San Jose Earthquakes | Bottom Five Series

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Full disclosure, I had no idea what I was going to do for this logo and had no interest in doing it. With that being said, it ended up being one of my favorites. I just love when that happens. The beginning sucks; no ideas come to mind, you start to question everything in life, should you even be a designer, blah blah blah. Your mind is blank and then BOOM-there it is. I have been preaching simplicity and minimalism and didn't think to do that myself! Follow my journey of how this recently re-branded logo got a simple treatment.

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Unlike many other teams, San Jose Earthquakes has a great logo narrative and a full history about their branding on their website. Check it out here. Here were my main objectives going into this logo:

- Eliminate unnecessary elements in logo/simplify

- Keep some pieces of history

- Visually represent an "earthquake"

Ready with a strategy in place, I headed to Buddy Brew Coffee once again to do some brainstorming.

In Monday's post, I ranked San Jose Earthquakes as #4 in the bottom 5 logos in the MLS. View here

As you can tell, my ideas were all over the place. I didn't know what direction I wanted to go. I decided to work on some other projects and come back to this later.

To be honest, I felt like the logo narrative put out by San Jose was a bit of codswallop (yes I did just use a word from Harry Potter). The connections just weren't there for me, they seemed a bit of a stretch.

I mean I've been there, I know how it is. Executives and non-visual people can't connect with something unless there is a definitive explanation. Which is where we get the whole "axis connects our old to new logo and the ball is the orbit....." yeah it just sounded iffy to me. A lot of times logos are designed with a loose idea in mind and then a narrative is made to just fit the logo.

I decided I wanted to eliminate all the junk; the triple border, random "axis" lines, "shifting plates", generic soccer ball, all of it. Gone. By doing so, I was able to then focus on what makes the club unique, its name Earthquakes. The tectonic plates or whatever those are, don't do it for me. I wanted to make it easily recognizable that it was an earthquake.

Here is my simplified version of the San Jose Earthquakes of the MLS

I was always told by my high school art teacher, less is more. In this case, she is absolutely right. By getting rid of all those messy elements we are able to solidify the purpose of our logo and brand consistency.

As soon as I got the break in the shield, everything fell into place. The three lines on the left represent the three largest communities of the Bay Area: San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland. The red line on the right is an homage to their NASL heritage and use of red for their jerseys and later inclusion into the logo. The original Q is a perfect circle with a simple straight tail, I had to keep that. Finally as mentioned before, the break in the shield represents the shift of tectonic plates that cause an earthquake.

It took some time but I finally landed on a shield that I was happy with.

Check out the element breakdown below.

At first I was going to keep the color scheme just blue and black. Though I wanted to keep that connection to their history, so the red had to stay. I lightened the blue just slightly, as I've mentioned before far too many teams have the same shade of blue in their logos.

Thanks for reading! Be sure to look out
for my next part of #BottomFive

Are you a PDL, NPSL, USL, NASL, or amateur league soccer team in need of a logo? Contact me!

Want to know how I rate these logos? Here's a little breakdown:

• Originality- What makes the logo its own? Does it stand out among the rest, or blend in?

• Creativity- Is there that special thing that makes it stand out? What sets it apart from the others in a special way?

• Color Scheme- I'm looking for 1-3 colors, maybe four, at the very most five, if they're used well.

Agree? Don't agree? Leave a reply!

Real Salt Lake | Bottom Five Series

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Man, this was tough but I sure had some fun doing it. As I mentioned on Monday with the Bottom Five announcement, apart from reviewing each logo, I will also attempt to revamp each logo. Thinking it wouldn't be that hard to turn around a full brand in two days, but I love challenges. Make sure you let me know your thoughts on my re-brand! Let's get started, take a look below at how I started to work on Real Salt Lake's logo.

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If you don't know much about Real Salt Lake you can take a look at this video done by the MLS that talks about how they got their name and colors. But if you want a quick run-down here it is.

- Then owner Dave Checketts was impressed and looked up to Real Madrid in both presentation and management

- Given blessing by Real Madrid to use REAL in their name, DESPITE using Real Madrid's rival colors.

In Monday's post, I ranked Real Salt Lake as the bottom 5 logos in the MLS. View here

and so it begins.... research and brain-storming time!

Off to my favorite coffee shop here in Tampa, Buddy Brew Coffee.

I hate sketching. It's one of my least favorite things to do, as well as to share. My drawing skills are sub-par but the main reason I hate it is because I get impatient and want to take my work straight to the computer. Which spoiler alert, I did have something just like that occur during this project.

I wanted to do some research, and easily enough I found a couple interesting things on Real Salt Lake. What stood out to me the most was that they were allowed to use the Real name, a power-house name in soccer today, along with their biggest rivals colors. It just baffled me! How?! Why?! Well turns out then owner, Dave Checketts was pretty much in awe of Real Madrid and wanted to model his franchise as such.

After learning about that, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to take Real Salt Lake back. Back to the reason why their name is so important. At the beginning they were the sister club of Real Madrid, Spanish soccer royalty, so I wanted to take Checkett's original plan and modify it. Meaning the biggest change is the color scheme, going from red, gold and blue to blue, white and gold. Big changes were in the think tank, but I felt that it was important to keep the shield shape.

Now for the elements, Real Madrid has a prominent royal crown but it had far too much going on. I needed to strip it down and modernize it. At the beginning my ideas and sketches were really promising, but I felt that it might be a bit too straight edged and didn't fit the look. I continued anyways and well, how did it go? Horribly.

My sketch ended up looking like Batman's ninja stars. So I scrapped my idea and decided to take the original royal crown. I had to get rid of the unimportant jewels and details that would be lost when the logo is small. Now here is where I messed up, I thought Real Salt Lake had won a championship. WRONG. They won an MLS Cup, so after finishing my WHOLE branding I realized this and had to modify everything. Cup stars should not be added to a logo, could you imagine if Real Madrid added all of their stars? It would be endless. Therefore I removed it.

I started getting frustrated with the crown. Because there was so much detail it turned out to be a case of eliminate this and see if your object is still recognizable. Finally after some time, I settled on a crown that I was satisfied with. Yes, at first I had a star, but removed it once I realized my mistake. Though by doing so, I think the crown works even better as the star was a bit distracting.

Next was the inside of the shield, which then ended up being my next obstacle course to tackle. I did not like that the R was bigger than SL. It felt as if a foreign club was more important than the city itself. So my focus was to bring it back to Salt Lake city and leave the association to Real Madrid be done by colors and elements, not by name. After trying to decide if I should go with a modern, stylish or serif fonts for the letters, I landed on Cochin, a very strong serif font. I decided that I would use that as the main RSL letters on the shield. From there I worked on layout, how was I going to lay these out so that the S was prominent but not leave R and L behind. It proved to be quite difficult but I think it worked out well.

The shield I felt wasn't original but I didn't really matter. I wanted my logo to focus on its overall aesthetic and not just be based on the shape of its container. I did however want to eliminate one or two of the borders, they just seemed a bit unnecessary.

Remember how I said I'm against the use of a soccer ball in your logo, especially if it's generic? In this case, Real Salt Lake has an awesome soccer ball design at the bottom of their shield. It combines the simplicity of today's minimalism with a royal antique feel and gives us a great soccer ball. I had to keep it.
Take a look below at the full re-brand and let me know your thoughts!

My interpretation of Real Salt Lake based off the colors of their sister club, Real Madrid.

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When Real Salt Lake's logo was created, it was done so with the colors of Real Madrid's biggest rival, FC Barcelona.

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Check out my breakdown.

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Want to see the full branding? Click below!

Are you a PDL, NPSL, USL, NASL, or amateur league soccer team in need of a logo? Contact me!

Want to know how I rate these logos? Here's a little breakdown:

• Originality- What makes the logo its own? Does it stand out among the rest, or blend in?

• Creativity- Is there that special thing that makes it stand out? What sets it apart from the others in a special way?

• Color Scheme- I'm looking for 1-3 colors, maybe four, at the very most five, if they're used well.

Agree? Don't agree? Leave a reply!

The Logo BreakDown - MLS bottom 5

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I'm back and excited to begin this awesome project! Last week I reviewed my Top Five logos in the MLS, check it out here; this time though I will be choosing my bottom five. However, rather than just rate them, I'm going to take a stab at recreating each logo. Be sure to check back on Wednesday when I start with the fifth of the bottom five logos in the MLS. It won't be easy, but who doesn't like a challenge?
Let's get started, take a look below at how I rank the bottom 5 logos in the MLS.

Bottom 5 MLS LOGOS

1.  ?
2. ?
3. New York Red Bulls
4. ?
5. Real Salt Lake

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Well let's jump right into this thing, here is the first team I think needs to start working on a re-brand, Real Salt Lake. I'm pretty sure many of you will disagree but hear me out. This logo has a lot of potential for improvements, for instance the color scheme. The red and blue is a bit hard to read together, I would go with a different shade of blue. I like the yellow, but the outside border is tough to differentiate on a white background. Soccer ball has an interesting design to it, I think if that were featured a bit more predominantly, it could work.

I'm going to enjoy putting my little spin on this one. Make sure you check back later this week for it!

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The San Jose Earthquakes is also a team that I feel has great potential; I feel that their current logo could use make some adjustments. The blue looks really nice with the black and white. However, the 1974 is very tough to read and doesn't stand out against the direct b/w contrast next to it. The soccer ball is a bit generic looking, the lines are a bit angled to give a different look but I would maybe remove it.

The blue stripes are representative of the earth's tectonic plates and presenting them shifted like that gives the sense of an earthquake. I know it's a bit of a stretch but it's hard to visually represent an earthquake.

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It really annoys me that the team name is New York Red Bulls, and feature two bulls, but the logo just says Bull. I'm not sure who and why they made that decision, but it'd be nice to understand. I like how the bulls break out of the shield, though the little hooves floating in the air is a bit odd.

Seems like every team in the league has blue in it's color scheme. A lot of them all being a similar shade as well. Again, annoying, I wish they would have kept the MetroStars color scheme. The color I do like is the random circle of yellow.

This one I sense might be a little tough to do! Can't wait!

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As previously reported by Nick Schwartz while at Fox Sports(source), this looks VERY similar to the Texas Longhorns logo.

Here we see the same color scheme again that is featured throughout the league, red, white and blue.

I get the star, lonestar state, but I'm not sure what the flame on the forehead means.

To be honest, this one might be the toughest one.

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I don't even know where to start with this one. This seems like someone read my blog and went crazy with it. It is unquestionably original, but this does not work for a soccer logo. I mean what was the New England Revolution thinking? 

Soccer is still on the rise in the U.S., some people don't know the MLS, new expansion teams keep coming in.

Now by looking at this logo and not knowing anything about the teams in the MLS, can you tell me the team name?...

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Want to know how I rate these logos? Here's a little breakdown:

• Originality- What makes the logo its own? Does it stand out among the rest, or blend in?
• Creativity- Is there that special thing that makes it stand out? What sets it apart from the others in a special way?
• Color Scheme- I'm looking for 1-3 colors, maybe four, at the very most five, if they're used well.

Agree? Don't agree? Leave a reply!

The Logo BreakDown - MLS top 5

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Top Five! Top Five! TOP FIVE EVERYONE!
The U.S. Open Cup Final has been determined and the two teams remaining are Sporting KC and New York Red Bulls of the MLS. So let's start with Major League Soccer and see who's got the best logo.
Take a look below at how I rank the top 5 logos in the MLS and let me know your thoughts!

TOP 5 MLS LOGOS

1.  ?
2. ?
3. LA Galaxy
4. ?
5. Atlanta United FC

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Coming in at number five is the team I did my first logo breakdown about; Atlanta United FC.

Check out my in-depth analysis here.

Atlanta is the only circular logo to make the list. As I mentioned before, I'm not against circular logos, they just need to be extra creative. I like the bold and two-tone A smack dab in the middle, but what I particularly like about the A is the anchoring of it to the inner-circle. There is only one thing I don't particularly like about this logo, and it is the reason why I didn't make it any higher on my ranking; the two lines in the black circle just seem a bit lost to me. Other than that, I think it's a strong solid logo.

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Another expansion team that recently joined the MLS, Minnesota United FC, comes in at fourth on the list, much different than their current standing the MLS Western Conference.
Three main reasons this logo stood out to me.
1. The asymmetrical shield, which compared to all the rest of the logos in the league, its a bit unorthodox; but that is why it stood out to me. It's different and refreshing.
2. Negative space-I love the wing of the loon(MN's state bird) breaking through the shield and the North Star fits perfectly across from it.
3. Finally, color scheme, the only other team to use a light blue in their crest is the Colorado Rapids. However, I would have liked to seen a little bit more of a separation in tones. The blue is nice and subtle, I think the grey just needs to be slightly darker. 

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The determining factor in LA Galaxy's logo was the color scheme. Personally I am a big fan of yellow/gold and blue combination, but if I'm being honest, I'm a fan of any light/dark color combination. The use of two-tone gold and two-tone blue, makes this logo really stand out. Many of us would have gone with black rather than blue to portray the night sky, but the dark blue does a good job, and with LAFC coming in 2018, it was a good choice. I'm OK with the font, it doesn't scream space/galaxy to me, but what the font lacks, the star makes up for. Not only does the star fill in the negative space above LA, but it gives us the sense of a night sky full of stars.

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Here is an example of a great re-brand. Unveiled back in December of 2015, D.C. United updated their logo.

View fullsize

Source

A perfect upgrade from their old logo. As you can see, they got rid of the generic soccer ball. The new modern eagle is a very clean and smooth. Just like the loon in Minnesota's logo, the eagles wings break from the shield. The only thing I wish they would have done, is kept the gold in the star from the old logo and incorporate that into the color scheme.

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Even though I cannot stand Clint Dempsey, I didn't let it affect my love for the Seattle Sounders FC Logo. Seattle's badge and colors fact sheet tells us everything behind the logo here.

It is exactly what I have been preaching; a logo that is different, fresh and defines its city. Like Minnesota, Seattle's shield is one of a kind, though the difference here is it's symmetry. There is a clean use of negative space in between inside shield colors and outline border. By doing so, it causes the colors, which are officially called Sounder Blue and Rave Green to really stand out. Not only does this color scheme work really well together, but it clearly represents the bodies of water and forests that define a big part of Seattle. Finally the clean illustration of the Space Needle ties in the most universally recognized wonder in Seattle.

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Want to know how I rate these logos? Here's a little breakdown:

• Originality- What makes the logo its own? Does it stand out among the rest, or blend in?
• Creativity- Is there that special thing that makes it stand out? What sets it apart from the others in a special way?
• Color Scheme- I'm looking for 1-3 colors, maybe four, at the very most five, if they're used well.

Agree? Don't agree? Leave a reply!

The Logo BreakDown- WATFORD FC

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Well after I embarrassed myself on Twitter by confusing a moose with a stag, I decided I'd figure out just what Watford Football Club's logo means. RATING: 5/10

The Premier League is back! I have been anxiously waiting for this season to begin. First game up was the thrilling match between Arsenal and Leicester City, with Arsenal pulling away with the first win of the season. Then Saturday morning madness began with Liverpool and Watford.

While enjoying the match, I was on Twitter thinking about reviewing Watford's logo. Since I was confused about the stag on the badge as a moose, I figured I should probably do some research.

RATING SYSTEM

ORIGINALITY 7
CREATIVITY 3
COLOR SCHEME 5
OVERALL 5/10

Unfortunately, the club history page is under construction and so it was a little bit harder to find the details of Watford's badge. After doing some digging I came across some very interesting facts. For instance, when the team was first founded in 1881, over 100 years ago, the team was actually called Watford Rovers. During their rise through the football ranks in England, their team colors and crest changed quite often. Even their name has changed over time, in 1893, after a couple years of internal conflict regarding the club name, it was changed from Watford Rovers to West Herts. It wasn't until 1898 that the name was changed one last time to Watford when rival club Watford St Mary's folded.

From 1927 until about 1959 their colors were blue and white, then in 1959/1960 they changed to a black and gold color scheme. Following a popular vote by the supporters clubs, the team's nickname was now The Hornets taken after their black and gold kits. It wasn't until 1976, that the gold was changed to yellow and red was introduced to the color scheme. Check out their whole history of kits here. I would rather the color scheme didn't include red, but they do a good job using it as an accent color.

The logo at one point included a hornet, however, in 1978 it was replaced by a hart/stag, which is a male deer. Reason being, Watford is located in Hertfordshire, England, an area abundant with deer. Lame, I know, I wish they would have stayed with the hornet. For one, they are nicknamed the hornets, by their supporters groups, because they're uniforms and club colors were black and gold. They have the nickname, the support, the uniforms and the colors in their crest, why not adopt it? Granted a complete re-brand would be costly but I think the change would make a lot more sense. Change their kit sponsor too and I mean the marketing campaign practically writes itself, In order to find our identity we had to go back to our roots, or some crap like that.

A hart or stag is a male deer, not to be confused with a moose as I found out this weekend.

The reason I give it a 7 for originality is mainly for the shape of the shield. We don't see any other team in the Premier League using this unique shape. For the most part, all new badge logos coming out are either ones that already exist or are slightly modified. For instance, I thought Tottenham Hotspur's badge was new, but nope, they used it back in 1951-1967.

If you want more photos of Tottenham's primary kit, head over to soccer.com

As for creativity, it just seems a bit flat to me, not in terms of depth. In a sense that the stag doesn't evoke any emotion from me. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be mean and aggressive, or it's just some lazy deer hanging out in the middle of the nowhere. It would make sense if Watford was known throughout the world as the largest population of deer, but it isn't. And so we are stuck with a simple graphic of a moose-stag, whatever.

I would love to see them do something with the hornet logo they donned back in 1972.

Obviously I mean a version of the 1972 logo, not the exact hornet. It just makes so much sense for them to revert back to this logo and modify it to fit with today's style. The current logo doesn't quite fit the minimalist look, but it is a simple clean design. Which I think we can easily achieve with a hornet still.

This was a quick breakdown but now I'm inclined to try and develop my own version of Watford's logo. Even though I said I don't like the addition of the red, I think I would still keep it in my color scheme, though I might change the shade. The yellow and black are great contrasting colors, so I would definitely keep them. And yes you guessed it, I would get rid of the stag and take a simple modern approach to the hornet and re-incorporate it into the shield.

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Straight to the point, if the stag were to be replaced with a hornet, this logo would be in my top five logos in the Premier League. Hmm who are in my top five?.... stay tuned and let me know your thoughts!

RATING SYSTEM
ORIGINALITY 7
CREATIVITY 3
COLOR SCHEME 5
OVERALL 5/10

Make sure you follow me on twitter/instagram for new posts! @designbyalva or click the link at the bottom!
Agree? Don't agree? Leave a reply!

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The Logo BreakDown- Charlotte Eagles

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Coming off a fresh Championship win in the PDL, I'm reviewing the Charlotte Eagles. RATING: 4/10

Unlike Fresno Football Club, set to debut in the USL in 2018, the Charlotte Eagles have been around since 1991. Naturally the logo might seem outdated, seeing that it's been around for more than 20 years. Now I'm not saying all logos created years ago aren't good; what I'm saying is, an effective logo should work well no matter what design era it's in.

RATING SYSTEM

ORIGINALITY 4
CREATIVITY 1
COLOR SCHEME 4
OVERALL 4/10

We must take a different approach while reviewing this logo. If we were to compare it to the minimalist approach a lot of logos are taking right now, they'd be polar opposites. Remember, this logo was created over 25 years ago when design was at a transitional stage.

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February 1990, Photoshop Version 1.0 is born; graphic design forever changes. Unlike today, Photoshop was made available to everyone as opposed to specialists. So in the 90's we see a wide variety of design, ranging from the start of grunge to the use of simple geometric shapes. Take for instance the Carolina Dynamo (also a PDL club) founded in 1993 has a very simple flat and completely different type of logo for soccer(someone let them know they need to re-brand).

And of course we have the 1994 World Cup USA logo; done in a very similar fashion. Simple shapes, kind of like people were just starting to learn how to use this program. As time went on, more and more updates were being made to Photoshop. Graphic design was constantly changing, new abilities meant endless possibilities.

The introduction of layers in Photoshop, skyrocketed the design world and began introducing more detailed logos. A clear example of this would be Rochester Rhinos of the United Soccer League. Created in 1996, the Rochester Rhinos logo progression shows how the evolution of design has changed in soccer logos. Having re-branded recently when new owners David and Wendy Dworkin took over, the 90's logo has been abandoned and they are now using a great looking rhino logo. However, in all honesty, the secondary logo is much better than the primary.

Now that we have an sense of the design world in the 90's, we can see that many designers were just doing what was popular at the time as well as learning a new program along the way. The only problem is, their execution wasn't quite on. Being that the team is part of a the MAI organization, an organization that shares the message of Christianity through soccer, I just am really annoyed with the orange cross in the middle of the logo. In a typical cross the horizontal line is shorter than the vertical line; but here we have yet again, a generic soccer ball covering up the bottom of the cross.

Here's what I think each element means.

Rather than the shape resembling a cross symbolizing their Christianity, it looks more like a plus sign or a perfect four-quadrant breakup in the shield. It's important to include the cross, I feel it is more important to the team organization than the eagle aspect, I just need a little bit more creativity and distinction to reflect an actual cross. To be honest, I don't think the eagle is needed. In fact, I would rather it be removed from the logo, though still keep the name. Similar to the soccer ball approach, if you can't make it creative and something different, it's best to just leave it out. The lines in the background I'm assuming are globe or world map lines set to represent world ministry. Those too, I would just get rid of them and focus more on the other parts of the logo.

The two stars can go too...

The two stars can go too, which represent the championships won when they were in the professional league. Since they are now in the PDL those stars are irrelevant, but they can include one star for their recent championship win.

I think if we removed the orange outline on the word EAGLES, it would stand out a bit more. I'm not the biggest fan of using two unique but similar fonts together, unless the design called for it. In this sense, I would make CHARLOTTE a simple sans-serif font, and then make EAGLES a unique font.

Charlotte's color scheme is one that I can't think of another team in the PDL has right now. Blue and orange are two of my favorite colors, and with the right shades combined together, you can get a really nice palette going. Though the random orange lightning bolt in the eagle's wing has to go. I'm not sure if that's supposed to resemble feathers or some type of eagle wing feature that I'm unaware of, or the most logical explanation, it was struck by he-who-must-not-be-named.

Joking. Anyways, since this logo was done very in tune with the design world at the time. I figured why not tackle this logo in a minimalist way. What's minimalist? A perfect example is Juventus. You know, the logo that pissed off everyone. But I have to agree, this was TOO SIMPLE and got rid of a very important part of Juventus club history, the badge.

officially adopted into use in July 2017

So I wanted to take a crack at this minimalist era that we are in and reboot the Charlotte Eagles.
Check it out below and let me know what you think!

As I mentioned earlier, I got rid of the generic ball and the unimportant eagle. I stripped this logo down to the main point, a championship team that has Christian values in it's foundation. I eliminated the use of black, and lightened the blue and orange shades slightly.

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By simplifying the Charlotte Eagles to just CE, we can now use it as a monogram, another way to expand on the brand.

BOOM.

Overall, this logo OK for an amateur team, that most likely has a very small staff and can't afford to pay thousands for a re-brand. Though with the USL launching a D3 league, Charlotte Eagles should take advantage and re-brand, especially after winning the championship. It could show that they are ready to return to professional soccer.

RATING SYSTEM
ORIGINALITY 4
CREATIVITY 1
COLOR SCHEME 4
OVERALL 4/10

Make sure you follow me on twitter/instagram for new posts! @designbyalva or click the link at the bottom!
Next week I'll be looking at some more PDL, USL and MLS teams, be on a lookout for it!

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Want to know how I rate these logos? Here's a little breakdown:

• Originality- What makes the logo its own? Does it stand out among the rest, or blend in? They tried, but the use of a generic soccer ball and creative-lacking eagle brings the originality down.
• Creativity- Is there that special thing that makes it stand out? What sets it apart from the others in a special way? The symbol that should have been capitalized on but was poorly executed was the cross.
• Color Scheme- I'm looking for 1-3 colors, maybe four, at the very most five, if they're used well.

Agree? Don't agree? Leave a reply!