 'costume' of sorts surrounding an igloo-like structure, in a defensive posture. Utilizing Inuit symbology and more well-known arctic symbology to represent the team. The secondary is a stylized version of an inuksuk that is also on the Nunavut flag, that is designed to look somewhat like ice or stone.

The alternate logo is a cheery-looking polar bear head logo that is meant to look slightly 'dated', as in, it's meant to be reminiscent of 90s logos to some degree while also being another logo option for the team. The reason this logo exists will also be clearer when I post the jerseys. So, let's just do that.

Jerseys

Possibly the most ridiculous jerseys I've made so far for this series but I figured a team based in a place as 'exotic' as the arctic circle deserves a unique look. The home jersey I originally planned to be an alternate jersey that I called the 'Twilight' jersey as I designed it to resemble the long morning hours of the arctic experiences in the winter where there is little to no sun creating a not-quite-night, not-quite-day aesthetic of dark blue skies and a very soft light illuminating the landscape. Hence, why the jersey features a line of pine trees on the hemline and a subdued starry pattern on the sleeves. Also, the inuksuk features on the shoulder of both home and away.

The away jersey, on the flip side, I call the 'daylight' or 'ice' jersey, which is meant to directly contrast the twilight jersey. Here the colors are supposed to represent the long daytime hours the arctic experiences with the bright, snow-caked landscape reflecting the harsh sun.

The hemline design, and team aesthetic in general, is somewhat based on the Nordiques, hence why the pine trees make an appearance.

Here the first alternate 'rounds out' the day, night, the twilight situation that started on the home jerseys with the dark purple substituted for black meant to represent true night, or midnight. The crest is also substituted for a new logo that features a night sky and landscape behind the Nanook.

The second alternate is a 'throwback' jersey meant to be reminiscent of the Nordiques unused wolf jersey with the 90s/00s style striping situation and the y2k polar bear logo. The colors are also completely swapped for light blue and silver to offer a change-up from their normal purple and blue look.

There's the reason for the y2k polar bear logo.

That's the Nanook, let's go west.

Branding

This design I've had in one form or another for a long, long time. It was one of the first proper logos I ever did back in my shitty studio apartment in Amsterdam during the Covid lockdowns. I've redone it a little for this showcase but it's largely the same as it was way back in the day. The AvDogs were originally meant for Colorado but I've repurposed them here for Whistler as Colorado is already claimed by the Raptors. AvDogs itself is a contraction of 'Avalanche Dog' which are animals used in mountain rescue on the slopes around ski resorts, which Whistler is (one of the biggest in NA if I'm not mistaken). The original logo design was sketched based on a design on a hat which I still wear to this day.

We've got another 'traditional' color palette here that's borrowed directly from the Blackhawks, of whom I am a fan. Whistler could be a really good minor league hockey town as it's pretty close to Vancouver and both transient and permanent populations of Whistler could get behind a somewhat ski-town-themed team. Just a thought.

Let's get onto the logos here bud.

The logos here aren't anything crazy. The primary is a 'marching' golden upland-American lab in avalanche rescue gear looking very determined and kinda cute. The secondary is a modified avalanche unit roundel logo that is designed with shoulder placement in mind. The tertiary is a simple medic cross mark with a paw inside because why not.

Jerseyz.

Jerseys

As I mentioned, I'm a hawks fan and I drew from their jerseys quite a bit here but still made the AvDogs distinctly their own. Starting with the medic cross breaking up the triple stripes on the sleeves. Also, both jerseys feature black shoulders because it looks pretty nice with their colorway and striping balance. The logo is the only gold on the jersey but I think it works really well on the red and white even though gold isn't featured anywhere else on the jersey.

Alternate jerseys!

The first alternate is just a black version of the home, much in Blackhawks fashion. Whereas the 'mountain rescue' alternate is a fauxback jersey meant to resemble the jackets of avalanche unit rescue workers while resembling an old-timey hockey jersey. The logo here is recolored to be monochrome like the rest of the jersey, the gold would look pretty odd here I think.

Conclusion

Alright, I'm getting hungry and my fingers are tired from typing so I'm just gonna cut it here. That's 12 whole concepts done, we've almost matched the actual number of teams in the J!

Imgur album again!

Alright, I actually might take a solid break from these now. I've made some solid dosh off 'em and I'm gonna probably focus on other personal projects for a minute. But, I will probably make another post in the next month or so.

As always, any ideas or concepts, feel free to shoot at me on disco or in PMs and I'll be down to explore it.

Ok, that's it see ya.

Code:
~1900 Words

Evok · 11-01-2022, 07:54 PM

those are some branding i can get behind (the other were amazing too but go canada)

**brickwall35** · 11-01-2022, 08:19 PM

It's a statistical anomaly that you still don't miss

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