03/32 – Cleveland Bandits
Go for Gold
Up next for #TheUFLProject – the Cleveland Bandits.
Despite being one of the original UFL franchises, the Bandits haven't seen much success throughout 27 seasons of play and have been coined as middle ground team. They've only reached the playoffs twice since drafting their quarterback in the first round in Season 19 . The Bandits play in the Metropolitan Division of the East Conference.
Visual Direction
You may begin to notice that a few teams in the UFL are be a bit quirky. The Bandits – being a black and yellow team from Cleveland, are definitely one of them. But they've been this way since 2005 and their puzzling color scheme and pedestrian nickname have developed charm. It's an identity we lean in to when logic wants to steer away. Besides – there are no lakes in Los Angeles, and Utah isn't known for its jazz.
If we were to adapt association for the color scheme and nickname, it would go something like this: the Bandits are the antagonists of the gridiron. Cleveland is the birthplace of the "Superman" comic, and the story goes that the co-creators invented the icon in a house on Kimberly Ave in the early 1930s. The de facto villain in a traditional superhero formula originates from a bandit or a robber, in search of riches or possessions.
Execution
The Bandits' primary logo features a masked bandit with a western-styled yellow highwayman hat with a red strap. Though the illustration has been stylized in a way that better contours a modern helmet, the primary logo originally resembled the state of Ohio when silhouetted.
The secondary logo plays in to the legacy of the team being one of the oldest in the league. Our masked bandit grows arms and legs and is illustrated running with the rock after a turnover.
The partial logo borrows the primary "B" from the team's wordmark. The looping curve from the top bowl of the "B" doubles as a "C" for Cleveland.
Our team wordmark resurrects the original logo from '05 – the baseball script that was drawn in crayon is refined and reinterpreted some 20 years later. To accompany our wordmark, we built a rugged athletic block (adapted from Billet) to reflect the blue-collar nature of Cleveland. This block makes frequent appearances throughout the identity, mainly as the numbers on the uniforms.
Running with it
The Cleveland Bandits' refreshed brand identity leans in to the unorthodox nature of the team's existence and further reinforces its original foundation to stand the test of another 20 years.
Football Helmet Mockup by SportsTemplates
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