On the images shared above, the first row of graphics is from the AYHL brand guide. I had no part in designing that brand guide, and it pre-dates my work at this agency. I am sharing these graphics to show where this league was just a few years ago. As of last season we only used the standings template from that guide, but this league was not in a place to compete with professional leagues.

So, I did deep research into the graphics that were used in professional sports leagues, from hockey to football and soccer, to lacrosse and women’s tennis. I looked at everything I could find, to find good fits for what was possible. My intuition was that I could find good graphics in soccer and basketball since they share a similar field/court/rink shape. All of the sports are trying to score at central goals on two ends of a large rectangular playing area. Instead, I found a recent season concept that the New York Football Giants put out which ended up being the largest area of inspiration for the AYHL’s season concept.

I didn’t make a huge change in the colors. I felt like we have been using the brand blue almost exclusively over the years and I wanted to shift that blue to more of an accent role for this season concept.

There were some things that this league needed that were obvious changes. It needed a bold super condensed font. All of the sports leagues are using these bold super condensed fonts on their social media. I researched and searched for this niche of typefaces and found about 15 that were initial candidates. I whittled them down by looking at their letter forms to see which ones felt more sporty. I was really particular about the ‘S’ and ‘C’. I wanted the mid-section to be diagonal of the ‘S’ and I wanted the ends of the ‘C’ to be parallel. I wanted sharp angles and ultimately, I narrowed it down to Field Gothic Condensed. The typeface had the things that I felt like it needed to communicate to the fans of this league.