This is not so much of an unveiling as it is a final poll results announcement.
I wasn't happy with the first round of designs for the Totally 80's Lightning concept, so I went ahead and created a few more illustrations and put them up for a vote. The #2 design won with 48% of the vote. Congratulations #2.
The original concept I came up with was way too cartoonish and thought I'd take a little more time than the five hours I gave myself to design something better. (Although, I'll never please the haters and Lightning fans. Ha!)
You can see the other entries below. (Click the image for larger view)
Not that I'm breaking a story that you haven't seen or read on your favorite hockey news sites, but I got an email from the MakeItSeven.ca/CauseACommotion.com team about the renovation of Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. It looks pretty swell to me. Here's a link to the news release where you can also see more photos of the renovated stadium.
Now, imagine if there was this much excitement in Phoenix ...
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The OHL's London Knights go retro with their new jersey theme and logo. Read the article here. Sadly, no images.
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Another post about the Panthers' possible new third jersey - complete with horrible concept design.
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A new page has been added to Puckdrawn to display all of the concepts for the Grand Rapids Griffins third jersey project.
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It's Stanley Cup Finals time and the drop of the puck means that the NHL Logo Redesign Contest is no longer taking submissions. I will be creating a poll where you can all vote on your favorite design. Once the games are over, the winner gets all the fantastic prizes and bragging rights until next year!
UPDATED: Submission details at the bottom of this post.
Rich Meyers, the Director of Game Operations for the AHL's Grand Rapids Griffins, emailed me today looking for a few good artists to submit some concepts for a possible third jersey for the 2009-2010 season.
The Griffins typically create three "theme" jerseys per season, where they are auctioned off after the game with the proceeds going to the Griffins Youth Foundation.
There does not seem to be monetary compensation for the design(s) that are chosen, but the winning designers would get free Griffins swag, game tickets, etc.
Rich mentioned that if the winning designer actually made it to Grand Rapids, MI, he would make sure he/she was recognized for their creative work.
Seems like a really cool idea for aspiring sports designers and would look great on a resume.
Here are two of the theme jerseys from last year.
Deadline: July 1st All submissions are presented to ownership. If they like one (or more) of the designs, the next step would be to get approval from Reebok and the AHL.
UPDATE: I got an email today from Erik D., a sports designer for a minor league baseball team, who suggested a different look to the updated crest. It was a variation that I actually tried, but for whatever reason, thought it looked weird. I'm posting the image so I can get your thoughts on it as well. How does it rank with the other 4 that I posted?
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Yesterday's post was the latest entry into my Totally 80's redesign project and most of the reviews regarding the Tampa Bay Lightning concept were that the crest was too cartoon-ish. I do not disagree. I tried to give the lightning bolt more movement by adding some curves, but it actually made it look more like something out of a cheesy comic book.
So I went back to the drawing board.
I came up with an alternate crest and made some variants of the new design, which you can see below.
Image 1 - The bolt looks much less cartoon-ish, but looks a little flat on top of the dark-bordered, beveled circle background.
Image 2 - I gave the bolt an outline to match the beveled circle, which creates a bold, less flat feel.
Image 3 - This version is pretty much the same as Image 2, except I made the bolt more compact.
Image 4 - I liked the compact bolt, so for my last iteration, I added one more circular fill to the beveled circle background.
Out of the four that I came up with, I like Image 4 the best. However, something tells me that I may like Image 2 if I add the extra circular fill that I gave Image 4. I may try that later. But for now, I'd like your opinion of these four designs. Are they less cartoon-ish? Which one is your favorite?