My TeamBuilder ’25 teams in random order. First up: Canaveral University Lunarians.
I love my designs for the Lunarians. Three notes:
1. Because “Lunarian” essentially means a moon-dweller and we would have a very difficult time indeed trying to communicate verbally with such a creature, I included no words on the uniforms or playing field.
2. The pant stripe on the “moonlight” alt is an additional crescent-moon logo (not one of the team’s three main logos) which was elongated until it was suitable to use for striping.
3. I named the stadium Luna Park, after the Coney Island amusement park of the same name that operated from 1903-1944. It felt fitting given the lunar theme, despite the team being located in Florida.
Next up, the Delaware Tech Dragons!
Despite the basic color scheme and mostly simple uniform design, the Dragons may be my favorite team that I’ve made. I especially love the glossy white helmets with oversized chrome decals and a simple thin chrome stripe. Overall I think this design has somewhat of a Scottish feel to it.
Now we have the Key West State Parrots!
Robbie, a Congo African Grey parrot, has been part of my family since 2002. Parrots in general are really unusual animals, and (Greys notwithstanding) often very brightly colored. So for the Parrots, I needed a color scheme that was both bright and unique. I settled on hot pink and bright cyan, with a deep purple for contrast.
The tertiary logo is a recolored version of the TeamBuilder site’s default “parrots” logo. I had initially intended to use it as the main logo, but couldn’t figure out how to download it, and the site didn’t want to let me change the colors. Eventually I found a much cooler logo on Canva and fooled with the colors until I had the look I wanted.
The hot pink helmet that goes with the cyan alternate jersey is shown with two (very slightly different) logos. The only difference is that the parrot logo is somehow a bit darker on the right than on the left.
The “purple chrome” and “tropical frost” alternates were among my earliest experiments with using a textured custom element to give a sheen to the jerseys and pants. The latter is probably the strongest design in this set, with its “frosted” white helmet and giant logo, the pearlescent sheen of the white jersey, and the cyan (satin) pants and (chrome) numbers.
The stripe across the front of the regular away jersey was an experiment: I basically took the logo and made it as short vertically, and long horizontally, as it could get.
You can close the door, but they can turn the handle…please welcome the Central Utah Raptors
The Raptors are the first team in my series whose design is directly inspired by a classic NFL uniform set – in this case, that of the “Orange Crush” Denver Broncos from the 1970s up through 1996.
Uniquely in the league at that time, the Broncos wore helmets that were a deep shade of azure, even though their “official” shade of blue was always royal blue. For whatever reason, Riddell, the league’s helmet manufacturer, did not produce royal blue helmets at that time. The Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams and New York Giants opted for navy blue helmets with royal jerseys, while only the Broncos chose the lighter shade of blue.
People used to bemoan the mismatched shades, but I thought they made for a nice little uniform quirk. So nice, in fact, that I’ve always kind of wished the Broncos had simply replaced royal blue with deep azure throughout that uniform set.
For the Raptors, I chose a shade of orange in the neighborhood of what those teams wore (albeit slightly darker), and then for the blue, I chose Pantone PMS 307 C, which the Ole Miss Rebels use in “eggshell blue” alternate uniforms across multiple sports. (Evidently they too once had a helmet-color quandary, which is somewhat curious since their “official” shade of blue is navy.) Then, just for fun, I added a third color, yellow. I guess this makes these guys sort of a football version of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The team name is a pun on the Utahraptor, a lesser-known relative of famous theropods such as the Velociraptor and Deinonychus. I wish I had stayed more conventional (blue helmet, white pants) for the blue alternate uniform, but I really wanted a white helmet to showcase that sweet alt logo. The “orange juice” alt is nice; I like the reflectiveness, which came from using a plain orange Custom Layer all over the jersey and pants, then a second, blue-and-yellow Custom Layer for the pant stripes. Overall, this is an unmistakable Orange Crush tribute, even with the yellow thrown in. I think it looks decent. Using azure for uniform details maybe didn’t change the overall look as much as I had thought it would.
Now, come bet on the Reno College Aces!
The Aces are inspired largely by the 1997-2002 “Dirty Bird” Atlanta Falcons. Like the Dirty Birds, these guys have black helmets without stripes, simple design on the jerseys, and a red-heavy road set. In this case, there is also a red alternate jersey in the same style, plus two more…unorthodox designs.
The terrible font in which the team name and the names of the individual uniforms are written was used to make some alternate logos. It looked very cheap and ’70s in a bad way, and I wound up keeping only two (the team name written in red and in black), and using just one (the team name in black, beneath the logo on the gold alternate helmet). The black helmets all have “ACES” written in red (in the main font) just above the front bumper.
In addition to red, black, and silver (Dirty Birds colors), I included gold as a fourth color. This was inspired by the fact that the expansion Falcons of the 1960s used gold as a trim color; it also works given that silver and gold are both colors associated with money and greed, and the team is gambling-themed. (Hence the color names of “Shimmering Silver” and “Gleaming Gold”.) Like the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, the Aces use the gold sparingly: it is used exclusively as the chinstrap color for all but the “Golden Aces” alt, in which it is much more prominently featured (though still not the jersey color).
Next up, the Brooklyn State Knights!
I used fairly conservative designs for the Knights for the most part, but was able to be creative in spots too. Notes:
1. The name (Brooklyn State Knights) is a pun on “Brooklynite”, the commonly used demonym for Brooklyn residents.
2. I felt that any jersey or pants that were silver should have a slight sheen to them, like an old suit of armor (the “silver sheen” alternate is designed to look at least vaguely like a suit of armor, and two of the other four uniforms also have silver pants). This necessitated using Custom Layers with a reflective finish as the base for these elements; this in turn necessitated using a Custom Layer for the pant stripes. I found a jousting pole graphic that did the trick nicely.
3. I’m not sure why the primary logo isn’t on any of the helmets, but it’s nice to have a little idiosyncrasy every now and then.
4. As for the helmet logo: I took several stabs at designing a knight logo with Canva’s generative AI, but I believe the one I eventually used was previously existing.
5. The home and road alts use maroon pants. The home alt jersey uses a Custom Layer with satin finish. The road alt jersey has silver numbers outlined in maroon, the only use of outlined numbers for this team.
6. I have a sneaking suspicion that these guys have a fierce, longstanding rivalry with the Delaware Tech Dragons. Call it a hunch.
Now, my first TeamBuilder 26 team to post: the Seneca State Spiders!
I thought it might be cool to do a team called the Spiders. Then I came up with the idea of a giant spider body over the front and back of the jersey. Certainly unorthodox, but I feel the name has possibilities that certain very expensive private universities (looking at you, Richmond) don’t really utilize. I called their stadium The Arachnodome, but I’m thinking I may change it to “Webb Field at the Arachnodome”. The field is the only place that has any web graphics (in the end zone); those would’ve been an absolute nightmare to deal with on the uniforms. Ironically, they’re just a selectable EA end zone background. The pants really remind me of the Tennessee Titans’ old set.
Now, it’s time for the Richmond State Rainbows!
As you can tell, I made this team quite colorful. My inspiration was Hawaii’s classic uniforms, but I kind of thought, “Instead of being green and white with red-yellow-blue accents, what if I actually used a full rainbow, and used every color to boot?”
The result is…bright, chaotic, sometimes resembling something from a circus more than something from a football field. The rainbow-patterned alternate was something I kind of felt like I had to do – may as well showcase all seven colors together! I gave it a glossy finish, making it look sort of like a giant balloon. The pink came about when I realized I needed something that could contrast with a rainbow background – and also because I like pink and feel it works well as an extra rainbow color. So, the rainbow alt has white and pink numbers. The helmet bumper graphics being black are the result of a glitch in TeamBuilder 25, which has been remedied in the current version.
In more of a direct Hawaii Rainbow Warriors tribute, I gave the Rainbows a home and away throwback (above), in which they are a blue-green-white team with rainbow trim. It probably is objectively better, but it wasn’t as much fun to design.
The “primary” color is violet, simply because that’s the color of their primary home jersey.
For the record, I’m a heterosexual, cisgender male – but if you aren’t, that’s okay too! I don’t have anything against the LGBTQ community, but I’m not a part of it. I just genuinely love rainbow motifs (if you couldn’t tell from the above images).
From South Carolina to Rhode Island and now down to Virginia, we stay on the Atlantic coastline. Welcome the Virginia Beach Pirates to the parrrrrrrty!
The Pirates’ field, Plank Fieldhouse, is probably the best field design I’ve done.
The orange glow behind the flag was a happy accident; I love that it reminds me of the orange trim that the Buccaneers have used IRL, which also seems to glow.
Inspired by how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2014 redesign initially had helmets that appeared to have wear and tear on them like a cannonball, I did the same for the Pirates. The helmet shown actually uses the maximum of seven Custom Layers: the logo, a cannonball texture, nicks and scratches, and even a bit of metallic sparkle. I went ahead and extended the nicks and scratches (but not the sparkle) to the pewter pants and the pewter alt jersey.
The last one doubles as an indirect tribute to the Creamsicle-era Bucs. I think the sword works well as both a pant stripe and a helmet stripe. (I promise I didn’t design the current Titans helmet, though.)
Teaser for my next unveil:
Put your hands up and yell, because the Compounce CC Coasters are here!
Now, moving down the Atlantic coast, we come to Nags Head, North Carolina. Shake paws with the North Carolina Coastal Salty Dogs!
Shortly after I graduated high school, I went on a senior trip to Nags Head. It was with my church youth group, so there were no shenanigans involving drugs or alcohol or sex – but those things weren’t needed, because it was a bunch of fun as it was!
The team name and color scheme allude to the maritime location. The font, the dog and hat logos, the complexity of the stripes, and the use of pale green in place of white are meant to give a vintage (even antique), Art Deco-type feel to the team. Fun fact: “Nautical Blue” is the shade currently used by the Houston Texans.
Up next: a tribute to the horrific designs of the 1970s! (Albeit with a slogan used by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the late ’80s and early ’90s…)
If you like the San Diego Padres’ uniforms from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, then you’re in luck. Presenting the University of Savannah Snappers!
