Redesigning Boston, Buffalo Unis

Good afternoon, everyone. First off, apologies on the late posts today (including the new poll), but you'll understand once I explain. See, my girlfriend and I bought a Nintendo Wii today.

Enough said. That should explain everything.

Now onto today's concept art. We'll start with the Boston Bruins, who I believe, already have perfect jerseys. However, I posted some pretty cool concept art a couple of months ago.

The other day I got an email from a reader who shows us what that idea might look like on a player.

I'm not completely repulsed by it. I like what they have now, but this isn't horrible. I sort of like that bear on the shoulder. Not so much with that spoked "B," however.

This concept is along the same lines. I like the idea of brown and yellow for a potential third jersey, but they'd definitely need to use the new secondary logo with it.

That's just my opinion. But I really do think they need that yellow third jersey hanging around for the future.

I don't know about the brown pants though. It might look good or it might be a big mistake. I'd have to see it on the ice first.

Anyway, here's something I really like for the Buffalo Sabres.

I think it needs a little sprucing up, but it's really sharp! I don't care for the horizontal stripes on this sweater, but that logo could work very well if the organization is insistent upon this particular type of bison.

It's a little too monochromatic the way it is now, but with a little color we just might have a winner.

Do you have an opinion on any of these designs? Well, you know what to do with it.

Stars, Sharks Fan Art

Some days I just love the concept art I get to post. I've got some well-designed stuff to show off today that I'm predicting will be met with an overall negative response. But that's never stopped me before, has it?

Personally, I like the Dallas Stars' new home sweaters. I know I'm among the minority on that. But here's something I would consider to be a great alternate in a year or so. I like that the shoulders have the primary and secondary logos. The Columbus Blue Jackets did that for a while prior to this season.

My favorite thing is the fact that it's a green jersey. My least favorite thing is that it has no black. I like the black. I think the jersey should be green overall, but I like the black.

And here's another idea for the road sweater. It's pretty much just an alteration to the striping, but it works well. It's not quite as boring as the current jerseys. I don't really understand the shoulder piping though. Carolina did that and I feel like it just bogs down the whole uniform.

Maybe that's just me.

Another reader sent in this concept for the San Jose Sharks.

Before you tell me it looks like a roller hockey jersey, let me stop you. It is. He said the design was based off of his own roller hockey team's uniform. And while NHL teams tend not to wear things like this anymore, I totally could've seen it back in the late '90s alongside the Tampa Bay Lightning's storm jersey.

Oh and about that, speaking as a Bolts fan, I loved those jerseys. The regular ones were so boring. There may have been a lot going on with those blue sweaters, but at least there was something going on!

Enough about that. Feel free to leave your comments about these concepts. What are you thinking?

Online Petitions Seek New Unis

With so many new sweaters being unveiled this season, you just had to know that at least a few would be rejected by a large group of fans. It's inevitable. So a few online petitions have cropped up hoping to rid certain teams of their new duds.

Right now, 65 San Jose Sharks fans have signed a petition to "return to the jersey design introduced in the 1998 season along with the return of the color grey and the elimination of the color orange."

But one Edmonton Oilers fan has gone so far as to start a blog in an attempt to "revive the Oiler jersey." Certainly worth a read if you feel strongly about the craptastic nature of the new Oil sweaters. (And it takes a lot for me to use a made up word, just so you know.)

Anyway, if you've started a petition or a blog or know of one that you'd like me to post here, feel free. It should go without saying that while I don't necessarily endorse them (the Oilers site excepted), I wouldn't mind sending folks along to help your jersey-related cause.

UPDATE (10/13 7:14 AM): By the way, Oilers fans now have their own online petition, if you feel like signing it.

Introducing The NHLToL Expert Panel!

The time has come for me to introduce you to the NHLToL Expert Panel! Why an expert panel? Why not?

As this site has gotten more popular over the last several months, I've started to feel like we could use the opinions of some folks educated and working in the field of graphic design. So much of what this site is about deals with design. In fact, just about everything deals with it. So we now have five people who will provide "expert" criticism of the logo and jersey designs featured here on a daily basis.

I'll make an announcement soon about what their first big project will be, but right now, get to know them a little bit in their own words. One thing you'll notice is the logos next to each bio. These logos were designed by each panel member and will identify them each time they write something here at NHLToL.

Doug, Watertown NY

I am an alumnus of The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Originally from the Buffalo/Niagara Region of NY, I came back home after his schooling in Pittsburgh and began my career.

Starting out as a Photoshop photo retoucher, I then moved away from the Western NY region to enter the world of package design/printing and now am using my prior experiences to help develop and design corporate brands and identities for one of the oldest names in the auto accessory business. With over 10 years of varied design experience under my belt, I have a good eye for what can make a design work in the market or fail miserably in the process.

A passionate Sabres fan for the last 10 years, hockey has steadily creeped into my household where plans with friends are made around the Sabres' schedule come hockey season. With the birth of my first son coming in January, I am already day dreaming about my boy playing in the NHL in 20 years.

Kathleen, Washington DC

I received my BFA in Communication Design from Buffalo State College in August 2006. Admittedly, I am a fairly recent convert to hockey fandom, but always admired hockey logos from afar.

I am an expert (or think I am) because of my chosen field, and being exposed to hockey growing up in Buffalo NY. I understand the great tradition of this sport, and believe out of all of the "Big 4" sports, team logos are most visible in hockey.

Drew, Buffalo NY

I am a freelance web and graphic designer residing in Buffalo, New York. I've done design work for the Official Buffalo Comicon, M&T Bank Corporation, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, as well as logo and flyer designs for local bands, movies, and events.

I'm a lifelong Sabres fan, who infamously ran the Fix the Logo campaign, protesting the "slug" logo design now (dis)gracing the Buffalo Sabres uniforms and merchandise everywhere. For the record, I still buy nothing but vintage logo stuff.

I'm a lifelong comic book fan and collector, and I think that the colorful costumes and iconic symbols of some of my four-color heroes influenced my interest in sports uniforms and logo design. I am also a guitarist, song writer, sometimes actor, sometimes writer, and aspiring craft brewer. Cheers everyone!

Lindsey, Las Vegas NV

I was born and raised in Southern Oregon and I moved to Las Vegas a little over three years ago to get my Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design at The Art Institute of Las Vegas. I have years of training in visual arts, corporate identity, advertising and marketing, and print publication. Graphic Design is as much about the science of how the viewer's brain sees an image as how they react emotionally to what they observe.

But first and foremost, I'm a huge hockey fan and I have been nearly my whole existence. Pens for life!

Ryan, Portage La Prairie MB

Hello everyone. I am your neighbor from the north. I am very excited to be included on this expert panel and cant wait to bring you my opinions and help make this site even better. I have been doing Photoshop for about a half a year and have been taking graphic design courses. I think I will be a good fit and will bring a lot of strong opinions and can be a good critic when choosing the best in the NHL when it comes to jerseys and logos.

So there they are. I hope you all enjoy the diverse input from Doug, Kathleen, Drew, Lindsey and Ryan here at the NHL Tournament of Logos. As you can see, they have their favorite teams, but don't worry, they won't let that get in the way of their actual design analysis.

You will get to see some of their first "critiques" this weekend along with the announcement of their new project. We all look forward to your feedback.

Just To Freak You Out X

It's like watching a trainwreck. It's horrible, but there's just something about it that prevents you from looking away. There's all manner of scary stuff out there and now I'm bringing some of it straight to you on another Freak Out Friday. Here goes.

I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't start with this one.

It shouldn't take you more than a second to realize the designer was trying to offer us something different for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Leafs fans, I really want to hear from you on this one.

We've got a brand new logo with a very prominent "M" worthy of perhaps a place like Minnesota — or Montreal! And that leaf! Don't look it in the eye or it will cut you. Deep.

Even the second shade of blue worries me some. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this, but let's just say it's not great.

Anyway, I'd like to move along now because I can't take looking at this anymore. There's a point when doing this to a team like the Leafs starts to hurt.

Once again, Leafs fans, please comment.

Speaking of prominent letters in place of actual logos, I've got a pair of concepts from each coast.

Cleverly, though, we can't know exactly what these letters stand for as alliteration was employed to mask it. Is the "S" for San Jose or Sharks? And is the "B" for Boston or Bruins? Perhaps, the ultimate question is why dump perfectly good logos for these two teams in favor of members of the alphabet?

Even more disturbing is that "S" keeps reminding me of the Minnesota North Stars. Make it stop.

Each of those were delivered to me with a road sweater design to match. I wouldn't do that to you, though.

Here's what concerns me, though. I've been send a number of logos which have been converted to red and black for no apparent reason. Do any of these work?

It may be that the blood-in-the-water shark is the scariest one. I do see what's going on, though with the Hurricanes colors on the Whalers logo and the old Sabres colors on the new logo — but that doesn't make it any better.

I'm still worried about the killing to follow.

I'll wrap things up today with the thing that might frighten you the most. Did you ever get to feeling like that Rbk EDGE New York Islanders jersey reminded you of something? Perhaps you couldn't quite put your finger on it. But maybe it evoked feelings of being lost. In the ocean.

One reader thought so and sent in this.

If you wanted to know what they were thinking when designing the new Isles uniforms, now you do. Don't you wish you didn't?

So there it is. Another in the Freak Out series is behind us. I'm looking forward to next week. In the meantime, I await your crazy concept art. You can send it to me at nhllogos@gmail.com.

Fantasy Update: New Additions

I've got a quick update on the NHLToL fantasy hockey team if you're interested.

I added Scott Walker and Joffrey Lupul to the offense. Unfortunately though, idiot that I am, benched Lupul in favor of Martin Gelinas last night. Lupul was the only guy on my roster to get any points and every member of the team played last night. Disappointing.

But then I also benched Prospal for Staal last week and that came back to bite me as well when Prospal scored twice and Staal was a minus-2. I never claimed to be any good at this.

Anyway, I also added Pavel Kubina to the blue line and dropped Paul Mara. I also got rid of Steve Sullivan since it's anyone's guess as to when he'll actually be back. Plus I realized I had too many Predators on the team.

I've been reading your comments and I really appreciate the advice. Keep it coming.

I still feel like I need an upgrade on defense. I'm thinking about dumping Bieksa and/or Jovanovski. The top players available are Paul Mara, Roman Hamrlik, Tom Poti, Ruslan Salei, Jaroslav Spacek, and Brendan Witt. What do you think?

The team's currently 4th place in the 11-team league, 12 points behind the leader.

By the way, check out Poolhardy: A Guide to NHL Fantasy Pools if you've got the time. It's got some great tips and the writer, Carlo, is the commissioner of my league.

Loading Up On Oil Art

With all the turmoil over the new Rbk EDGE jerseys of the Edmonton Oilers, the concept art has been arriving by the ton. Lots of people have suggestions for improvements and I'm all ears (and eyes). I figured I'd take a moment a share some of it with you.

By far, one of my favorite Oilers concepts. My only problem is with the lack of color. The Detroit Red Wings can pull off uniforms with just one color but nobody else can even come close. Blue by itself is boring. I see the silver there but it needs a color to make it stand out. I'd recommend copper.

But other than that, in terms of logo design, I'm a big fan. I even like the alternate logo used on the jersey on the right. The Oil would be in a bit better shape if they had something like this to wear every night.

Here are a couple of other options. But the copper and red usage here has me a bit thrown. I think they are good colors when used in moderation on this sweater. They're fine as stripes, but let's not go making huge panels with those colors. I do, however, like the shoulder logo used. Sharp colors and sharp design.

And finally we have this, featuring a logo, I believe, stolen from the Tulsa Oilers of the Central Hockey League. The striping I could deal with. The logo, not so much. This is the NHL.

And that's that. What do you think of these? Any winners for Edmonton or do they need to go back to the drawing board? Remember, if you have any concept art you'd like to submit, please email it to nhllogos@gmail.com

Experts Coming Soon...

Just wanted to give you guys a heads up. Very soon I will be announcing the NHLToL Expert Panel. The panel will consist of five members who will share their expert design opinions with you in the coming months here at NHLToL. Should be exciting times!

AskMen.com Recommends NHLToL

Ran across something really cool today. A couple of weeks ago, NHLToL was selected as the Yahoo! Pick of the Day. Well if you didn't think that was cool enough, just ask men.

Really.

AskMen.com chose the NHL Tournament of Logos today as one of the "best and coolest sites around" in their daily feature.

I'm always floored by stuff like this. It's so cool. The best thing is that we were given a 9/10 rating by the site.

My thanks go out to whoever recommended NHLToL to them. Hope you guys all continue to enjoy it!

Odd Art, Part II

First off, if you missed Part I then click here. Now that you know what's going on, let's dive right in. You know you like the weird stuff I post here.

We'll get things going with some imaginative Original Six designs.

Let me begin by saying the new Bruins jersey is not something you'd be wanting to mess around with. Trust me. It's that awesome. Now, as far as this concept goes, history has taught me that logos like this were probably not originated by the creator of the jersey design itself. If anyone would like to explain from where this particular Bruins logo is derived, leave a comment.

The Rangers jersey is interesting because there's actually a logo on it. A novel concept, not exactly, but it's something I feel the Rangers have struggled with. The 1970s taught us that this might not be the best use of the logo. I'm also concerned about the whole Broadway Blueshirts thing. For those of you lacking the ability to tell one color from another, that is red.

I will say this though, I am a huge proponent of the Lady Liberty logo and those jerseys. They've used a blue one and a white one and both looked better than anything the Rangers have ever worn. I might even go so far as to say it's the best any team has ever worn. But my suggestion to the Rangers is go with the NYR logo full time, and save the current sweater as a third jersey — beginning next season of course.

But who would want to listen to me anyway?

I haven't yet been able to fully grasp what's going on here but near as I can figure, we're looking at a couple of concepts for the Dallas Stars/Minnesota North Stars franchise. I get the shooting star thing in the one on the left, but I really can't work out what's going on in the one on the right. If you have any ideas I'd be happy to hear them. Comment away.

But that's not all. I'll leave you with one more today.

I understand what the designer is trying to do here, but I don't think the "P" in the real logo is that difficult to see. It doesn't jump out at you, but it shouldn't. Logos are meant to be looked at over and over again, so they're more effective when you discover something new every time you see it.

I know a lot of folks would disagree with me on that, but I think it's the reason the Minnesota Wild's logo is so spectacular.

But back to this. The striping is not great and the logo doesn't really need a change. But I feel like an ass for having nothing good to say about it. It's not like it's the worst thing in the world, I'm only thinking that Philly fans would revolt.

But that's all just my opinion. Feel free to share yours below.

And if you or someone you know has been afflicted by the concept art disease and would like help with public dissemination, you know how to reach me. Send an email to nhllogos@gmail.com.