In case you missed it, I'm doing a late-summer project that involves Sleektooning other SBN hockey blogs' logos. I must say, so far results have been pretty excellent. Earlier chapters:
Part 1: Japers' Rink, Raw Charge, Nucks Misconduct.
Part 2: The Copper & Blue, SB Nation St. Louis, Winging It In Motown.
Part 3: In Lou We Trust, Matchsticks and Gasoline, Defending Big D.
I've been a bit swamped this week, so I've decided to post logo designs for only two blogs this morning (though one has two versions to choose from). I feel like this challenge is getting tougher as I go along -- though it may not be apparent from the output I'm producing, there are a lot more drafts and re-designs being drawn and discarded than I'm used to -- apparently I don't like half-assing so much under other blogs' names. Also, some of these are turning into real creative challenges, as I try to stay somewhat original and yet try to capture some spirit of the team.
Today's theme isn't originality, though; rather all of today's designs involve some artistic plagiarism, modified to suit each blog. I like to think of it as a cartoonist's tribute, but I'm sure lawyers have a much more dickish way of looking at things. As such, these really have low probability to become actual logos, but whatever -- two more blogs off the list! :)
First off today is Hockey Wilderness, SBN's Minnesota Wild blog. I've actually had some success in the past at creating a cartoon version of the Wild logo -- it is a pretty fun challenge to work with, and the BoC Legal Team probably wishes I went with one of those drawings. Instead I took inspiration from an old altered Wild logo I once made, except this time I drew it by hand:
There's some good and some bad in this design. I was determined to spell out the blog name using some sort of clouds-and-trees lettering, and that mostly works. Putting the smiley face on the sun might be a bit of a lost joke, though -- that's supposed to be Dany Heatley's gap-toothed grin. The Wild-Brak-combination looks pretty good, though if I were more dedicated I'd redraw it and attach his head a bit better to his torso.
Not perfect, but it's a solid gag that's decently charming -- publishable!
Two more logo designs for another blog after the jump! Which blog might it be?
The next two designs are dedicated to the Cup Champions: Stanley Cup of Chowder. They don't get two designs because the Boston Bruins won the cup, though -- I just wasn't quite sure how to finish off my sight gag.
As a cartoonist, the Bruins are one team I wish played in the western conference -- drawing bears has been funny for decades, and I just don't get enough opportunity to practice it with the one or two meetings a season (I did get some drawings in for the Cup Finals, though). And while I could have picked a lot of directions for this design, I was determined to draw a classic Yogi Bear scene. Instead of stealing a picnic basket, he'd have snagged a Stanley Cup of chowder. Instead of running from a park ranger, he'd be running from a Vancouver Canuck -- how topical!
My Yogi Bear turned out good enough to use twice -- I'm just not sure which design best represented the pursuing park ranger / Canuck. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide:
It's way minor, but one thing I am a bit disappointed in is that I copped out and used computer text instead of hand-drawn text; that's the first time that's happened in this series of logos. I did draw out letters for this, twice, but just couldn't make it look very good. But hey -- it's a long series, and I'm bound to cut corners.
So yeah, it's only two blogs today, but I continue to like them; I think the series is still holding pretty strong. Which has been your favorite of all the designs so far?
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Oh yeah, in actual hockey news, Ducks are having training camp this weekend. I wrote up a short "camp battles" piece for RLD Hockey that was so compelling that it ran first alphabetically -- check it out if you care. I can't attend this weekend's sessions, but I might attend Monday morning -- anybody else going?
Go Hockey.
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