World Baseball Cup Concept Dump

Hey guys. Some of you might remember this unfinished series. It was a long concept of if high profile international baseball was started in the 50s, and by this time it would be a massive event.

I did like 10 full recaps of the fake tournaments up to 1989, then stopped. The reason? I created my highly popular soccer template and it changed my whole view on templates, and since this was on my old one, and I had so many done for 1993 onwards, it would have been a bitch to remake.

Since then I learned illustrator and realized how truly hard I made it on myself without using clipping groups on the sleeve and stuff. Anyways, I've been looking at these concepts forever and wanting to post. I believe the document with all my plans are on my old laptop which crapped out and was replaced. So I think this series is dead.

But capitalizing on the WBC trend, I'm gonna show off some stuff. I'll post my event logos, then maybe some highlights for the uniforms. They're all designed to fit that era, and was one of my favorite projects ever.

1993 - South Korea

New super power Korea brought the game back to Asia

1997 - Florida 

This was pre-Rays hype for Tropicana Field, with games in Miami, Orlando, and Jacksonville

2001 - Latin America

A massive 4 country bid with Panama, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Venezuela hosting in their best stadium.

2005 - Taiwan

They had 4 stadiums new enough to host games, and would host for the first time

2009 - Caribbean

I believe the second time these two would host. A joint bid since they don't have the 4 stadiums they'd need individually.

2013 - California

LA, San Francisco, Anaheim, and San Diego.

So that's where we are now! Might do 2017 with Australia or Mexico. Who knows. Here is all of them together.

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.

Seattle Mariners Rebrand

I posted this on my Behance, but I felt like I should post it here too!

One of my least favorite brands in the MLB is the Seattle Mariners. I feel like their current brand is too cluttered with outlines, and doesn't represent a bold identity. This concept stems from an idea I've had for a while, adopt the color scheme the other pro teams in Seattle use. I was going for a bold refresh of a past identity, similar to the Houston Astros.

MLB Cap Concepts

I'm in a 6 person group chat with some great designers my age. When one of us high jacks a conversation to talk New Era fitted caps/snap backs, we call it #hatchat.

So you might remember a template I made where I traced the New Era cap on their website. Well, that was on Inkscape. Since then, I've moved on to Illustrator, which uses layers like Photoshop. Recently, I updated my template to make it Illustrator friendly.

First, I got a Rays cap from the 2016 MLB All-Star Game with the heather pattern and star buttons. Here is me playing with the template on some old brands.

I also cataloged my caps on a new twitter header for myself.

Finally, I made a list of teams with the worst branding in the MLB. The Mariners and Indians were 2 of the top 3. Here is my quick rebrands that I want to turn into a full rebrand.

1989 World Baseball Cup

The 80s rounded out with a celebration of world baseball in Canada. The games would be the first event played in the new Skydome in Toronto, the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, and BC Place in Vancouver in a baseball configuration.

The Canadians got their automatic bid, which made things easy on them. The results were very similar to the last 12 team tournament in 1985. Italy was finally able to move past the Dutch to qualify for their first tournament. The Italians got approval to get Italian-American baseball players to fill their roster prior to qualifying. The European teams were granted the same waivers, and would lead to a growth in European baseball in the 1990s. Mexico and Taiwan would advance.

The Canadians had their best shot at advancing due to the home fans, and the freezing temperatures outside. They opened the Skydome with a 3-1 win over Mexico. The top 8 would advance to the next round, and group A all tied in those rankings. It had to go to a tie breaker to decide the Dominicans would win the group. Cuba killed Group B competition, scoring 29 runs in 3 games, and leading to a 1st overall seed. Overall, scoring was up in the beginning of the steroid era, and this was relevant because the Americans put up 28. In their group, only the US and Japanese advanced due to a gap in the skills of the teams. 

Italy surprised the world by leading the Cubans going into the 7th, but would go on to lose 9-8. The Canadians upset the Japanese in Montreal to go on and face the rival Americans. There was a lot of power in the Semi-Finals, as the Cubans and Americans went on to face each other in the finals. The bash-brothers faced off when McGwire and Canseco homered in the same inning. McGwire's was a Grand Slam, however, leading the Americans to their 5th title.

Similar looks for everyone. Italy introduced their racing stripes, and Japan dropped their pinstripes.