Design Briefing
My classmates and I were approached by a client from NWACC who wanted us to come up with a new fitting mascot for the school and athletic teams. He suggested several names for the mascot such as: Diamonds, Ground Hogs, and Lakers. He also said he wanted us to use iconic colors. However, he wanted us to avoid copying other mascots from other teams from any other schools or programs.
Solution
For the mascot I chose to do a deer, more specifically, a whitetail deer. I chose a deer because I couldn’t think of any schools around the area that had a deer as a mascot, and I wanted it to be something unique. Also, I wanted the mascot to make sense, something that was within Arkansas and especially up in the Northwest area, so I chose the deer. To me a deer can represent strength, swiftness, peace, and vigilance. All which are qualities that I think a sports team should have. A deer travels and lives within herds that watch out for one another, and a sports team is one large group that all have each other’s back which are a couple of traits the two have in common and therefore made the deer a perfect mascot for me.
For the name I chose the “Diamond Bucks”. I also had the option of “Diamond Deers” but bucks sounded a lot more powerful and though rather than deer, and so I went with bucks. I kept the word diamonds in the name since that was one of the names that the client would’ve wanted to have and also because Arkansas is known for being the diamond state as well. Because of this I added a white and light blue diamond shape behind the deer to signify the diamond.
For the colors I wanted to keep the colors natural because Arkansas is the natural state. Besides white, the color light blue, reminds myself personally of diamonds or crystals in general and so I chose to do a light blue gradient with white for the diamond shape behind the deer.
As for the text I decided to do a bold text in order to make it pop out and look a lot stronger and easier to read from a distance. Also to balance with the thickness of the deer. I copied the text and stacked the two on top of each other to give it a 3D effect. For the colors of the text I made the back layer a light blue and the top layer a dark brown with a white stroke. I did this in order to have balance and equality between the text and the colors of the deer along with the white background and the diamond behind it.
For the name I chose the “Diamond Bucks”. I also had the option of “Diamond Deers” but bucks sounded a lot more powerful and though rather than deer, and so I went with bucks. I kept the word diamonds in the name since that was one of the names that the client would’ve wanted to have and also because Arkansas is known for being the diamond state as well. Because of this I added a white and light blue diamond shape behind the deer to signify the diamond.
For the colors I wanted to keep the colors natural because Arkansas is the natural state. Besides white, the color light blue, reminds myself personally of diamonds or crystals in general and so I chose to do a light blue gradient with white for the diamond shape behind the deer.
As for the text I decided to do a bold text in order to make it pop out and look a lot stronger and easier to read from a distance. Also to balance with the thickness of the deer. I copied the text and stacked the two on top of each other to give it a 3D effect. For the colors of the text I made the back layer a light blue and the top layer a dark brown with a white stroke. I did this in order to have balance and equality between the text and the colors of the deer along with the white background and the diamond behind it.
Sketches
Reference Photos
Preliminary Lines
Rough Design
Reworking With The Rough
Two Color Options
"Finished Product"
The Fonts
Reworking With The Font & Color
Final Design
Applications
