WIP: NCAA Jersey and Hat logos

[Magc8Ball]

UPDATE: The logos have been completed!! They can be downloaded via this link:
http://titaniumspork.org/images/NCAA_FaceGen_Logos.zip
File details are in Post #39.

Original Post:
My fictional league uses an ~120-team feeder system modeled after NCAA Baseball. Since I've been feeling fairly obsessive this past week, tonight I started working on uniforms for those 120ish teams. I've gotten through the A's and B's; the next batch will probably come this weekend.

I'm going to just upload in-progress shots for now; I'll zip it all up and give it to PadresFan when it's all done. I'm posting progress reports so that people can give feeback and point me in the direction of better source material.

What am I making?
I'm making jersey and hat logos, with appended color codes, for ~120 NCAA university baseball teams. I don't see the need to make block logos since there are already plenty of resources for those (ie here). I'm making an effort to make uniform graphics that are as close to the current unis as possible, though available resources will of course cause that to be different. I'm not making full uniform graphics, though these will likely be fairly compatible with Deft's uniform templates (in cases where teams have vests, etc); I'm just not specifically accommodating these. In most cases, though, these logos will work well with a template that more accurately fits the real-life uniform (Bowling Green's a good example) assuming you edit the stripe color to match.

I'm not trying to make perfect unis; however I do welcome feedback and I encourage folks to post links to useful reference materials when commenting on in-progress graphics. (Please don't link graphics for schools I've not yet done, just to keep the thread clean.)

What Conferences?
I picked 12 conferences based mainly on their containing well-known schools. My NCAAs are split into two "sub-leagues" arranged geographically with each conference serving as a division. In this way (using imbalanced schedules with interleague enabled) it simulates conference and non-conference games moderately well).

In cases of odd-numbered teams in a conference, I added in regionally appropriate "filler" teams from minor conferences (these are usually personal choices and probably don't actually have baseball teams, natch). I also am putting in teams that don't actually have baseball teams; for example, Colorado and Iowa State don't play baseball in the Big12 conference; I'm including them just to have the Big 12 have 12 teams.

What Uniforms and Graphics?
In most cases, I'm trying to use a team's current "home" uniform. Many colleges seem to have several unis in current use; in these cases I'll pick whichever one I can find the best references for. Occasionally I'll throw in an alternate or road or something if it's cool.

I'll be making the unis from varied sources. In a best case scenario, the university in question has excellent graphical resources on its baseball team's webpage and I can make an entire logo set from those graphics. Worst case, I can't find reference anywhere and have to cobble from common university logos (usually Chris Creamer's site or CephasJames or Silvam's pages) and basic fonts that I have available. In some cases I've actually used direct photo cuts (see Ball State and Akron in the first batch); these will either be really awesome or really bad depending on the photos in question.

[Magc8Ball]

::A-B::C-D::E-G::H-K::L::
::M::N::O-R::S::T-U::V-W::

The List of Schools, all completed:

Eastern Conferences
Big East: Cincinnati, UConn, Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pitt, Rutgers, Seton Hall, South Fla., St. John's, Villanova, West Virginia.
Mid-American: Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, CMU, EMU, Kent State, Miami (OH), N. Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, WMU. (*MU are X Michigan Univ.)
Miss. Valley: Bradley, Creighton, Evansville, Illi. St., Indiana St., Missouri St., Murphy State (fictional filler team), N. Iowa, S. Illinois, Wichita St.
SEC: Bama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, UGA, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi St, So. Carolina, Tennessee, Vandy.
Big 10: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, MSU, Minn, Northwestern, OSU, Penn State, Purdue
ACC: BC, Clemson, Duke, FSU, Ga Tech, Maryland, Miami (FL), UNC, NCSU, UVA, Va Tech, Wake Forest

Western Conferences
Pac 10: Arizona, ASU, Cal, Oregon, Oregon St., USC, Stanford, UCLA, Wash, WSU.
Big 12: Baylor, Colorado, Iowa St., Kansas, KSU, Mizzou, Nebraska, Okla, OSU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech
Mountain West: USAF, Boise State, BYU, New Mexico, SDSU, TCU, UNLV, Utah
WAC: Fresno State, Hawaii, La Tech, Nevada, NMSU, Sac State, San Jose State, Sonoma State (local filler)
Big West: CSU Northridge, Cal Poly, CSU Fullerton, Long Beach, Pacific, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UCSB, UCSC (filler)
WCC: Gonzaga, Loyola M'mnt, Pepperdine, Portland, USD, USF, Santa Clara, St. Mary's (Filler, IIRC)

[Magc8Ball]

And the A-B teams.


I couldn't find good font material for Arkansas and BYU; I tried imitating the feel as best as I could, though. I'll probably also reverse the colors on the Baylor and ASU hat logos (or the hats themselves) for better visibility. Boise State had no reference whatsoever; I just winged it based on available logos (from Creamer's site in this case).

[No Pepper]

Excellent start, you are well on your way. Thanks for doing this!

[silvam14]

Magic,

This is great what you're doing and you have done beautiful work so far!

May I suggest downloading Defts 450+ uniform templates that you can load into the game so they are selectable in the uniform creation screen. You probably don't need all 450+ of them, but they offer much better variation of jerseys (see my stickied thread for examples) and you don't get those ugly sleeve stripes that come with the default templates.

PM me if you need more info.

Regards,

Mike

[weidner]

Looks really good, Magic.
Bummer , when I read your first post I thought maybe you may have created an University of Wyoming baseball team as a filler for the WAC or the MWC.
I know they don't have a team now but they used to back in the early 90's before the Title IX came into play.
Regardless I think I will be using some of these uni's at some point for another idea for a league I've been thinking about.
Keep up the good work!

[silvam14]

Here's a BYU logo that could be used as a heart placement on the jersey. Hope you don't mind the suggestions.

edited out: bad link

[Magc8Ball]

Hey, Silv. Thanks for the feedback, it's appreciated.

I'm planning to cherry-pick a few of Deft's templates for my own use, but they're not totally needed for this project (since I'm just doing the logos). When I'm through with the set, I may re-do pics with some of the templates in use, though, just so the unis look more accurate.

The Arkansas jersey was done as close as possible to the following pic. The logotypes you linked are mainly just used for full "display" logos; they're not the ones used on their jerseys. I'll most likely be able to find a font more similar to this one with some searching, I just didn't have the capability last night.
(Another view of this font on a vested jersey is here.)


Weidner: Once I'm done with this batch, I'm sure I'll probably get wrangled into doing requests.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by Magc8Ball

Hey, Silv. Thanks for the feedback, it's appreciated.

I'm planning to cherry-pick a few of Deft's templates for my own use, but they're not totally needed for this project (since I'm just doing the logos). When I'm through with the set, I may re-do pics with some of the templates in use, though, just so the unis look more accurate.

The Arkansas jersey was done as close as possible to the following pic. The logotypes you linked are mainly just used for full "display" logos; they're not the ones used on their jerseys. I'll most likely be able to find a font more similar to this one with some searching, I just didn't have the capability last night.
(Another view of this font on a vested jersey is here.)


Weidner: Once I'm done with this batch, I'm sure I'll probably get wrangled into doing requests.

Sounds Good.

Please don't mind my suggestions. I'm just a fictional jersey creator and I'm not used to sticking to real life restrictions (I find it easier this way) Now that I've seen the real Arkansas jersey in your photo, the one you created llooks even better! Keep it up!

[BAC369]

You guys are doing some incredibly cool stuff. I'm a newby so excuse my ignorance, but does the game just support home uniforms? I'm working on my own fictional college league that will be a feeder to a 54 team major league. Also, I was looking around for cap logos and found one that just had letters (and multiple letters for cities like KC And SLC, etc.). Anybody know a link for this?

[Magc8Ball]

Originally Posted by BAC369

You guys are doing some incredibly cool stuff. I'm a newby so excuse my ignorance, but does the game just support home uniforms? I'm working on my own fictional college league that will be a feeder to a 54 team major league. Also, I was looking around for cap logos and found one that just had letters (and multiple letters for cities like KC And SLC, etc.). Anybody know a link for this?

The game just supports "one" uniform (home, away, whatever) per team, yes.

The letters site that you found was probably CephasJames's sweet custom-text collection (link to that section here).

[BAC369]

I think that was it. Know of any other good fictional logo sites? I have been to PadresFan's sight and it's great.

So are you going to try a Wyoming Cowboys uni? To me they have one of the coolest logos and color schemes in the NCAA.

[Magc8Ball]

Aaaand the C and D teams:

Known issues: the UConn hat is not accurate; a couple of the script jerseys aren't totally accurate but definitely catch the "spirit" of the jersey (specifically, Creighton and CMU; they obviously are using the same font). In retrospect I also probably need to increase the size of the CSU Northridge jersey logo.

[udbacker58]

Wow, those look awsome! I don't watch much college baseball, so I wouldn't know any mistakes, but they really capture each team's colors well. With the Northridge jersey, maybe skewing or warping the text a little so it's not perfectly straight would look nice.

[lewis31lewis52]

Loving the Central uni you got there.

Great work on these.

[weidner]

Magic, your doing a great job, I like the Bearcats jersey you did.

I agree with you 100% BAC369. Wyoming does have one of the coolest logos and color schemes in college sports. It was even better back in the 80's and 90's (brown and yellow) before they switched to what they have now (brown and prairie gold).

[Magc8Ball]

Small update: the E's and F's.


Probably need to clear up the Fresno State type... and can someone confirm for me whether or not Florida State and Fresno state really DO have the same cap logo, just in different colors? The photos on the Fresno State site leave much to be desired, but it looks like they do.

EDIT: And the G's.

[beatnikpoet13]

Will these be available for download? I ask because they're simply amazing!

[Magc8Ball]

Originally Posted by beatnikpoet13

Will these be available for download? I ask because they're simply amazing!

Yeah, when they're done I'll be putting them up and sending them off to PadresFan, etc.

[beatnikpoet13]

Originally Posted by Magc8Ball

Yeah, when they're done I'll be putting them up and sending them off to PadresFan, etc.

Awesome!

I wish I still had photoshop so I could try my hand at this stuff...