We are The Bright Company

We are humanity’s last hope. We are the ones who will overthrow our robotic overlords. We are the ones who will show that toaster who’s boss. We are the… Wait 2012 hasn’t happened yet? Ok, I guess we are just The Bright Company. Champions of web. Sultans of Syntax. The CSS to your HTML. We build websites, brand companies and chew bubblegum, however we’re usually out of gum. And you are on our brand new blog! This blog is responsive across all platforms. That’s right. Try it on your iPad, on your iPhone. Neat, huh? This blog will document our work. We will post new projects and a few concept pieces. We are looking to roll out a full portfolio, however that will take some time. In the meanwhile, say hi to us on Twitter, Facebook or email us!

The Arizona Cardinals

We hate the NFL offseason. From Mid-February until Mid-August, it’s absolute torture to us. The only exception to this is the NFL Draft and Arena Football. So to combat the offseason, we decided to rebrand all 32 NFL teams with a brand new identity. Here is the first installment, the Arizona Cardinals

Before we begin, let’s dive into a little history. The Cardinals are the oldest sports franchise in the U.S.A., beginning play in 1898 as the Morgan Athletic Club. The team’s nick name came for Chris O’Brien, owner and founder of the team. In 1901, O’Brien had purchased used Maroon uniforms from the University of Chicago. The uniforms had faded so much that O’Brien used to tell everyone “That’s not maroon, it’s cardinal red!”. The team shortly renamed themselves the Racine Cardinals. In 1920, The Racine Cardinals became a charter member of the NFL and became the Chicago Cardinals. A lack of available players due to World War II forced the Chicago Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers to temporarily merge for the 1944 season. They were known as the Card-Pitt and split home games between Chicago and Pittsburgh. Card-Pitt went 0-10. After a string of mediocre showings, the Chicago Cardinal packed up for St. Louis in 1960. In 1987, they would leave St. Louis for Phoenix becoming the Phoenix Cardinals and eventually the Arizona Cardinals.

Now for the nitty-gritty, so to speak. The Cardinals has had relatively the same logo since their move from Chicago to St. Louis.

While the 1960 version doesn’t look too impressive, I am sure it was impressive for it’s time. The 2005 redesign actually does a great job of capturing this iconic mark and bringing it into the 21 century. However, I don’t think the Cardinal is angry enough. I mean, he looks mildly ticked off, but cardinals are small birds. It would take a lot more for me to be scared of a ticked off Cardinal. So first on the list was to make a cardinal I was scared of.

The yellow circle represents the sun with arched text around it. I felt the two main colors should be cardinal red and maroon. Maroon from the original University of Chicago uniforms and cardinal red from what O’Brien used to tell people.

I also wanted to keep a cardinal head because it has played an important part in the Cardinals history. Although it is a secondary logo, the cardinal head will play a prominent role in the branding as being the decal on the helmets.

While the main helmet has a cardinal head on it, the alternate helmet is a cardinal head. Styled after the secondary logo, this helmet would only be worn for 2 games a season, as per NFL rules.

That is our take on the oldest sports franchise in the U.S.A. We plan to post more throughtout the off season, so keep checking back!

This is concept art. This is not an official mark of the NFL or the Seattle Seahawks.