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A 2024 Premier Lacrosse League Full Redesign

Last Friday, resident lax expert Jared Buccola (pictured here) brought us his annual PLL Season Preview, which featured a really good rundown of the uniforms of the eight teams in that league. But, and I didn’t know this until recently, aside from his detailed knowledge of lacrosse, he’s also a designer. And when he approached me about his annual PLL preview, he also told me he’d done his own redesign of every team in the league, including alternates.

I’m pleased to share those with you here today. (If you didn’t read the PLL preview, you may wish to check it out to see what the teams will be trotting out to the pitch this year, so you can compare those to Jared’s concepts. I’ll also link to the 2024 unis in the team name.)

I’ll turn it over to Jared now. Enjoy!

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2024 Premier Lacrosse League Redesign
by Jared Buccola

After doing a uni breakdown for the Premier Lacrosse League the past three years, I have seen some trends come and go. This year, I decided to give it a shot myself. A huge pet peeve of mine is when the home and away jerseys have different lay outs. For example, the Randy Moss era Minnesota Vikings have no shoulder stripes on their purple jerseys, but have “UCLA” stripes on their white jerseys. Another trend I tried to avoid was the large logos on the front, with no front numbers. A lay out that has a word mark and front numbers is much more traditional for a lacrosse uniform. These inconsistency were trends I saw in the 2024 PLL uniforms, and something I aimed to correct.

Please enjoy my take on the Premier Lacrosse League!

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California Redwoods

Green

Gold (Yellow)

White

The Redwoods often shorten “Redwoods” to just “Woods”. That makes sense in conversation, or a tshirt, but I am not a fan of it being used on a jersey. I put the team’s full word mark on the jersey and changed the color of the trees, so that they stand out from the rest of the word mark. I added the alternate logo on the sleeves and a tree line stripe on the cuffs. Also, a subtle wood grain pattern goes throughout entire jersey.

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Utah Archers

Blue

Orange

White

The 2024 jersey seems pretty cut and paste. Large logo front and center, no front numbers and tri-stripe collar and sleeves. I used just the word mark, which I love, with the state of Utah as the negative space in the “A”. I added an “arrow” strike through on the numbers and triangle “mountain” stripes on the sleeves, looking at you Denver Broncos.

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Carolina Chaos

Black

Red

White

With a name like Chaos, I felt like the 2024 jersey did not live up to the name. I set them apart by adding a black/white/black UCLA stripe on top of the shoulders, and the scorpion logo on the sleeve. On the back is a subtle star and palmetto tree. These elements are from the North Carolina and South Carolina flag, since the team is the “Carolina Chaos”. I went with a blackout font look for the alternate, just to stand apart.

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Denver Outlaws

Black

Orange

White

If you follow the Premier Lacrosse League, you would notice that the Chrome Lacrosse Club is missing. They were rebranded and are returning as the Denver Outlaws, previously of Major League Lacrosse. I had to incorporate barbed wire and thought it was appropriate to give them large, swooping sleeve stripes that go all the way up the shoulder, similar to their MLL days. I also gave them a western themed number font, with some drop shadow for contrast. The alternate jersey sports their secondary logo front and center.

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New York Atlas

Dark Blue

Light Blue

White

I took a unique approach to this design by not having a word mark at all. Instead, I placed an enlarged logo on the left chest, reminiscent of an NYPD Officer’s badge. Horned stripes line the cuff with the alternate logo on the sleeves. The 2024 jersey has pin stripes that fade away half way up the jersey. Instead, I placed a pin stripe pattern at the bottom, encased by two horizontal stripes, which give the pin stripes a nice home.

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Philadelphia Waterdogs

Black

Purple

White

The 2024 design feels lackluster. I am not a big fan of the dog logo, mostly because it looks like a Great Dane, and Great Danes don’t particularly like water. I went with just the city wordmark on the front and their beautiful paw print/script alternate logo on the sleeves. I added tapered stripes on the cuffs and hem line to represent, you guessed it, water. With the alternate, I put the “Dogs” script front and center, and replaced the script on the sleeve with the liberty bell.

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Boston Cannons

Blue

Red

White

Another familiar name for you MLL fans, but man does the 2024 design look drab! I’m all for a traditional look, but give me something that’s worth keeping around! I created a new, block wordmark using a lacrosse ball as the “o”, and added some gradient lines for movement. The second and alternate jersey got the same treatment, but with a “Boston” wordmark instead. The gradient lines are used again on the sleeve.

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Maryland Whipsnakes

Black

Red

White

I really like this design. It’s simple, clean, and the cut through on the wordmark is creative. Of course, there’s the state flag pattern on the sleeves. But if you’re going to do the Maryland flag, you might as well go all in! I added flag themed stripes to the sleeves and hem line, as well as a thin strip of the flag behind the word mark. I have the alternate logo on the sleeves of the home and away, but switched it up with the primary logo on the sleeves of the alternate. Since the flag is so prominent, I put the team name, “Whipsnakes” on both jerseys, except for the alternate. I wouldn’t want them to be confused with the Terrapins.

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Thank you for checking out my designs. I hope you enjoy them. If you would like to see some of my other work, check out @Masterofn0nedesign on Instagram. Thank you!

• • • • •

Thanks Jared! Over the past 15+ years, I’ve featured hundreds if not thousands of different design concepts on this site, but I think this is the first set for lacrosse (I could be wrong, but if there were another, I don’t recall).

Like hockey jerseys, I think lax jerseys may represent the best one of the best canvases for design, since it features a lot of real estate, and the front offers room for a nice-sized crest or wordmark, while the full (short) sleeve template leaves plenty of space for a logo.

Nice work with your designs, Jared!

Readers? What say you?

 

 
  
 
Comments (16)

    Other than the few jerseys with stealth numbers, I love this set!

    Just as in real life, my favorites are Utah and Boston… and in this set I’d also include New York.

    I like how you gave the Chaos a wild font that isn’t *too* chaotic. It’s readable and in their case, appropriate.

    The Boston Cannons reminds me… I still think the Washington Bullets should have renamed themselves the Cannonballs instead of the Wizards.

    Hey Jim! Thanks (again) for the positive notes! I think of this set, strictly from a design stand point, Utah is my favorite as well. Tough to admit as a Redwoods fan! I appreciate you pointing out the Chaos. They’ve had quite some looks over the years, literally two different colored jerseys split down the middle, and this years is just solid red. I aimed for a happy medium!

    Fun stuff, Jared! Thanks for sharing these!

    I love the straightforward elements you bring to your designs. You let one or two design elements stand out as the “features” without overcrowding them with lots of other visual distractions. That, in my opinion (and I daresay objectively), is good design. My favorite is the Redwoods uniform with the “forest” motif around the bottom of the sleeve.

    Thanks BvK! That means a lot and I appreciate the fact that you noticed that. The Redwoods are my favorite team and they have such an opportunity to have a great uniform, but for whatever reason, they just can’t figure it out.

    Nice work. I like that you’ve got hem stripes on all of them. This is absent from all the real ones, so it’s like your trademark. I especially like the way used it for the pinstripes on the New York jersey.

    If I were to change anything, I would rework the wordmark for the Whipsnakes, as the flag element makes it difficult to read. Also, a lesser issue is that, because the green Redwoods jersey is the same color as the treeline silhouette, it looks at first like there’s a weird, irregular yellow stripe there. I’m not sure how to fix that, other than maybe some yellow piping on the bottom of the sleeve.

    But overall much better than the real set. Boston and New York are the standouts for me. I may lose my New England card for saying that!

    Hey Joe, thank you for the positive feedback, and I never really thought of the hemline as a trademark, but I like it! I think that’s just me trying to at least break up the monochrome look that so many teams do. The whips were difficult for me. I really like their true, current word mark, but I couldnt find a (clean) way to just copy and paste it, or recreate it in Canva, so I did my own. Similarly, I did put white as either the stripe, or the trees on the Redwoods green jersey and just didnt like it, but I can definitely see how the current version could get lost. Just rep the Cannons and I think your New England card will be safe!

    The concepts are clean, I’ll give you that. But for many of them, the names are illegible. Unless this is an indoor league where the fans a much closer to the action, you wouldn’t be able to read them from the stands, especially the “stealth” version. Uniform nameplates/lettering should be a minimum size so you can read them from a distance.

    Hey Jim, that’s a good point. I didnt think about that, but definitely something I can implement. Are you specifically referring to nameplates/letting on the back, or the front wordmarks as well? I’m always looking to improve, thanks for the feedback!

    Dark numbers on dark jerseys need much brighter and much fatter outlines. Other than that, these are major upgrades.

    Hey Marty, thanks for the positive feedback. I totally get it with Chaos and Waterdogs. With the Chaos, well, I wanted to do something out of the norm. But I totally agree making the body of the font white, on the black jersey would immensely increase legibility.

    I was surprised to see that the actual jerseys (save for one team) lacked front numerals. In the fast moving game of lacrosse, the ability to callout a number of the opponent you are covering to your teammates on defense is really important. These concepts improve upon that immensely from the actual jerseys being utilized this season.

    Hey Nick, sounds like you play lacrosse! Good point, playing defense you’re definitely communicating with the rest of the defense yelling, “I got 5, I got 5!”, referring to their number. Can’t do that if you can’t see the number lol

    I agree the jerseys came out were very lacklustre: these are so much better.

    The use of the ball in BostOn and CannOns and the subtlle(ish) incorporation of Maryland flag into the hems both stand out as great design elements that give something a bit different.

    Hey Andy, thanks for the positive feedback! The MLL Cannons logo had the same “O” incorporation, but it was literally a cannon ball. So I switched it out for a lacrosse ball, and used a font that more matched their current set. Their current set is just so bland I had to do something more!

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