A Hat-centric Personal Facebook Cover Image

I'm definitely a hat guy. I've loved them probably as long as I've loved sports. Because of that, I have always gotten a hats not just from the teams I root for, but from each team I've worked with so far in my sports design career as well. These hats help show the story of my design career in a very neat way that your standard resume or written biography just can't accomplish. They add personality, color, and life to the journey I've been on.

Because of all of that, I decided to create the above image as a cover photo for myself. The hats tell my story so far, and the message below them shows that my drive is only getting started. I can't wait to see what other hats get added down the road.

Knoxville Ice Bears Twitter Background

This is a Twitter BG I did a while back for the Knoxville Ice Bears a while back and realized I had not posted up on my blog yet! It was a quick little piece that I had a lot of fun with. Heck, it is sports after all (and hockey at that)! To see it live, check out their Twitter page.

My Artwork on the Ice

 The logo hanging in the rafters...

 ...flanking center ice...

 ...ready to be skated over at the face off...

...and above the goal as well.

My fiancee and I attended our first Knoxville Ice Bears game last night and had a great time. She has decided hockey is her new favorite sport...not because of the game itself but because of how the fans are during the games. She gets an absolute kick out of their love of brutality and brash chants.

I, on the other hand, enjoyed watching some hockey and seeing my 10th Anniversary logo plastered all over the Knoxville Civic Coliseum as well! I knew it was going to be on the ice but had no idea it was hanging from the rafters as well. I must say I was pretty excited to see my artwork being used so much. I had a great time creating the logo and am loving all the use it is getting from the team. They also happened to move into sole possession of first place in the SPHL last night too, so I'm glad that my logo is part of such a strong season as well.

Skating by my logo

Well, I should say attempting to skate by my logo. Anyway, I've spotted my Ice Bears 10th Anniversary logo again. This time it was on the boards at Holidays on Ice at Market Square. To all those who, like me, spend most of their "skating" time stumbling around, don't crash into it too hard. Thanks.

10th Anniversary Logo on Ice Bears Rink!

A lot of artists want their artwork to be hung on a gallery wall...

 ...I prefer mine on the rink!

Check it out, the first glimpse of my 10th Anniversary logo on the ice at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum (lower right of the pic). I can't wait to go to a game to get a better look at it in person. It is still an insanely awesome feeling to see it like that. To give proper photo props, here is the link to this photo on the Ice Bears website. After I go to a game I will post photos of my own.

Knoxville Ice Bears 10th Anniversary Logo Development (Part 2)

I ended the last post with my initial five designs I sent to the Ice Bears. After we discussed them, we decided to go with a more circular logo, as it would work well as an ice logo and a jersey patch. I then took bits and pieces of my previous designs to make the ones below:

After I sent these, we decided to try a the next series of edits with the ribbon to the bottom and make it a little more flowly rather than highly stylized. Thus came these versions:

 After I sent these in they were extremely happy with where it was going...we just had one small change left to make. We took the bottom version from above and dropped a "10" in instead of the "X." And thus, you have your official 10th Anniversary Logo for the Knoxville Ice Bears:

It was a long process, but it all came to a very outstanding ending. I am definitely happy with the logo that came out of all the work and I can't wait to see it in use this season. I hope all you Ice Bears fans like it as well! I am glad to be in town to root for the team this season!

Knoxville Ice Bears 10th Anniversary Logo Development (Part 1)

I thought I would take a moment and describe the lengthy and extremely fruitful process that went into making the Ice Bears 10th Anniversary logo. It was quite an extensive project with many edits along the way, but the end result was one of my favorite pieces I've made yet, and one the team was extremely happy with.

I started by thumb-nailing out several options for the logo based on the team's official logo and other 10th anniversary logos I'd seen. Here are those original ideas:

Out of these original 26 I then dwindled it down to four concepts I thought worked best to both harken back to the team's official logo as well as left room to be their own iconic brand. So I then went to sketching those out full-size:

It was then to the magic of Illustrator to turn these into finished concepts (along with a 5th one I developed while completing these):

I then sent these to the GM and Asst. GM of the Ice Bears. We had a conference call about them and decided to take bits and pieces of these designs to head towards a new approach. One that was more circular in nature, so it could work well as a center ice logo and as a jersey patch. That process will be documented in Part 2 of the Knoxville Ice Bears 10th Anniversary Logo Development.

My logo for Skates and Skirts is up on the Ice Bears website!

Hello all!

Head over to the Knoxville Ice Bears website and you can check out my Skates and Skirts logo running for the "Ladies Night Out" article. Awesome!

Quick screenshot of Skates and Skirts logo near completion

Here is a screenshot of the logo I created for the Ice Bears Skates and Skirts women's club. It is very near completion. I just need to incorporate the team logo into the design and then make a black and white version and such to cover all bases. I had a lot of fun with this project, as I enjoyed the challenge of creating a logo for a women's group geared towards a very male-dominated sport.

Early Sketches for Skates and Skirts Logo

These are two concepts I have come up with for a logo for the Knoxville Ice Bears Skates and Skirts club. It is a women's club recently created by the Ice Bears and I really wanted to take on the challenge of creating a logo for hockey that women would like. The top image is a stylized version of a female grizzly bear who's whispy outline morphs into a hockey stick at the bottom. I thought it would be cool to have the "Skates and Skirts" text start in the gap between the hockey stick and the bottom of the grizzly's mouth. The 2nd one was one I came up with after looking at a bunch of women's hockey logos. It's my adaptation of the stylized outline again, as it seems to work well for this line of logo design. And yes, those are colored pencils you see used there. I just wanted to get a quick feel of how the Ice Bears color scheme could work with these ideas. Again, it is early in the process, and next I will be seeing if these logos work well with text intertwined with them.

Group Flyer for Ice Bears

This is a flyer I recently completed promoting Knoxville Ice Bears Group Nights. The space left in the top right corner of the image is for seperate company names and branding or places they would send this flyer to. I played with the idea of making the flyer look like a ticket to a game, using the low opacity image as that light image that usually appears behind the event on sports tickets. I also played with letting the hockey player guide your eye over to the rates bar at the right.

Birthday Flyer for the Ice Bears

Here is the flyer I created for the Ice Bears. I had a lot of fun creating it and enjoyed incorporationg the mountains from the logo into the design of the poster. I love when I can combine illustration with design to create a final image.

Some Sketches

These are some sketches I did for a flyer I'm working on for the Knoxville Ice Bears, a hockey team up in Vol country. These sketches are of their mascot Chilly as I am working on redoing their birthday party package flyer. It's been a fun process so far. We shall see how the final turns out!