Here is an exploration into my part of the ESPNFC design logo process. Ultimately they went with another logo, but I feel that the time that went into researching and exploring the logos below was well spent. I also thought it might be fruitful for younger designers to see what a basic process of creating a logo in a large company looks like.

The original challenge was to make a logo that had a Global feel to it rather than a typical “American” look that you would find in most logos. ESPNFC is ESPN’s new brand for all of their Soccer efforts from around the globe, so it was important to have a more international feel to the logo. Because of that I tried to mix an exploration of organic shapes, simple marks and something that could just stand with the “ESPN” mark with it was accompanied by it or not.

One of my personal objectives whenever it comes to sports logos is to make sure to have nice thick shapes that stand strong at even the smallest sizes. I especially want to make sure that any spaces in and around the logo have plenty of room to increase and decrease in size without becoming unreadable. One of the most important elements in a good logo is making sure that there is plenty of care taken in every stroke and all of the weights of every shape. Now that Mobile is perhaps one of the biggest drives of communication, this concept is more important than ever.

As with most projects you’ll see that overtime we became simpler and simpler and mostly focused on just doing black and white examples to make sure the shape itself was very strong and iconic. In general the group wanted to stay away from shields due to the limitations it can create later, but I put some in along our journey to just show what it could look like based on our calls and meetings.

Round 1

This round was very open and was really just defining a starting point to see what we liked and what we didn’t like. Even though it is Raw, you can see some foundational elements carry through the whole process here.

Round 2

This round was mostly about refining some of the marks that went over well in the first round and adding some new looks that people were thinking about in the first round and didn’t see.

Round 3

This round we focus completely on black and white and really tried to just keep refining it to a simpler and simpler look.

Round 4

This round was my last shot in the process. I like what I came up with but unfortunately the group went in another direction. To only sad part is you have these great marks that you like, but they just sort of fade off into the either. Maybe I can repurpose some of these elements in some Soccer minigame somewhere down the line. Just kidding… not really 🙂