Premier League Number Concept

So the Premier League is halfway through a season with their new great bold branding. The numbers are the only thing that didn't change, which is weird because they still feature the old full body lion. I'm not sure what the point is but they have to be working on something for next year.

Couple of take aways from the branding is that there are two versions of the lion logo, which makes the mane of the lion the darker bit whether on light or dark. Theoretically it would be easy since there are 5 colors used, and each one really only works on either light OR dark kits.

Their branding features this big lightning bolt thing, which is featured here.

Making me want to try and use it in some way. So here is what I came up with below.

The bolt is  in the same position on every number, and would make it uniquely Premier League. Major  League Soccer has a stroke going across the number, so it was done in the same vain. Let me know what you guys think, and feel free to post your own if you want!

Quick little revision with thin numbers

Puerto Rican Soccer League

So a little background into this project. Football Manager is a great game, and the Editor program that comes with it is also great. Last winter, I figured it out, and created a mod where I could do Promotion/Relegation in the US leagues. I picked Puerto Rico FC for the sole purpose of using the youth system to make Puerto Rico a better national team. Bayamon FC was a semi pro team that was in the lower leagues, so I could use them to get first team minutes.

It is really hard with 2 teams to do this. The in-game editor lets you pull up any player, and edit them to your liking, essentially. This includes moving to other teams. I not only was a successful manager, but basically acted as a pimp/commissioner trying to get players to places where they could actually play. There were a handful of independent teams in Puerto Rico, who weren't attached to a league. I used them to try and keep players for 3 years to gain citizenship. I didn't play long enough to see many players not on my team gain citizenship and get called up to the national team.

Fast forward to last week. I was playing a different save and wanted to check editor for something. I ended up looking to see how many teams were based in Puerto Rico. The answer is 25. That's not entirely too many for one league. I moved Bayamon FC to the league, who were marked as a US team since they're in our pyramid. I figured a super league consisting of the 14 Liga Nacional de Fútbol de Puerto Rico, the 7 independent teams, and any other team that I could find. The teams play everyone once, then the league splits, and the two sets of 13 plays another round against each other. The total of 37 games is around the amount most leagues play.

I started adding to the logos that already existed in a massive logo file someone put together. There were teams with blurry logos, there were teams with bad logos, and there were teams where I couldn't  even find logos for.

My goal in this save is to become the Puerto Rican national team manager, just to remain impartial. The job opened in 2017, but I wasn't considered because I didn't have experience. One team fired their coach 4 games in, I took over and finished 3rd in the league. So the league is in it's offseason and I'm thinking that there are a lot of really bad logos. In previous FM saves, I've had my concepts as the graphics in game, and it just didn't feel as immersed. But I felt that if I replaced them all, I could really make the game better.

Here are the current logos in order

Quintana, Bayamon, Maunabo, Roosevelt, Rio Piedras, Spartans, Vega Alta, Puerto Rico United, River Plate PR, Criolles Caguas, Carolina Giants, Fluminese, Huracan, Sevilla PR, Tornados de Humacao, Atletico San Juan, Guayama, Yabucoa, Brazilian Soccer Academy, EFBR, Isabela, Leones, Koricanacha, Universitarios, Fenix, and finally Yabucoeña.

As you can see, there isn't a lot of great logos here. I wanted to place them on a map, and ended up making little icons for a google map. I based my logos after of Spanish teams, mostly. Their logos are so simple and wording isn't necessary. So without further adieu, here is the league.

NO CHANGES

Couple of teams with logos that would hold up.

Bayamon

 River Plate

 Roosevelt

 Sevilla

Quintana

Then the rest

Criolles de Caguas - My team. They have an Italian style crest now, so I deleted some initials, and put a fleur de lis in because Criolles translates to Creoles

BSA - A mash up of Manchester United and Chelsea, with a little bit of Brazilian national crest.

Gigantes de Carolina - The city's flag has some of those shapes featured in the flag of Brittany, so I matched the flag, and put a crown on the top.

EFBR - There isn't much about this team I can find out, other than the logo having a sword on it.

Fenix SC - I love these colors together, and it was just a matter of making a phoenix logo to throw on a crest.

Fluminese - I made this crest the same as their "parent" club, but with the C as a G.

Guayamo FC - For the team whose name is spelled wrong on the game, their crest is pretty simple with a badge and their initials.

Tornados de Humacao - The crest of the city has a bundle of arrows, and the flag is the same pattern as the crest. I threw an H and the year on for good measure.

Caguas Huracan FC - My favorite logo. I used a free font I found on a diamond, and threw some geometric hurricanes on there. 

Isabela - Their crest features a lot of gradients, a rooster, and stripes. I did a similar look to Bradford City using the rooster that is on the city's crest.

Koricancha - The only thing I could use for this team was their city's flag, so I repurposed an Adelaide United concept I did featuring it.

Leones - Ponce is the 2nd biggest city in Puerto Rico, so I wanted a big mean crest for them. I used a lion head from an Orlando City concept I did before.

Leones de Maunabo - Had to use a different lion, so I did a regal lion on the best colors in the league.

Puerto Rico United - I absolutely used the QPR lettering for this, but I wanted simplicity for a team representing the whole country.

Atletico Rio Piedras - This team had a blurry city crest as their logo so I made them rock some yellow and black checkers. This logo was from my American Premier League series.

Atletico San Juan - Used the cute little sheep on the city crest as the main part of this logo.

Spartans - Their current logo is pretty good, just simplified it a little.

Universitarios - I could not find anything about this club online, but they were orange on football manager. The placeholder logo I used was the Universitarios logo for the team in Peru. The logo is a circle with a red U in the middle. I made it orange and called it a day. I changed it slightly and made it a U in a hexigon.

Vega Alta - In what could be the worst logo in the league, I made a logo similar to Real Betis with the city flag and a VA that is the same shape.

Yabucoa - This city's flag is this weird abstract flag in cool colors. I did a look similar to Villareal's crest, featuring the lime green in their logo.

Yabucoeña - From the same town as above, but with more purple in the form of  Grenada's crest.

That is it! here is a map to bring it all together. I will post screenshots of the game when I upload them all.

If by some chance a Puerto Rican club is reading this, hit me up we might be able to make your team look better.

Global Scarves American Outlaws Designs

So the reason I've been so quiet on the concepts front is because I have a regular day job designing scarves for a company called Global Scarves. Between the youth soccer teams, rugby tournaments, and breweries, sometimes I design scarves for the American Outlaws. 

Each chapter needs a different look, one that stands out from the others. So that's why I decided on posting all the AO scarves I've made in the last 2 months in a nice little Behance piece.

Check out them all here

NuTemp Puma Update

Here's my template made for the 2016 Puma cut on my template.

Puma AI template

Puma SVG template

 Also I updated my Adidas sock template, and updated the files

Raysox's NuSoccer Template 2016

This summer is huge for international soccer. Both the Copa America and UEFA European Championships are happening at the same time. In the last few weeks, more and more teams have been releasing their kits. Nike has been highlighted by mismatching sleeves, and a muscle vent design. Adidas moved their stripes to the under arm, which is a big break from their traditional sleeve stripes.

I took it upon myself to tool with my soccer template to fit these new jersey cuts, hoping that the good designers that download it will make something that doesn't look like hot garbage. Also shout out to my girlfriend for creating her concept for the Washington Watermelons on my Adidas template.

 To test it out, I did two quick concepts. The first is my USA Soccer one on my Nike template. The new ones have mismatching pattern sleeves. The home is white, and the road is black. It's a mess. On my white, I did head to toe white, with blue accents, and a red V just because traditional looks are good for home kits. The clash kit is a red and blue half kit with a diamond gradient to purple in the middle.

To test the Chelsea kit, I went pretty simple. The blue top has dark and light pinstripes, that change color on a diagonal line.

Since I'm a giver, and here are the links to download.

Nike template (AI and SVG)

Adidas Template (AI and SVG)

Also, check out my good pal Doug's new website Mockup Arena. Free professional templates for everyone!

The Taylor Model - Restructuring Soccer in the US

This post comes after multiple things happening in real life. I started taking classes as a Sport Management major, so I'm getting an idea of how sports franchises and leagues work. The US Soccer Landscape is also a mess. Major League Soccer is expanding. The NASL is crumbling, yet expanding to saturated markets. The USL is half reserve teams, and will be at 28 teams next year. Then, the USSF doesn't regulate amateur leagues. They all play with different season structures, and people STILL say they should have promotion/relegation. It's a mess.

So here is how I say they should fix it.

I'm calling it the Taylor Model because that's my name, and when I take over the US Soccer Federation, I'll get to implement it and be like "wow what smart son of a gun came up with this".

I believe there's still tons of room for soccer to grow domestically, but everyone is fighting for the same real estate, even though the space seems to be pretty occupied.

Lets start from the top. MLS has 23 confirmed teams, and with the edition of either Miami or Sacramento, it'll be a cool 24. Even with that being larger than most, if not all top level leagues. But MLS is set on two things, conferences and playoffs. One thing that I personally hate about MLS is how cluttered summer months are. You either have your international stars leaving for tournaments, or the LA Galaxy playing in tournaments like the Guinness International Champions Cup. How can I fix that? Split season. Now hold your horses, the NASL's split season is dumb because the team that leads 1/3rd into the season makes the playoffs 6 months after. I say put a month gap into the schedule. That way, teams can lose their stars without hurting their season. They can play friendlies to keep fit. Hell, even throw a mid season transfer period there while the team knows what they need. You could move the break around according to the summer tournament that would most likely cause the most players to leave. With 12 teams in the each conference, it would work out well. 11 games in conference, then play half the teams in the other. 17 games before and after the break. 34 total is how many teams play in leagues like the Bundesliga. Have the top 4 teams in each conference into a playoffs. Adjust accordingly for the number of teams in the league until there is 24, and do that for the top 3 leagues in the country. Oh, and one more thing. Make a reserves league. The "2" teams are drawing 50 fans (actual stat) a game, and its bringing the league down. A reserve league has players playing like players, and have spaces for new markets to get into the business.

You might be wondering why I mentioned the 4th amateur leagues. The NASL and PDL are the same on paper to me, and then there's tons of really good teams in regional leagues. What I say is blow both leagues up.  I'm calling this the "Super League". Picture this, a 16 team league of teams in the Great Lakes made up of the best of the 2 current leagues. Under that? The NEXT 16 best teams in the Great Lakes. I imagine the teams could apply and get placed accordingly, like how the Bundesliga was formed. Now do that on the West Coast, South West, South East, Atlantic, and North East. Promotion/Relegation between the leagues would give teams incentive to play, and not throw teams up into a level they couldn't compete. Right now this is the only pro/rel I have, but it's structured to where it could happen down the line. Hypothetically, there could be a Super League 3 if you have the teams, but for time sake, I'm making the 6th tier regional leagues like the Great Lakes Premier League for now.

Okay, I think I covered those 3 charts. Next? The Super Draft. Did you know that there's over 200 NCAA Men's Soccer teams? That way more than I thought. Some people don't like college soccer because it may stunt growth of players that aren't in academies. But college soccer still is bound to produce quality players. This country is so big that academies are going to miss some gaps in scouting. Those players would hypothetically go play in college. That's why I included college in my pyramid like chart. College players are amateurs, and they typically play in the NPSL type leagues in the summer. So they're gaining experience, and eventually could register to enter the draft to higher leagues.

What I say is a true Super Draft. Four rounds in one day. Two rounds of 24 picks for MLS. Then a round for NASL and USL. It'll help teams address needs immediately in the off season. Hypothetically, MLS teams would loan college players down leagues as a trickle down effect.

One last thing before I go. I know exactly when EPL games are on the weekends. They have set times, and it's just ingrained at this point. MLS has poor television ratings currently, and I think that's just because no one knows what time games are. So I would implement set weekend times. Four game times for Saturday and Sunday, plus a possible 2 on Friday Night for a thing I like to call "Friday Night Footy". I feel like Friday night is an untapped market, unlike Sunday is an that's why MLS is struggling. Put it on Friday and promote the hell out of it. Of course this country has time zones, but one would adjust accordingly. These times are Eastern, just because that's where I am. 

So after a month of planning, this is what I got. How does it look? Let me know @michaeldanger19

Keepin' it Simple, FIFA

So I was watching 2014 World Cup highlights with my roommate this weekend. One thing I noticed was how FIFA's light/dark rule took some classic match ups away from us fans. If you aren't familiar, each team must have a uniform classified by light, and dark, and no light/light, or dark/dark match ups could happen. For example, Colombia had a "light" yellow kit, and a "dark" navy one.

The biggest issue I had was Spain vs the Netherlands. Spain had a red and white kit, and the Netherlands had an orange and navy one. Red/navy, and orange/white wouldn't clash, yet they did under the FIFA rules. These rules lead to companies making monochrome looks, like Germany's white shorts when they classically wear black.

So my friend Gus and I worked this out. Here is my FIFA Clash Kit Color Wheel. Basically, you wear your primary kit, UNLESS the following.

The two jersey colors touch, whether it is left/right/up/down or diagonal. No two teams can wear colors on the same ring, unless it's the middle ring with primary/secondary colors. Lastly, for teams with stripes, both colors would have to check out.

Believe me, the system is far from perfect, but I just needed to get the idea into a visual.

So that wheel lead me to think about classic looks. I was looking up old World Cup kits and was like "man, forget all these gradients and stripes, that's a really good look" over and over again. Clearly, kit manufacturers are gonna have their own thing like Adidas stripes and stuff, but I mean, it'd be great if there was a locked in traditional scheme all the classic teams were locked in to. No mixing, but a look that each team would wear 8/10 games. So here's 18 concepts I did in 2 hours and here they are!