My nephew and his baseball team decided that they wanted to be called the Aztecs this year. When they asked me to make them a logo, I started to research what the Aztec people were really all about, and damn they were fascinating! I find with logos like this, the more authentic and researched the subject is the more natural is that they feel when you design the mark…and when designing for a culture it made it all the more important to not tread on any sensitivities. I fell in love with the different headdresses that they used for war, and hunting and rituals. The used the animals that were living in that area…I am sure they saw some up close. One of the most powerful animals were the birds. As I started to see samples of the helmets, it dawned on me that interpreted in a certain way, it could look like an ‘A’. Sports teams, for me, can look super cool when the logo is also part of the type, but it’s hard to pull off. Here is my attempt. I liked it, the kids loved it and I have a new hat and sweatshirt to wear to their games! They look sharp.

Just as important as the logotype for a baseball team is the hat logo, maybe even more important. They had two different hats and it had to work against both colors. No logo is finished until you do it in black and white as well.