Bowling Green Hot Rods
Team Identity Design
——————————During the 2012 MLB season, the Tampa Bay Rays created a promotion that brought their franchise back into the 1970’s. If you know the Rays’ team history, you would know that they started as a franchise back in 1998. The Rays created the “Fauxback Night” where they wore uniforms that they might have worn in the 1970’s if they had existed back then. The promotion brought some head scratches at first, but it ultimately became a fun chapter in uniform history.
he Bowling Green Hot Rods are a Single-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays and for the 2017 season, wanted to pay homage to their parent club by creating their own fauxback uniforms. The Hot Rods wanted the uniform designs to be bright and bold similar to the monochrome color uniforms the Orioles, Indians, and Phillies wore in the 70’s. They also wanted to make sure that their logos matched the style of a 70’s baseball team.
The logo designs plays on the mascot designs in baseball at the time during the 70’s and 80’s. The Hot Rods mascot Roscoe the grease monkey was a perfect start to the design. Roscoe’s fauxback design mimics the cartoonish look of the Orioles bird from the same time period. The wordmark on the uniform draws inspiration from classic muscle car emblems. Powder blue was also added as a color to both tie in the time period and the parent club affiliate.
The 2018 season marked the 10th season the Hot Rods would play in the city of Bowling Green. The team wanted to commemorate this occasion with an anniversary logo that would be worn on the side of game hats and appear on signage and apparel around the ball park. This logo became a good luck charm as the Hot Rods won their division and went on to become the Midwest League Champions that season.
