Dan Yeager - Final Project

Magazine Ad

I made my magazine ad first, and while it looks a bit different than my logo and uniform, it helped to establish my creative concept. I feel that the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team is losing the public's interest, and a new artistic direction could help create hype and get people excited about the team. I think that since Philadelphia is such an urban and "gritty" city in comparison to glitzy NBA cities like New York or Los Angeles, that the 76ers should incorporate this tough, urban attitude into their art direction. This is also an appropriate direction, because while the 76ers don't win many games, they do have a reputation of being a blue-collar, hard working team.

For my magazine ad here I blended a picture of team star Andre Iguodala into a brick wall background. I added plenty of art effects to try to make the picture look as "gritty" and realistic as possible and to blend Iguodala as thoroughly as possible. My point here is that since the 76ers "are Philly," they literally blend into the city's landscape. The top "We Are Philly" text is appropriately very tough and worn-down, while the bottom "#4 Andre Iguodala" text is made to look like graffiti art on the "wall."



Logo

For my logo, I wanted to make something that was unique for the city of Philadelphia. I traced the city's skyline as the logo's border, and have the same rough "Philadelphia" text literally come out of the logo's sides. The gradient helps to symbolize a tough urban city, where the streets are dark and the sky is lit up. This also ads strong contrast through the logo. I placed 76 assorted stars throughout the logo, which obviously applies to the team's name and helps to add repetition. They're also placed in fairly even proximity to each other. I also feel that just having the text "Philadelphia" without the team's name (76ers) highlights that the 76ers again "ARE" Philadelphia. The team name isn't necessary because "Philadelphia" is what matters most and is all you need to know. The logo is in all black and white because I feel these are the perfect colors for a gritty design; actual colors would take away from how rough the design looks.



Team Uniform

My team uniforms are an extension of my logo design, and I actually prefer them to the logo. The city skyline runs right through the middle of the uniform, which I think looks really unique and is a great use of alignment. Another unique touch is how the team name ("Sixers") is printed on the neck collar. I liked this idea because I thought it was close to the sense of how military soldiers wear "dog tags" around their neck for identification; the Sixers are their own army. The stars are then moved to vertical stripes on the side of the jersey, which gives a sense of repetition and again upholds nice alignment. I keep the rough "Philadelphia" text, which comes right out of the left side of the jersey, and use an old-school font for the number in the upper-right hand corner of the jersey. I did consciously want something "old-school" looking since I thought that complemented the tough, blue-collar image very well. For the shorts, I have a horizontal star stripe and a secondary logo with a liberty bell, red "7" and blue "6". Red and blue are the Sixers' most memorable colors, and I wanted to uphold their tradition somewhere in my uniform design. The use of actual color here also helps to create nice contrast. The black uniforms are for home games, and the white are for away games.

This jersey (the Golden State Warriors throwback):



was a big inspiration for my uniform design. I really liked how it was so unique to the team's hometown, and wanted to incorporate that concept into my own uniform design.