URSA MINOR
BACKGROUND
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Northeast Roller Derby Youth (NERDY). Minnesota Junior Roller Derby (MNJRD). The league had undergone multiple iterations in the past five years and faced once more the possibility of fading into the night sky.
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But our team would not let it.
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I'd been a coach for the youth league prior to the time when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down flat track roller derby indefinitely. At the time, the youth league had about 20-30 kids, ranging from 3-16 years old. They were an ambitious group, and the pandemic-induced isolation made them miss derby and the community sorely. When the league re-opened, our leadership team re-assembled and came full-force with ambitions of re-branding.
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MY ROLE
As a designer and someone who'd spearheaded branding campaigns for other derby leagues in the past, I took on the role of the complete redesign of the brand. From my time as a teacher, I have experience with youth and I know what appeals to them as a brand and as a community identity. My time studying UX/UI design also afforded me the knowledge to create something with recognition, accessibility, and a strong identity.
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01 THE REBRAND
The youth league's parent league, North Star Roller Derby, had its own theme centered around space. Minnesota is often referred to as "The North Star State", so this was originally a natural choice for the league's name. Its smaller leagues within the organization are known as the Satellites (a recreational league for adults) and the Supernovas (the travel team). North Star Roller Derby's (NSRD) brand is recognizable, with a skull superimposed over a star, the teeth of the skull made of the Minneapolis skyline. We needed to align ourselves with the strength of what NSRD had already established.
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Problems with the past youth league's branding mainly centered around a lack of focus. Northeast Roller Derby Youth had a known brand, but wasn't promoted and had no cohesion with the parent league. Minnesota Junior Roller Derby never officially became branded due to the pandemic. Our huge focus was to integrate better with NSRD and to complement their branding while still standing independent.
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First, we thought of our league's new name. During our research and brainstorming, we established that in the field of astronomy, the North Star is known as Polaris, and is part of the "Little Dipper" constellation, which is also known as Ursa Minor. The league was the youth league -- minors. And the Ursa Minor constellation is a bear. It lent itself perfectly to potential merchandising.
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We were officially known as Ursa Minor Junior Roller Derby (UMJRD).
02 DEFINE
The main inspiration for the design came from vivid photography of the Aurora Borealis, AKA the Northern Lights. We also wanted to steer away from any color family that might limit our recruits, such as colors that were already in use by a rival league.
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We settled on three colors: two primaries, and a tertiary color as an accent.
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#136a7d
#e9ee47
#bc6cb4
03 DESIGN
Ursa Minor as a constellation in the night sky is a bear, so our obvious choice as a mascot and forward image was that of a bear. As the main graphic designer of this league, I had played around with a few variations of what I had in mind, including an unfortunately vague bear face.
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Another design choice had been to make a sort of intimidating bear logo to match professional sports teams or even our parent league's recognizable skull. But we wanted something a little more youthful.
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Ultimately, my final design choice was a simplified bear silhouette with the Ursa Minor constellation super-imposed on it. The design is made to be utilized many different ways, as well as be instantly recognizable on team jerseys and merchandise.
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We created a Facebook, Instagram, and Wordpress site, and did a soft launch of the design and league in July 2023. We received many curious offers of interest almost immediately.
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04 LAUNCH
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Our league launched officially in August 2023, debuting our new league logo, colors, image, and even our mascot, Ursula.
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Guess who was in that mascot costume?
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Me. It was me.
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05 FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
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The design of the logo and brand was conceived specifically with merchandising and brand recognition in mind. As the league and its rebranding are in their infancy, we haven't had much of a chance to enact or promote many of our designs. One design so far are these hoodies, worn by two of our board members at our practice space!
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Other future development includes fan gear such as shirts, hats, stickers, pins, stuffed animals, and maybe even some locally-sourced treats like gummy bears or honey!
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