SportChek Dominion Bowl

Concordia Stingers (4-4)

vs

#8 Carleton University Ravens (6-2)

Ottawa would be a great bowl location, just based on it's location. I have them lined up to host the 4th best Ontario team and the 3rd best Quebec team. As it so happens, Carleton is from Ottawa, which would be a big draw. Canada has a long history with the word Dominion, so it felt fitting to name the bowl in Ottawa that. I just wasn't in love with the "Capital" bowl theme originally when we were brainstorming. The game is sponsored by the Canadian sports wear store SportChek

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I wanted to emulate the red check on the SportChek logo, so I wrapped it around the white base. I did my best to match the font on the SportChek, then put a maple leaf inside the O.

Stampede Bowl presented by Shaw

Ottawa Gee Gees (6-2)

vs

#9 University of Saskatchewan Huskies (5-3)

This game would be played in a big town with a major college presence. The Stampede Bowl is the second farthest west game, and would feature the 3rd best Canada West team and the 5th best Ontario team. Though this would be a long trip for Ontario, they have such a good amount of teams that 6/8 games is bound to have that happen. 

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Obvious cowboy theme here. Originally had a sharper logo with no sponsor but ended up hating it. I used the cowboy hat from the city flag, a red and black color scheme, an old western font, and some barbed wire I had designed previously. Went for a cleaner look overall.

Nike State Mascot Series 2

Three more for you, all done in the past day.

Trillium Bowl presented by Air Canada

Guelph Gryphons (3-5)

vs

University of British Colombia Thunderbirds (3-5)

Originally scheduled to be played at BMO Field, we decided to relegate this game to a lower game and move it to the historic Varsity Stadium in Toronto. The stadium has hosted Grey Cups and Vanier Cups, but is now down to 5000 seats. Guelph finished 6th in the OUA, and BC finished 4th in Canada West. The game would feature the teams ranked the lowest in a game,  just due to the amount of 3-5 teams. We ranked them 14th and 15th, the top two 3-5 teams in the league.

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In the conference tournaments I mentioned earlier, all of them have 4 team playoffs, except Ontario who has 6. I felt the 6 Ontario teams in our system would be able to hold their own against a team that finished around the same in their conference.

Canadian Bowl Movement by the NeatO Gang

Who doesn't love a good Bowl Movement? Whether it's the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl, or a Toilet Bowl, bowl games are just so much fun.

But there is a place with college football that don't have bowl games. That place is Canada.

A basic rundown of Canada's football landscape is this. 4 regional conferences, and no out of conference games. The conferences have a playoff to determine the champion, then the winners go to their respective semi final game. The easternmost is the Uteck Bowl, while the westernmost is the Mitchell Bowl. The winners of THOSE go to the Vanier Cup to play for the National Championship

Up until this year, their version of the NCAA was the Canadian Interuniversity Sport. They rebranded to U Sport. The new brand is bold, and is a fresh look.

That's where the NeatO Gang comes in.

So Matt, Dynamo, and I created the Bowl Alliance. It's 8 bowl games, then the Vanier Cup. The 8 games are all over Canada, and the final would be the day before the Grey Cup in the same stadium. My thinking is that neutral fans would be more inclined to go to the game if it's a whole weekend event. The games would be played on (mostly) turf fields, so wear would not be an issue.

The 8 games will mostly be towards the east, due to the west being such a big conference. So that's why Regina and Edmonton aren't hosting. That, and there is only 27 schools that have football programs. The saving grace is that there is talk of expansion, and inter conference play.

Ok so moving on. This is heavily like the NCAA's playoff system. We have 4 games that I coined the Bowl Alliance. Then, similar to the "Group of 6" games, we have the Elite Bowls. Two in the east and two in the west, they will host the game no matter. But between the two, will rotate the rights to give away the Uteck and Mitchell trophy. Each conference would host their championship game between the two best teams. After that, the bigger 3 conferences would get an automatic bid to the playoff. With the conference in Atlantic Canada being left out. This is due to them having 4 teams, and for their best team to be ranked #10 with a 7-1 record. The team to play Canada West's champion would be the best at-large team, or the champion of the AUS.

So see those logos? Those are new thanks to yours truly. Here are the current.

They're average to bad, so I remade 3 of them!

I believe that's it. So sit back and we will release each game one at a time! Games and records reflect the 2016 season as it has already happened.

Death to the Block S

Pop quiz! What team does the above logo belong to?

Time's up, the correct answer is Stanford, Michigan State, and Syracuse

While there's nothing wrong with the logo, It's hard to believe this many teams got a patent.Anyways, I decided to create logos for those 3 teams revolving around the letter S and their team name.

Stanford's S sometimes has a nice little tree on it. So I decided to create a logo where they're together. I wanted to make a diamond shape, but realize that hey duplicating the top bit looks a lot like a tree. I connected the branches and added a trunk.

I started this concept MONTHS ago. The only progress I had was an MS alternating because I had another letter to play with. I played around with some stuff, and added a nose plate in the negative space of the S. This evolved into a Spartan helmet. The more I played with it, the more it evolved. It became an M-S-U logo,

 This one is an orange

Nike State Mascot Series

Last thanksgiving, I spent the wee hours of the morning coming up with a logo. The logo had been in my head for a few days, and it was a Virginia Tech logo of a turkey incorporating the shape of Virginia. Made it, got a couple of likes, and that was it. I saw it the other day and thought it was cool, so I tweeted it back out.

It was really well received and a few people told me I need to make more. That's what I did! I made the California one a few weeks ago, and the Tennessee one today. They feel like Nike shirts to me, so I'm calling this the Nike State Mascot Series

Feel free to suggest some if you have an idea!

Rays Internship Graphics

Hey guys, big news! After 4 months of being out of school and doing nothing but improving my skills, I finally have a design gig for a major sports team. The Tampa Bay Rays have offered me the position for an internship in their design department. Cool right? I had to work for it, and after the interview, they cut down the field and sent a design test to the remaining people. 

The designs were the following

1) create a print ad for a Kevin Kiermaier gold glove bobble head, and a Rays pennant as giveaways. 

2) create a social media graphic for the Kiermaier bobble head, complete with a custom hash tag.

So here's what I made

Not sure how many people reading this want to make design their career, but my advice to you is to create as much as you can, and create a good network of people whose opinions you listen to. I started posting on the Creamer boards when I was 14, and now I'm 22 and lined up a gig that will surely lead to bigger things.

Follow my twitter @michaeldanger19 if you want to keep up with what I'm making

MLB Color Rush - Reds

I came up with the idea for this one while everyone was complaining about the amount of the ones I was doing. I wanted to record myself making it, but it didn't work out. The Reds have a red jersey already, and a sick throwback look. So what I did was make a red version of that. The hat is white because, that is a lot of red, and Pete Rose likes white fashion caps. Lastly, swapping the Mr. Red Legs and Reds logo on the sleeves was a last second decision.

MLB Color Rush - Braves

My roommate is a Braves fan, and we drove up to the Friday game in the last series at Turner Field. That was a fun experience, and you know what a perfect way to move on to the new ballpark is? A throwback! What I did was make a fauxback to the Hank Aaron era away uniforms. The only real difference is instead of the lowercase a logo, I put a red current A on a white front cap. I felt like I hadn't done enough original caps like the rest of the boys, so that felt good!

MLB Color Rush - Brewers

When I decide on what colors to use, I look up what color jerseys the teams already have. Sure, I could make another blue Brewers jersey, but where is the fun in that? I love the Ball-in-Glove hat, and since it's used so much, I figured it wouldn't be a stretch to use. What this concept is is the old Brewers look with white and yellow swapped. Turns out it is my favorite one I've done.

MLB Color Rush - Tigers

I have a theory that the Tigers should make the grey pullovers from the 80s their home uniform. The current one has too many outlines for my like when the old one is a clean bold look. Anyways, that's what I wanted to start with for the Tigers. Went navy over orange, and then matched the old look as close to as I could.

MLB Color Rush - Padres

I was hung up on the Padres. I knew I wanted to make them gold, but not what I wanted to pair it with. My options were navy or brown. Navy would fit with the current look, but the throwback brown is such a good look. In a series that wants the most amount of color, how could I leave off one from the entire league when so many will use navy. I whipped up a Padres look that's half throwback, half next step forward for the brand that's pretty close to being perfect.

MLB Color Rush - Rockies

Ahhhh the Rockies. For a team that can be the only one to wear purple, they sure as hell don't do it often enough. The Rockies used to rock vests, so I did off color sleeves to match that on these. On these, I threw on pinstripes as well to match their homes. Went black for the cap just so it seems balanced with the socks and the obnoxious amount of purple.

MLB Color Rush - Rays

For my team, I wanted to give the sunburst a prominent spot in their color rush uniform, just because these are supposed to be bright. The motif for this one is based on USF's sunrise pattern that their teams have sported the last few years. The reason was that the Rays have navy and light blue jerseys already, so had to think a little out of the box. The socks mirror the pattern on the sleeves.

MLB Color Rush - Indians

This one is actually a throwback. In the 70s, the Indians wore this logo set. The script and cap logo is probably the best they've had, and pairing them with their correct uniform. They had an all red uniform option from 1974-76, so other than being worn by a winning team, this wouldn't be too different.

MLB Color Rush - Astros

This was the second one I did. Of course I had to bring back the most colorful baseball uniform of all time. So this uniform is all orange with enough of the tequila sunrise uniform to know that's what it's referencing. I made a simple pull over look to switch out the buttons look that the template came with, and the navy bands to help balance out the colors. Don't know how many people remember this, but those tequila sunrise uniforms had a number on the pant leg. That font was curly, and too good not to also put on the back of the jersey. Finally, some stirrups to match on navy.

MLB Color Rush - Pirates

I wanted to break up these concepts to different posts.

Anyway, I'll start with my first one. I've wanted the pirates to do this for YEARS. I think white lettering with a thick black outline makes the white pop on colors like yellow and orange. This is the same idea for the Buccos. Nothing really crazy other than that outline pattern. I created a stirrup with yellow stripes, and thought the current Pirates cap was good enough to use to balance it all out.

MLB Color Rush

Flash back to 2009. My late grandmother was in town, and we decided to take her to Tropicana Field to see a World Series rematch between the Rays and the Phillies. Two things I remember about that day is that we got a baseball card made with her picture on it, and she could not for the life of her make out what teams were which sitting in left field because the grey is really really light.

Baseball teams play 162+ games a year, they have throwback games, and some teams wear their colored alts more than their regular uniforms. So let's have a little fun, and go all the way.

I started a group text chat with a couple young professional designers a few months ago, and over time we titled ourselves the Neat-O Gang. We always talk about doing a collaboration, but this is the real first one we do. You'll see my concepts, but you'll also see ones by my buddies. They'll link their twitters when they post their concepts.

Pretend Nike signed a deal with the MLB for next year. Let's just say they're for weeknight games where the crowd might be smaller than normal. We're going to post some colorful alternate uniforms for all 30 teams, no matter the history. The colored uniforms can be worn as a road team against a white team, or as a home team forcing the other team to wear their Color Rush uniforms. 

So put on some sunglasses and sit back!

Quick shout out to MJD7, I had this idea for a few months but they just completed their color rush concepts and I didn't want to steal their thunder.

Sunshine Motorsports Park

Just north of St. Pete, there is a tiny quarter mile track. It was always known as Sunshine Speedway, and then it closed for a few years. Almost razed, the site reopened as "Showtime Speedway". The site has a small drag strip, the figure 8 quarter mile, and a small BMX course. I felt like this would be a good change from my normal tracks, and add more to the whole thing

So that brings us to below. I would turn this whole area into a functioning facility. Repaving the track, I would do a concrete, higher banked track with asphalt infield. The stands would wrap around the front stretch and turn 4. Installing lights to the outside would improve sight, and To help fans and sell ad space, 

The stands would stack to a plaza area with concession and a 360 degree commentary booth high above the drag strip and track. On the other side of the plaza us small stands for the drag strip.

With plenty of parking available, competitors have their own parking lot with immediate access to the garages. My plan is having as little of a carbon footprint that a race track could have, while still becoming the premier motorsports park in the Tampa Bay Area.

5 Flags Speedway

So before I start, My roommate is a finance major here at Florida State, and our good buddy who we go to races with has a hospitality degree. I have a Sport Management degree, and I joke that we're going to go into business together. So here is the logo for when we buy all these tracks to flip. Trademarks be damned!

But it's back! We could call this the second season of this series. In Pensacola, there's a historic short track. Every year, they host the Snowball Derby in the winter, which is a big late model race. The track surface is abrasive, and I think it would make a nice edition for NASCAR. So to flip this, a lot of it had to do with the infield. Currently it has a small pit lane and a bunch of random roads in the middle. I paved over it all and built a garage to host the cars. I expanded the seating, with a lot of bleachers, just because I wanted to keep the general admission policy for weekly racing series. I did some amenities to help make this track more modern. That includes a scoreboard and a video board. 

Pensacola is known for being under 5 different nations, hence the name. So with that, I would make the 5 flags flying over the west turn more prominent. 

Pretty basic stuff, but I wanted to play with patterns and shading more and more.

Sit tight, I will post another tomorrow!

Two more F1 Liveries

Had these two on my list after thinking about it after posting my last set of 3. So here are two more!

Haas F1 - So with the ties to Ferrari, I think a red livery would be nice. They've sort of carved their own market with white and gun metal, but I decided to make this look a lot more sinister. Not too many sponsors, so I used the team and company logo several times. Finally, to remind everyone that they're american, I put a flag on the side wing.

Sauber F1 - I remember when Sauber released their royal blue livery. It was so different than everyone else's that it shot to the top of my list. After being generally awful, and teaming up with Arial Bold, the look is stale. Since Ericcson and Nasr both are from countries with blue and bright yellow, I wanted to make a statement. I did lightning bolts on the body and a yellow strip on the side pod. It ties in with the Banco do Brasil sponsor, which would become more prominent.

Also I'm so mad at my McLaren livery now, because it's essentially the same Marussia had in like 2011.