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Hornets Hockey

Branding a Youth Roller Hockey Club

hornets portada

Project Summary

  • Client

    Hornets Hockey
    Youth Roller Hockey Club

  • Timeline

    Jul 2023

  • Role

    Branding Designer

  • Technology

    • Midjourney
    • Affinity Designer on iPad

The Challenge

Hornets Hockey is a local roller hockey club for young children, offering a fun and inclusive way to get kids involved in team sports. They needed a new visual identity that could:

  • Feel professional but playful
  • Appeal to both kids and parents
  • Look great across uniforms, flyers, and social media

The existing visuals were minimal or inconsistent, and the club wanted something distinctive that could help rally the community, boost recruitment, and give players something to feel proud of.

Brainstroming and concept

First things first, we kick off with brainstorming. It's crucial to nail down the logo style we're after. My friend already chose a bunch of Hornets hockey logos and shared them with me.

Hornets Inspo

With my MJ subscription in hand, I explored different concepts, taking into consideration the desired identity, spirit, and the essence of hockey. This initial phase laid the foundation for the elements that would later come together in the final logo.

Here is a small sample of the different ideas that came up:

Hornets brainstorm

Image Generation with MJ

After thoughtful consideration, I selected a couple of styles that looked promising and started more detailed-oriented generation. Here are a few examples.

option 1
option 2
option 3

At this point, I could explore different shapes, styles, and colors. This iterative process played a crucial role in shaping the final design.

Selecting the parts

In this process, I found myself drawn to specific elements in different images. Some had a beautiful body shape, while in others, the head of the character was achieved better. In all versions, the hornet wings were just too weird, so I had to create them separately.

candidates 1
candidates 2
candidates 3
candidate face
candidate body
hornet wings

Making sure that every aspect of the logo was at the same level of detail, I selected and organized these standout parts. Afterwards, I created a new character using a collage technique in Affinity Designer on iPad, and sent it for approval to my friend.

Once I got the "OK!", I could proceed to vectorizing the final shape and defining the branding elements in more detail.

Final form

This step is crucial in every branding image creation. It ensures that the final shape is refined and detailed, and most of all, scalable.

One requirement for this particular case, since the beginning, was to make it possible to be embroidered on a patch.

Hornets-vectorized Logo

Color Palette

Hornets-vectorized Logo Hornets-vectorized Logo

Reflections

While it might not be the ultimate, flawless logo in the entire universe, the real takeaway here is the process. Thanks to MJ, I was able to speed up the creation process significantly. I was able to define a final image, create a completely unique character from nothing, choose different elements that looked nice to me, and offer a final proposal in just one day. Yes, 24 hours!

I don't know if I am going to do it again; that's for the future to decide. At this point, AI definitely helped find an acceptable solution for the situation, and I am very grateful I could experiment and do it.