0069: Blue Eagles & Golden Sharks

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659 VOTES

Freak Out Friday brings another couple of brand-blending efforts from Ross Taylor. This time around he's focusing on St. Louis and the San Francisco Bay Area. It's the St. Louis Blue Eagles and the California Golden Sharks... or San Jose Shark Seals. By the way, I just noticed that while both the Seals and Sharks logos feature a hockey stick, the mutant version doesn't. I kind of like that. What do you think of these?

Update on Friday · May 4 · 2012 | 12:57 AM PDT by Chris

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234 VOTES

At the request of some readers, Ross has provided full uniform designs for his blended logos.

0062: Brand-Blending Philly and Ohio

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494 VOTES

As promised, Ross Taylor is back on this Freak Out Friday with more of his brand-blending madness. This week he's tackling Pennsylvania and Ohio and not just crossing teams, but crossing leagues. On one side, we have a mix of the WHA's Philadelphia Blazers and the NHL's Flyers. The Philadelphia Flyzers, if you will. And on the other, it's the Cleveland Crusaders of the WHA and the NHL's Blue Jackets, which I'm choosing to call the Ohio Bluesaders. More logo-melding to come next Friday.

0055: Freak Out Friday the 13th

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635 VOTES

I know, Ross Taylor's brand-blending series usually occupies this space, but it's Friday the 13th so we're doing something a little different. I don't think Brian Brideau necessarily meant for this concept to conjure Freddy Krueger, but when I saw it, it did. So what do you guys think? A fun one-off for the Preds on Halloween or a future Friday the 13th?

0048: The Atlanta-Hartford Freak Out

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477 VOTES

Ross Taylor takes his NHL brand blending series to a new level by giving us two teams at once in this concept. On the left, it's the Atlanta Thrashers and Flames being combined. If Ross' goal is to use the best aspects from each design, you can see how he feels about these two teams. There's hardly a whiff of Thrasher at all. Speaking of which, if we have Wild Stars and Rockalanche, what would you call this hybrid? The Flashers? The Flamers? Yikes. Of course, there's always Firebirds, which I'm partial to.

On the right, we have a merging of the Hartford Whalers and Carolina Hurricanes — though, let's be honest, it's more Whale than Canes. The Hartolina Whalicanes? The Caroford Hurrilers? Probably should stop doing the names at this point. Regardless, I'm still impressed by what Ross is showing us with his hybrid redesigns. Even if this one fits the Freak Out bill better than all of his previous efforts combined.

0041: The Identity Crisis Islanders

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723 VOTES

On this Freak Out Friday, we continue a neat series by Ross Taylor. Over the last couple of weeks, he's merged identities of teams from different eras but tied to one city. For this one, it's one team with multiple identities rolled in to one. I have to be honest, I don't hate it. But then I never hated the fisherman as much as other people did. It was really just the wavy striping that got me. Very amateur. The rest of the uniform was pretty solid.

As it turns out, this series won't be ending here. It was originally planned for three weeks, but Ross has since provided a lot more examples of his brand blending. So I'm sure we'll see more next week. But I won't give anything away yet.

Meantime, if what you want has more of an Ohio flavor — say, a combination of the Columbus Blue Jackets and Cleveland Barons — then you're in luck with tomorrow's Winter Classic concept. Don't miss it.

0034: The Colorado Rockalanche

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1083 VOTES

Ross Taylor is tossing NHL history into a blender for a three-week series here on the Icethetics Concepts page. Last week, it was Minnesota and a mix between the North Stars and Wild. Today he sets his sights on Colorado with the Rockalanche — a combination of the Rockies, who played from 1976 to 1982 before becoming the Devils, and, of course, the Avalanche.

Sure, it's strange, but my goal with this series of posts is to demonstrate that the Freak Out Friday label doesn't have to be a bad thing. There are some very talented artists with some very interesting ideas. I hope we continue to see more of them.

0027: Green-a-thon Freak Out

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744 VOTES

There seems to be a sense that concepts featured in a Freak Out Friday post are somehow a bad thing. I want to change that. It was never my intention to make it seem as though work featured here was anything other than perhaps a bit outlandish. Different. Sometimes in a good way.

For the next three Fridays, I'm going to feature the imaginative work of Ross Taylor, whose excellent logo design skills have been featured in the IceHL Project. His goal with this series of NHL concepts was to take history and put it in a blender. First up is the Minnesota Wild Stars — an obvious combination of Minnesota's NHL teams, the North Stars and Wild. It's unusual to say the least and I can guarantee you nothing like it will ever see action in the NHL. But even if it is a little freaky, it's still pretty cool.

Green-a-thon Week wraps up tomorrow with a St. Patrick's Day edition of Winter Classic Weekends. Then I think we'll focus on some other colors for a while.