By Phil Hecken
Today we’ll be taking a look at the third set of uniform submissions for the Lewis & Clark Design-a-Uniform Contest, for the team known as the “Explorers.” If you’re not familiar with the contest, please give that a read. The contest’s creator, W. Ross Clites will be asking readers to design uniforms for all of the teams in the Lewis & Clark League, and thus far we’ve asked for submissions for a total of five teams. We’ve looked at the “Captains” and “Diplomats,” and today, we’ll see the concepts for the “Explorers”
Two other teams have been put to readers for concepts, the Governors and the Lookouts. If you’d like to submit your concept for either team, the deadline for submissions for the Governors is Wednesday, March 19, and the deadline for submissions for the Lookouts is Wednesday, March 26. Tomorrow, Ross will have a short write-up for the sixth team, so make sure you check back then!
At this point I’ll turn it over to Ross, who will go over the guidelines for voting, and then I’ll be back with some final words before we take a look at the entries from our contestants. Here’s Ross (these guidelines will likely accompany each set of voting):
Alright boys and girls, here is how the voting is going to go for each Lewis & Clark Baseball League team:
1. The hierarchy of importance goes primary logo, then uniform design, and then all rest (i.e. hat design, secondary logos, etc.) Cast a vote for the design with your favorite primary logo, first and foremost. Do not fault someone for going outside the design guidelines. Changing a wordmark or adding a third color is not a disqualifier for good thought process.
2. Your votes will take the field of applicants down to a final two per team.
3. We, the LCBL Executive Board will make the final decision on the winning proposal. However — and this is big — design is never complete and collaboration is paramount to success. We will likely settle on a combination of the final two submissions. We might love the logo of one, but prefer the jersey scheme of the other. In this, you will both be winners with full prizes to ensue. The possibility does exist for a total victory, of sorts. One designer could present the best looking jersey, logo, hat, and all the rest. Do not get offended when your submission gets handed back to you with redlined edits. We hate to hand out homework to the winning look, but tweaks may be requested. It is a studio project and not a math equation; the “right” answer takes some massaging of details.
4. With permission from both finalists, our graphics department will meld the two submissions together (if necessary) and place it in our common platform. This is done as a common denominator showcase for all twelve to look uniform when the contest has reached its end.
5. Someone, not even in the top two, could see an element (such as an awesome secondary logo) appear in the final iteration. We would never select the winner based solely on a minor design element, but we will also not let it go to waste. In this, all submissions could be part of a bigger design team. This contest — and frankly this site — was created to identify the best possible combinations of logos and materials in the sports world. This rarely comes from one person’s mind; we will reward any of those that play a part in making our on-field product the best it can be.
Thanks, Ross. A few words about the submissions below:
Some of the contestants sent one single image, others sent multiple images. Some contestants sent descriptions (in some cases, very lengthy ones), others had little or no description. In an effort to make the voting as fair as possible, I have put those who sent multiple images into one single image, and no descriptions of the uniforms will follow. If you’d like to see all the entries for the Diplomats and their write-ups/descriptions, I have hosted the entire set on Flickr. Keeping in mind Ross’ rules for voting, you may use these as an additional guide in determining which submission(s) you think are the best.
The submissions will be in alphabetical order and voting will follow. You may vote for any three of the concepts below. You may click on any image to enlarge. OK? OK. Here we go:
Bert Ayers:
Scott de Fasselle:
Tim Fesmire:
Mason Fiske:
Ryan Foose:
Kevin Gaffney
Alex Giobbi:
Brady Ivie:
Jake Kessler:
Denver King:
Curtis Peddle:
Bryan Phillips:
Peter Scharl:
Mike Slesinski:
OK, readers. That’s quite an impressive set of contributions! Now it’s time for you to vote. You’ll be allowed to vote for up to THREE (3) submissions. You may wish to scroll up for one more viewing, and write down your favorites.
OK, readers. Your turn now. Make sure to vote for your favorites and let all of the concepters know what you think of their designs! They all put a great deal of effort into this, so tell them how they did (and lobby for your favorites, if you wish).
Thanks to all the submitters — we’ll be back next weekend at which time Ross will reveal the winner(s) and how they will adapt the design for the Lewis & Clark league!
U.W.F.F.L. Spring League
By Rob Holecko
The 2013-14 UWFFL Inaugural Season is in the books. Congratulations again to all of our champions, and we look forward to the fall and Season Two. I want to thank everyone who participated as well as everyone who voted in the games. I know interest in this league waned at times, judging by the amount of voters there were per game from the beginning of the preseason last August and how that number dropped off throughout the year. (It was kind of like the ratings for the XFL on NBC back in 2001 – started off strong and then faded.) But for those of you who did stay with us throughout the year, no matter how far down the Uni Watch page we were appearing, we thank you.
But we are not going entirely dormant during the offseason. Beginning today, and through July, fifty-four prospective expansion teams will be competing in the Spring 2014 UWFFL Developmental league to see what teams get the final spots in Division II and Division III for the next season. The first weekend of games is online at uwfantasyfootballleague.com and you can vote on them now.
Uni Watch News Ticker:
Baseball News: Twitterer @The_Real_Cub saw this Angels logo with a green halo and asks, “Are the Angels gonna wear Green Halos for St Pats?” … Nice gold sanis on the “current team photo of my alma mater’s baseball team. (Eustis High School, Eustis, FL)” which was submitted on Twitter by Jeff Johnson. … Oooohhh – check out this great Bob Feller ad for popsicles (h/t Sully @pal3327). … Lou Spirito wanted to share “a baseball design project I’ve been developing since last summer. In a nutshell, the project is a ‘visual celebration of America’s game’.” He is currently developing a sweeping 31-poster series illustrating the unique dimensions of all 30 MLB ballparks. Check out more here: The 2014 MLB Travel Routes Calendar Campaign; The Ballparks of Baseball Campaign; an Orange County Register Interview; and the THIRTY81 Project shop. … Brady Phelps asks, “Is it normal to see patches this size on a Marlins hat? Looked weird to me.” … Also from Brady, check out this odd Padres ad. … New “K9” jersey for Brewers new dog mascot in this video (good spot by Brad Iverson-Long). … The New York-Penn League Lowell Spinners are making their first run at “an ugly x-mas sweater” jersey, which will be worn on July 24, natch (thanks to Moose Leonard @Mooseburg9). … The Reds have released an image of a July stadium give-away bobblehead of Eric Davis (thanks @Coach_KT). … Check out the beautiful unis Ohio wore for their home opener last night (h/t Eric Singer). … Wow! Check out this awesome baseball team photo from the 1890s in Tempe, Arizona (from Keith Winney), the Tempe Crimson Rims. … NC State wore some pretty sweet stirrups last evening against FSU (h/t @willchitty4). Speaking of which, how did I not know there is a “Stirrups of the Day” tracker now? Is this new? … New Stars & Stripes flag desecration cap for Vanderbilt this season. According to submitter Jerry Lawless, the special unis will be worn every Sunday. … “Who are the St. Louis Cardinals?” (thanks to Chris Flinn).
NFL News: Not NFL, but “some guys have made WFL cards,” writes Jonathan Daniel. “Pretty cool.” … Couple of things from Buffalo Bills land (and submitterEthan Hagen): “Saw this on the Bills facebook page (yester)day, thought it was pretty clever” (since yesterday was, of course, 3/14), and “Also, Bill is short for William, so this seems appropriate.” … Holy crap, check out the size of DJ Fluker’s hands (nice column from Brady Phelps).
College Football News: “I am a graduate of Louisiana Tech University, and today received the Tech magazine which included an article I thought was right up Uni Watch’s alley, ‘The evolution of the logo,” writes Jared Grafton. “It covers Tech’s “state-T” logo since its design by the football coach in the 60s. I believe it’s one of the longest running helmet logos in college football, having gone through only tweaks here and there over the past 45 years or so.” Highly recommended (if a bit tough to read in spots).
Basketball News: “If only it was in color,” writes Jeff Ash, who adds, “Wausau, Wisconsin, High School basketball team, 1955. The stripes. The socks. The belts. ‘Lumberjacks’ on the warmup tops. School colors were red and white, so use your imagination.” Any colorizers want to take a shot at this one? … Nicholas Spiva brings up a good question: Why does the NCAA allow Oregon to wear Fighting Ducks jerseys and not allow Baylor to wear the Sic’Em Bears? Nick notes, “I am not a fan of either school, I am just curious why they allow one and not the other.” … File under: logos you wouldn’t see today – the 1978 Milwaukee Does of Women’s Professional Basketball League (from Nicole Haase, logo found by Todd Radom). Great stuff! … Check out this gorgeous photo of future Senator “Dollar” Bill Bradley being guarded by future ‘Cuse coach Jim Boeheim (huge thanks to Scott Novosel). … Here’s a fantastic gallery of Indiana High School Basketball photos from the early 1900’s to present day. Says first time submitter Derek VanEmon, “Unfortunately, the pictures are only roughly chronological, but it’s completely worth the ten minutes to page through them.” … From Johnny Okray, here are the Wisconsin Badgers “looking good in their new threads. Plus, we have a FNOB for Minnesota’s Dre Hollins.” … Here’s a “fitting canvas for hawkeye logo” (from Tris Wykes. … I’m not a sneaker guy, but Twitter told me our third exploding sneaker in as many weeks was also a Nike (this a Jordan X). … Not sure what’s weirder in this pic: the Spalding basketball or the fact that it’s Lamar Odom dribbling it (thanks to Paul Lee). … Tennessee hoops will be breaking out the smokey gray unis today (via Jason Yellin). … Check out this very cool ACC Tourney Bracket (from Rex Henry), and also check out the entire ACC uni tracker here.
Hockey News: “Spotted these fake hockey tickets from this weeks past episode of the Americans on FX,” writes Andy Sterlachini. … St. Paddy’s Jersey #1: The Buffalo Bandits (from Matt Vaughn). Not sure when that will be worn. … St. Paddy’s Jersey #2: The Hershey Bears will be wearing these on Sunday. … St. Paddy’s Jersey #3: The Ft. Wayne Komets will be wearing these over the weekend (via @EricDeFreeuw33). … St. Paddy’s Jersey #4: The Toledo Walleye will besporting these green alternates today in celebration of the Irish holiday (thanks to Matthew Steven Duprey).
Grab Bag: Sign(s) of the apocalypse? Now the First Equestrian Athlete Signs With Nike. Observes submitter Zach Conrad (and also spotted by Matt Harris), “The horse is getting the Nike logo painted on his leg.” … Not uni-related, but now you can buy art created from your DNA (from Charles Noerenberg). … “I was on vacation with my gf and her family in Ft. Myers, FL this past week and stumbled upon ‘Wolverine Home Improvement, LLC’,” writes Chris Frank. “It blew my mind how many Michigan transplants there are in that area.”
And that’s it for today folks. Don’t forget to cast your vote in the Lewis & Clark uniform design contest. Thanks again to all those who submitted, and to you fine readers for commenting and casting your votes.
Everyone have a great Saturday and I’ll catch you guys tomorrow.
Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.
Peace.
“[I]f you think a sports jersey is “sacred,” you need your head examined.”
–Paul Lukas
Apparently ‘Fighting Ducks’ is not a motto but the mascot. Notre Dame had ‘Fighting Irish’ on its ACCT jersey.
Seems like if the Syracuse Orangemen can wear “Orange” Baylor should be allowed to wear “Sic’ Em”.
A) Syracuse’s teams haven’t been called the Orangemen/Orangewomen for like 10 years.
B) Even if they were still called that, please to be explaining how putting a shortened version of the official nickname on the jersey is equal to putting a slogan on there.
Good for them then. I always thought Orangemen was racist anyway.
The Buffalo Bandits are a lacrosse team.
Currently can’t vote for the Mason Fiske alternative.
Need to reset the poll to zero and add Mason. Great work by everyone this week, but Mason’s is by far my favorite.
It’s been done (sorry for missing him earlier). But the full poll is ready to go with all entrants now as options.
Also, Alex Giobbi is listed as “Alex Smith” in the poll.
Just don’t vote for Colin Kaepernick.
Angels will be wearing St. Patricks jerseys, green halo and a shamrock on the sleeve. Have not seen any green caps, though. All observations from personal observation at Angels Spring Training team shop @ Diablo Sradium.
Can’t pick a favorite: The river otter with a spyglass, or the game quail wearing a hat?
I went with the quail. Loved the little hat on him!
You could put two quail perching on a spyglass. Wait…that sounds familiar for some reason…
Much as I liked the otter, Mr. Foose (and Mr. King as well) *just* missed my podium. I finally went with Ayres, Fesmire and Gaffney.
These have been fun. Looking forward to the rest of the teams.
Glad y’all are enjoying the LCBL contest. I have been blown away by the results so far. We are going to have the best looking baseball league in the country.
A question about design.. If while designing I decide that the hat would work better if the colors were inverted (I.E. what is now the brim/logo color becomes the main color and vice versa), is that OK? Do I have the freedom to flip flop the hap colors? Or is that too far?
Great guys making the WFL cards… I did a few colorizations for the ’74 cards, and did a painting of all the teams for the ’75 set title card. Those guys really love the WFL and were a pleasure to work with.
The ACC uni-tracker is a bit off. Duke wore the hyper elites on Friday versus Clemson — no black outline on the word mark or number, just straight blue on white. The project is really cool though.
Minor grammar quibble with Ross: “alright” isn’t a word. It should be spelled “all right.”
Sorry. That’s one of my big pet peeves, up there with your/you’re and their/there/they’re.
It’s a word. You can find it in any dictionary. It comes from the same linguistic construction that gives us words like “already” or “altogether”, though its origin is more recent than those. Some sticklers will say it’s poor style, but it’s not incorrect in the way that switching “their” and “there” is incorrect.
Like their football team, the Auburn University Equestrian Team is outfitted by Under Armour. I’m sure Georgia’s team wears Nike.
While watching Olbermann this morning, during the highlights of the Syracuse basketball game, they showed a woman in the crowd wearing giant camouflage crosses as earrings.
“… Check out this gorgeous photo of future Senator “Dollar” Bill Bradley being guarded by future ‘Cuse coach Jim Boeheim (huge thanks to Scott Novosel). … Here’s a fantastic gallery of Indiana High School Basketball photos from the early 1900′s to present day. Says first time submitter Derek VanEmon, “Unfortunately, the pictures are only roughly chronological, but it’s completely worth the ten minutes to page through them.” …
Two wonderful items.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but a photo of a man in short shorts grinding his crotch into the rear of another man in short shorts is described as “gorgeous”.
He could have broken his Boeheimen.
Great job on the Lewis and Clark stuff. I love the stirrups on Kevin Gaffney’s submission. Keep up the good work.
I really like how Brian Phillips went in a different, more modern direction with his space shuttle logo. I think the logo works great with the E looking like the exhaust from the shuttle taking off. I’m not sure that I love the actual uniform design, but at least it is different from the typical “classic” look uniforms of everyone else, with more of a 70’s vibe. By the time we finish with 12 teams, how many 19th century Lewis & Clark expedition themed uniforms can you have? So, I think it’s great to have a design break the box a bit.
*Bryan (sorry!)
“By the time we finish with 12 teams, how many 19th century Lewis & Clark expedition themed uniforms can you have?”
I don’t know, maybe twelve since, you know, the entire purpose of the league and team names is to honor the Lewis & Clark Expedition and St. Louis’ historical role in it. It may not be your thing, but you to give credit to the league for its clear sense of identity and a thematic consistency that few organizations achieve.
Having a couple of teams with identities that don’t match the theme of the rest of the league would be worse than having a league with no unifying thematic concept in the first place. Those teams would look completely out of place compared to their league counterparts.
I like Bryan’s style. He has some interesting ideas and translates them well aesthetically into his design. Unfortunately, it don’t fit the stated guidelines of the competition, and it doesn’t have anything to do with St. Louis. I could see myself voting for this design in lots of different contests, but not the Lewis & Clark League contest.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. And my opinion counts since it is my contest. I am glad you understand how rare it is to pitch a “perfect game” of thematic concepts in one league. We will pass on the most aesthetically pleasing proposal in the history of sport in lieu of something that ties in with the rest. Strength in numbers, ya know.
I like the idea of a league with design consistency. You know, like the NFL was before Nike got involved.
The fake hockey tickets were in yesterday’s ticker…also I believe the “Fighting Ducks” issue was addressed by Paul in yesterday’s comments.
The discussion about the difference between “Fighting Ducks” and “Sic ‘Em Bears” was in Thursday’s comments:
link
But you’re right, Steve, that Paul pretty much put the issue to rest with his explanation.
Ryan is killing it with his designs. The woodpecker, the frog, and now the otter have been great. Those so far are the only ones I have voted for. I can’t wait and see what other animals he is going to use for the rest of the league.
If we could combine Tim Fesmire’s unis with that awesome bird logo, the one wearing the hat, that would be amazingly awesome.
Once again, excellent work by everyone who submitted uniform designs. This entries for this contest have brought out some of the highest-quality uniformm concepts I’ve seen for any of Uni Watch’s design contests. Perhaps the prospect of actually seeing one’s design on the field of play has brought out the best in all the contestants.
Spotted on eBay: Somehow Mets coach link on his 2007 road jersey. A prank?
the swoosh on the horse’s rump brings 3 words to mind:
my…little…pony…
link
link
The ACC Tournament bracket has been linked to at least two times already in weekday tickers. Do you even read the blog you write for, Phil?
Peace.
It’s also been updated with more recent results… so there.
Alex Smith, man? You know my last name. But while we’re on the subject:
link
The Milwaukee Brewers also did the St. Patrick’s thing yesterday:
link
And the Brewers new mascot, Hank, had a meet and greet at Miller Park this morning. Complete with merchandise you could purchase!!!!
link
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