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8/10/2020 11:46 pm  #1


The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

Hey, everyone! Today I decided to work on something that had been in my mind for while, a concept based on the idea that Charlotte was granted an MLB expansion team in the late '70s/early '80s and this is how they looked in modern times. I wanted to work on the classic Expos/North Stars/Atlanta Flames style of logos, clean, simple, and bold. Of course, this team would've been formed before the NBA's Hornets, meaning the teal revolution might not have been started in the 90s and possibly leading the entire sports world down a different aesthetic path. Either way, here's the logo sheet!



Like I said, the primary is clean and bold, a basic hornet shape in yellow and black. The secondary is the hornet in a roundel with "Charlotte Hornets" spelled around it in the vein of the Astros or Athletics. The throwback logo is from the 1957 Charlotte Hornets, who won the Southern League that year and featured a large hornet's nest on their jerseys. (The image I used to create the hornet's nest as well as excellent reference material comes from 
this site, my go-to for some fun facts about Charlotte baseball.) The primary shows up on the caps, while the wordmark is a simple rounded font I found fitting for the rounded logo. 



The home and road jerseys are pretty simple. As is Charlotte tradition, the home uses pinstripes, while the road forgoes them in favor of the "bee striping", a pattern that will be seen on every other modern jersey. It consists of a yellow block on the sleeve with three black stripes, just like the primary. The number font is a classic block, though I initially wanted a rounded number font to match everything else. On the sleeve of the home is the secondary, while the primary alone graces the road. The pants striping on the road is yellow/black/yellow, while the socks maintain the three black stripe motif. 



The two alts are essentially color swaps of the road, with some slight adjustments. The home alt is yellow and features a modified secondary for better legibility. This logo and the white striped pants are the only places where yellow touches white outside the MLB logo. The road alt is black with no outlines, mostly forgoing white except on the secondary. 



This is where it gets fun. The all-yellow is a fauxback/throwback/I haven't really decided yet, taking inspiration from the Rays' fauxback (which I adore, by the way). It features an entirely yellow jersey, from the hat to the socks. It's a pullover, and the three-stripe motif runs while here, found on the pants, "belt", sleeves, and collar. The socks this time are yellow with black stirrups, continuing the wild trendy look of the alt. The numbers are Futura Condensed ExtraBold, while the wordmark and NOB are Bauhaus 93. The wordmark features a "dropped" s with a hornet speeding out from it, leaving a white trail behind him. The throwback is a complete reaction of the 1957 SL champions Charlotte Hornets, at least, as close as I could get. It's a bit difficult to determine colors when every picture is in black and white. The Ebbets Field Flannels 1956 replica helped a bit, but I wanted to throw back to the champs, so I needed to do a bit more digging. As far as I could tell, the team (who was a Senators farm team at the time) used navy and red, though the red wasn't what Washington used. The cap was a Tuscan-style C, I believe outlined in white, while the jersey forgoes a wordmark for a massive hornet's nest, plastered right over the heart. The socks were hard to place, but I settled on plain navy. The belt I also assumed was navy, as well as the pinstripes. In what was a bit of a lucky break, it seems the number font matched what I was already using. The #3 is in honor of Harmon Killebrew, a Hall of Fame who played for the Hornets in '56 en route to a Hall of Fame career with the Senators/Twins. 

So, what do you think? C&C Appreciated!

 

8/16/2020 10:45 pm  #2


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

The teal revolution would never have happened?

This cup has something to say about that.




Inmate and Official Riot Provoker of the AHSylum
 

8/18/2020 11:24 am  #3


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

It's a shame you haven't gotten any feedback on this yet. Fantastic presentation, ala SFGiants58 if I recall.

I think it's a good looking set overall. I think a yellow primary scheme is tough to pull off. My main critique is that the yellow is too bright and soft for a primary color but works amazingly well when paired on the black. I feel it doesn't offer enough contrast when not on the black. I'd be super curious to see this set with something closer to a Saints-esque or Steelers-esque gold. It's a solidly designed set. I like the roundel a lot. The hornet's nest on the throwback is a little large for my taste.

I think if you keep the color scheme, you'd have to significantly thicken the outlines for contrast, but that will be tough to do with the current font set, which I like a lot.

Nice work!



AHS Admin. Creator of the THL, PUCH, WHA: Redux and Retroliga.
 

8/18/2020 11:51 am  #4


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

Steelman wrote:

It's a shame you haven't gotten any feedback on this yet. Fantastic presentation, ala SFGiants58 if I recall.

I think it's a good looking set overall. I think a yellow primary scheme is tough to pull off. My main critique is that the yellow is too bright and soft for a primary color but works amazingly well when paired on the black. I feel it doesn't offer enough contrast when not on the black. I'd be super curious to see this set with something closer to a Saints-esque or Steelers-esque gold. It's a solidly designed set. I like the roundel a lot. The hornet's nest on the throwback is a little large for my taste.

I think if you keep the color scheme, you'd have to significantly thicken the outlines for contrast, but that will be tough to do with the current font set, which I like a lot.

Nice work!

It's funny you say that, I actually have gotten a lot of solid feedback, just on CCSLC, haha. Anyway, I worked through several iterations that should meet your criticisms. (And yeah, I was trying to channel a bit of SFG58 while working, the presentation is part of that, lol.)

Here's the final set:








The color scheme shifted naturally from yellow and black to gold and maroon, which closer resembles an actual hornet and also doesn't burn your eyes when you look at it. Of course, an issue with gold and a dark color is the inventible Pittsburgh comparisons, which is where maroon comes in to help. Because gold is dominant over maroon, it creates a unique color hierarchy among the Big 5. The hornet logo itself evolved to be put in a roundel, while I introduced a new winged C logo for the alt cap. That said, the old hornet and colors remain on the fauxback, which I feel should be appropriately obnoxious. The fauxback itself received a bit of tweaking, adjusting the trail from the 's' to the hornet to make it look better. As for the throwback, the nest actually was that big.

(Photo of the 1956 Hornets, featuring Harmon Killebrew in the center. The '57 jerseys didn't change.)

I'm really proud of how the set changed with feedback, I think I've come away with a brand that could fit right in with the majors.

     Thread Starter
 

8/18/2020 12:13 pm  #5


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

Oh yeah, big time changes and improvements. It definitely stands unique now. I've always like maroon and gold. I've always liked red pinstripes too. I like the new logo set a lot. Nice job!



AHS Admin. Creator of the THL, PUCH, WHA: Redux and Retroliga.
 

8/18/2020 1:12 pm  #6


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

Steelman wrote:

Oh yeah, big time changes and improvements. It definitely stands unique now. I've always like maroon and gold. I've always liked red pinstripes too. I like the new logo set a lot. Nice job!

I agree.  I like the final set a lot. The color scheme would be unique to MLB.  I suppose the closest teams would be Arizona and St. Louis and they aren't even close to close. Of course you are going to want to include black and yellow somehow cause of Hornets but you don't overdo it. Nice work.


 
 

8/18/2020 3:42 pm  #7


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

Steelman wrote:

Oh yeah, big time changes and improvements. It definitely stands unique now. I've always like maroon and gold. I've always liked red pinstripes too. I like the new logo set a lot. Nice job!

Thank you! I'd consider this to be one of my strongest sets, I enjoyed the process. I thought if I could establish an identity for the team I could design a better brand for it, which I finally achieved by thinking about it like this (ignore the old colors):


I could think of the set as an updated original, not quite as simple but still timeless and mature.

Gritty wrote:

I agree.  I like the final set a lot. The color scheme would be unique to MLB.  I suppose the closest teams would be Arizona and St. Louis and they aren't even close to close. Of course you are going to want to include black and yellow somehow cause of Hornets but you don't overdo it. Nice work.

Thanks a ton! The colors wouldn't just be unique to MLB, but almost all of sports. The closest are WFT and University of Minnesota, and I believe both emphasis maroon/burgundy over gold, while I do the opposite. I figured it would be clever if the fauxback included the original colors, since jerseys from that era are generally loud and bright, just like the colors. I think gold and maroon is a nice twist on black and gold, while also resembling a hornet. 

I presented five different options for CCSLC after I tried it with maroon, with black, dark maroon, a middle maroon, the lightest maroon (what I ended up choosing), and WFT burgundy. The new gold I selected worked really well with black, but the uniqueness of maroon made me go with it.

Last edited by QCS (8/18/2020 3:43 pm)

     Thread Starter
 

8/18/2020 3:51 pm  #8


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

Of all the color schemes there I prefer the far right burgundy



 

8/18/2020 4:39 pm  #9


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

I think you should just stick with black and yellow.




Inmate and Official Riot Provoker of the AHSylum
 

8/18/2020 4:59 pm  #10


Re: The Charlotte Hornets Baseball Team

I actually prefer #2, the burgundy most to the left.



2x Alt Champion :: AltLB Champion Oklahoma City Bison - 2022 :: AltFL Champion New York Emperors - 2022

 

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