The 2017-18 season offered opportunities to continue playing with an expanded color palette. Eventually, with a fourth-straight state title run well within sight, the visual language turned towards imagery of material worth, associated with championships, rings, and trophies---gold and diamonds.
Because of my extensive responsibilities writing, photographing, and designing, many of the designs had to be compatible in a variety of ways for different athletes and sports.
Initially, design followed that of the 2017 Pigskin Preview special edition in the newspaper---a media that severely limits what can be done graphically. The background is filled with subtle textures of Canadian football designs, including stars, Wildcats, skulls, and chains. Eventually, as the Wildcats ran through the regular season unscathed, a fifth state championship appeared a realistic feat. With the start of the defending state-champion Lady Cat season, the visual brand changed to influences of gold and diamonds.
The stars represent wins through the season (black), most-recent victory (gold), and games left for until the state championship (white).
This design includes 100 stars in the background.
I was particularly proud of this design because of its flexibility. I built each individual player as a graphic, along with the "Starting Five" overlay. From there, I was able to use the Adobe Comp app on my phone to build a custom graphic in the gym, at the start of each game.
There are exactly 500 stars in the background of this graphic.
With every win in the playoffs, the Lady Cats added another diamond to the badge. Seven bands of gold, represent the seven wins necessary for a state championship, as well as the seven major-sport state championships won by Canadian.
