MFA Thesis Project : The Las Vegas Enforcers Hockey Organization
An early mood board that was an attempt to create a theme that would be heroic pay homage to law enforcement and be modern/futuristic at the same time.
Initial steps involved sketches that would help flesh out a logo that was appropriate for the brand. These revealed a flaw in direction and made it important to get back to the ideas of futuristic character, futuristic theme, justice, and of course a more heroic bend of the branding.
Vectoring these further reinforced the notion that this wasn't really a great choice this direction was then scrapped.
This was the sketch that sort of came up like gold from the fire, the mixing of known archetypes that had a sense of familiarity mixed together made for a unique and interesting result.
This shield and hockey stick was a interesting choice however the character wasn't going to work with it. The lettering was interesting however it didn't need to be so decorated as this detailing would have been lost at smaller sizes.
A new vector and iteration of the logo was cast however it was a bit busy and needed better contrast for multiple environments such as scoreboards, billboards, digital leaderboards, ads and more.
Timelines never seem to stop so assets were now on the move, at the same time and this wasn't the final version of course, however there was a need to at least put something on paper start working on them.
The idea that the uniforms could have something like a rank on them was being considered. However how would it look to not be able to pay some attention to both officers and sergeants alike this was again a melded hero and theme, why not do the same to the ranking.
The character as a whole wasn't not a bad logo, yet it wasn't clean or interesting enough yet, creating media revealed this flaw and reinforced the notion that another iteration would be needed. Would color help? Maybe moving things around a bit might be helpful too. Further research would reveal a small trick that is used in sports logos that would take this one to the next level.
A better version that incorporates all of the lessons learned reveals a more solid choice. Not too busy, good contrast and uses all of the familiar elements like the background for the lettering and the shield from law enforcement influences. Notice that the star is also present all together in a much more futuristic version.
A new logo and ideas began to come up from the process, this meant revisiting the mood board and the formation of a style guide began to come into the process as well. Notice the introduction of uniforms and the typography change.
This version now had the small white outline the timeline being short helped push this design in the right direction as it was just a matter of reworking the vector image into a better version that wasn't as busy and had the corrected colors to make it a bit more inline with the new ideology of futuristic versus just modern. Notice that the tagline is now incorporated with the logo as well. This was a good version and of course variations of the logo were now under way as well.
Final vision board that includes all of the current influences. This is were the brand vision board now needs to become a playbook.
Away Uniform
Home Uniform
TV Ad Short
The Brand Playbook
The Conclusion
The Project now reflects a much more modern aesthetic look, the branding now facilitates the teams messaging of "Entertainment Justice" with a family friendly edge.
