CONCACAF Redux - Costa Rica

Onto a team that has been impressing everyone in Brazil.

The Ticos have a meh logo and meh uniform. I think they have a real chance of being CONCACAF's 3rd super power, based on their performance in the Hex and the World Cup. I started with a new logo. I had trouble getting started. I wanted something unique. I looked up "Costa Rican patterns" on google and it came up with tons of geometric patterns. I made my own, and used it as the centerpiece of the crest behind the ball. On the border, it says "Ticos Contigo" which is loosely translated to "Ticos With You", giving a sense of unity and support from the Costa Rican public. That phrase was used by BlackBolt3 on his Costa Rican concept in the Creamer World Cup and I thought it was absolutely genius.

The kits are cleaned up a lot. I switched them to nike, since I'm sure one of the big brands will pick them up after their results in Brazil. I wanted very simple. The sleeve band is white with a thin blue stripe running around it. I continued that pattern on the collar and socks. I found out a clash they used to wear was black and white stripes. I'm all about adding color to CONCACAF and I thought a Juventus look would look great for this team, and you can see how different the kits are color wise.

CONCACAF Redux - Mexico

I hate to do this on the day Mexico was eliminated(unfairly) from the World Cup.

The crest uses elements from the current, but I made cleaned it up a lot. I used bolder lines, a complete crest shape. Then I used every element from the current crest. The eagle was on top, but I put that in the middle of the green and red to mimic their flags. I traced and cleaned up the actual eagle eating the snake from the flag to put in the middle. On the empty space on the gold on the top and bottom, I put a mayan pattern. The current crest has a design similar to the Mayan calandar that supposedly ended the world in 2012. So I took the easy way out, and I thought it was a better representation without being in your face.

It's really hard to make a bad Mexico concept. You just need to do the Tri part of "El Tri". The Green top, white shorts, and red socks combo is up there with the Brazil Yellow/blue/white, and Dutch Orange kit on the scale of recognizable international kits. I didn't want to ruin the jersey with unnecessary designs(looking at you, Adidas). The home kit is very plain. But under the crest, I ran the pattern from the crest, ultimately gradienting out towards the bottom. The clash was originally all black with the same pattern, but it didn't look good. I slept on it and came back with fresh ideas. I like the idea of a red top with black pants like the current, but I changed it slightly. The red is more pink now, similar to the colors Adidas force down peoples throats during March Madness. The new pattern on the front gradients out at the bottom, but the designs around the crest are darker to stand out. The pink and black really complimented eachother, and were different enough from the green to get me to keep it. The numbers are just a skiny font with a little shadow to somewhat mimic the current adidas font(which i have ut wanted to do my own thing.)

CONCACAF Redux - United States

First is the team I root for, the United States of America

The crest is inspired by mixing elements from crests the team have used. I know how well recieved the Centenial set they used in 2013 was. I wanted to have a modern look, but used the Centenial as a base. The Centenial set had a badge with stars and stripes. I took a similar crest shape(not exact, but it's similar in a way) to use as the base of the crest. One thing I noticed is that they squeezed the 13 stripes on the flag onto the badge. The crests the US have used since the early 90s all have a flying soccer ball. I thought that it would be great to update it and keep the tradition going, symbolizing the trajectory US soccer is going on(-cricket noises-). Instead of USA on the crest, I went with the acronym of the US Soccer Federation. It seemed more professional and exact instead of something cheap that someone would rip off and sell at Target.

The white kit is very bland and bold like the Centenial kits. The red is from me loving the Bomb Pop kits, and I felt that an all red look might be interesting compared to another navy top. I had a lot of fun with this one. I wanted to do the red and white hooped jerseys so bad, but decided against it. I did what I could and put darker red hoops on the kit. The numbers are a simple block font like the 2013 kits, but with a drop shadow. There's also a small crest on the bottom of the number.

CONCACAF Redux

I've been having a rough time being creative recently, and have pretty low confidence in my designs. I think that I just need a few concepts under my belt that I'm really confident about, then maybe I can get my groove back. Here is my new series. The beauty is that I have no time frame, or amount of teams I need to do.

So with the recent success of CONCACAF in the World Cup, I felt the need to go through and rebrand the members of the federation. For the most part, the CONCACAF crests are pretty weak, which are paired with sub-par jerseys. I want to completely redo (maybe) every team I could in the federation.

I started with the logo of CONCCAF. Currently, it's a pentagon with a soccerball in the middle. Check it out, it's subpar. My logo, which you can see above, was designed somewhat simply. The full name of CONCACAF is the Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football. The colors around the ball represent the 3 parts of North America geographically. The top one is red for North America. The left one is blue for Central America. Then finally the right one is yellow for the Caribbean countries. Those colors correspond to their part of the acronym in the script logo. The logo could also be navy or white, depending on the background. I actually wasn't sold on the font I used, especially the O, but the O in CONCACAF is "of" so I thought the least important part of the acronym could be different from the rest.

But yeah! I have some soccer concepts for teams in North America to post for you guys.

Netherlands - CCWC

I've taken a break doing concepts, just kinda living it up during my summer. But I started aother competition on the Creamer boards. Essentially, I had 32 designers sign up for a World Cup contest. Then randomly assigned them to a nation in the World Cup. I got the Dutch, and won my group! Here is the concept I submitted.

The Dutch have one of the most recognizable kits in the field. In every world cup they’ve entered in the modern era, the Oranje has been prominent in their main jersey, and in the stands. I went classic orange/white/orange, rather than monochrome orange, or black shorts that have been used recently. The full body lion remains the centerpiece, with a transparent badge and crown taken directly from the coat of arms. I did some Easter eggs on the uniform too. I hid the team nickname on the back, made the Nike arm pit holes tulips (which are prominent in Dutch culture), and put the crown from the crest on the numbers. The alternate is the colors from the flag, compared to the navy color they currently rock. So yeah, Hup Holland Hup!