Overwatch<\/em> is about.<\/aside>It was the Latin meaning of Excelsior, ever upward, that drew the team to the word\u2014coincidentally, it’s emblazoned on the New York flag, too. Now it’s the name of New York City\u2019s Overwatch<\/em> League team. Mother Design felt the name was \u201ccore to New York,\u201d Gervasoni said. The heroic optimism of \u201cever upward\u201d was appealing, and for Mother Design, that\u2019s what defines the New York lifestyle. Not only that, but Overwatch<\/em> is a game that’s continuously moving forward thanks to its evolving gameplay and regular updates. \u201cIt informs everything we did [for New York Excelsior], and we felt it planted the flag of New York in a way that really spoke to what Overwatch<\/em> is about,\u201d Gervasoni said. The name Excelsior and its abbreviation, NYXL, is really important to Gervasoni and his team, despite some backlash against the non-traditional formatting. \u201cSome people seem to just want a plural noun,\u201d Gervasoni said. \u201cEven with the London team, Spitfire came out, and people were like, \u2018Oh, it should just be Spitfires, with an \u2018s\u2019. Excelsior is more about an attitude and a spirit than it is about just a plural noun, like Rangers or Warriors.\u201d With its design-forward logo, Excelsior is innovating in a field where other franchises stuck to traditional sports branding. Mother Design is trying something new with its Overwatch<\/em> League design. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to be on the frontier of pushing this, to not be afraid of behaving in a new way that feels kind of ownable and exciting and not just on a well-trodden path that sports have been on before.\u201d With Mother New York, Excelsior is building a community that speaks to the \u201cNew York-ness\u201d of diversity and influence coming together. There\u2019s symbolism in the name and its logo that\u2019s meant to inspire and drive forward not only the team, but the industry, too. Update, Nov. 29 at 10am ET: This article has been updated to clarify Mother Design’s inspiration for the project as the meaning of the word Excelsior.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sterling.VC brought on a renowned design team to work on its Overwatch League branding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":909,"featured_media":8411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gamurs_wordpress_blocks_hide_tags":true,"_is_affiliated":false,"dotesports_deal_href":"","dotesports_featured_video":"","_notify_users":1,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"invoiceable_action":[],"internal-label":[],"article_type":[44125],"coauthors":[{"id":909,"display_name":"Nicole Carpenter","user_login":"nicole_carpenter","user_nicename":"nicole-carpenter"}],"class_list":["post-8410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-overwatch","article_type-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe story behind New York Excelsior\u2019s one-of-a-kind logo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sterling.VC brought on a renowned design team to work on its Overwatch League branding.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/overwatch\/news\/new-york-excelsior-branding-19029\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The story behind New York Excelsior\u2019s one-of-a-kind logo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sterling.VC brought on a renowned design team to work 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She lives in Massachusetts with her cat, Puppy, and dog, Major. She's a Zenyatta main who'd rather be playing D.Va.","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/nicole-carpenter"}]}},"raw_content":"What is New York City? It\u2019s five boroughs\u2014Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. It\u2019s the city that never sleeps. The Big Apple. The city is bold, iconic, and fast-paced. It\u2019s home to the Overwatch League\u2019s New York Excelsior. Founded by Mets ownership group Sterling.VC, New York Excelsior brought on New York-based design firm Mother Design, which has worked on projects with Nike Golf, Reebok, New York Fashion Week, and the Philadelphia 76ers, to create the team\u2019s identity. Most teams have some sort of tie-in to the city they\u2019re located in: For Sterling.VC, New York Excelsior\u2019s branding is securely fastened in city culture\u2014Excelsior is the New York state motto, and it means \u201cever upward\u201d\u2014but still embraces Overwatch as an esport with its unique, playful design. New York Excelsior was one of the first seven teams to enter the Overwatch League\u2014a new infrastructure model for esports. City-based teams make up the league, which is a first for such a large-scale esports venture. Twelve teams total are participating in the first season, with rosters spread across the world, from Shanghai, London, and Seoul to Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, and Boston. Image via New York Excelsior What Mother New York came up with is bold and design-forward, and unique in the pack of 12 franchises announced for the Overwatch League. On a midnight blue background, the logo is essentially a flag with electric blue lines. An X is in the middle, with chevron-like shapes forming two tilted L\u2019s that sandwich the center, both of which draw the eye back toward the X. While other Overwatch League brands feature animals or cartoon-like icons, Excelsior is edgy, but not everyone in esports was ready for it. With a non-traditional logo\u2014a flag\u2014Excelsior stands out among standard sports logos. That\u2019s the point, though. Mother Design insisted on planting the Exclesior flag \u201ca little bit farther ahead\u201d of the rest, a bit \u201cmore future facing,\u201d Mother New York brand strategist Spencer Gervasoni told Dot Esports. NYXL speaks to New York as a place where everything is \u201cbigger, badder, better,\u201d Gervasoni added. \u201cIt\u2019s the place where there\u2019s bigger buildings, more people, more sports fans. It\u2019s more attitude, more creativity, more of everything.\u201d Each detail is intentional, even the lines that make up the NYXL logo. Mother New York chose the dynamism of the lines as a representation of New York\u2019s city grid and subway map. New York is the movement of people and the current of energy that feeds into the city streets. It was a big source of inspiration for the design team. Related: Overwatch League franchise New York Excelsior has the most hype announcement yet \u201cWhile designing the NYXL identity, we looked at a lot of reference[s] that spoke to the iconic scale and ambition of this city, but we were equally inspired by the ad-hoc texture that exists at street level almost everywhere you look in New York,\u201d Mother Design creative director Jason Miller told Dot Esports. \u201cThe crosswalk markings, the construction barricades, the striped Con Edison steam vents. We saw it as a really powerful visual language that is almost poetic in its functionality. All of it led us to a story that is as much about ambitious heights and achievement as it is about boldness and the no-nonsense energy that drives this city forward every day.\u201d Everything from the subway map and New York grid map served as inspiration; both are just such integral parts of the way New York ebbs and flows. \u201cIt\u2019s such a constant thing. It\u2019s this constant transfer of energy along all the lines, and we felt that bringing that to life in the logo really spoke to that,\u201d Gervasoni said. New York is a city where anyone can come and prove they have what it takes to thrive, Gervasoni said. Each day is a little battle to take on, just like in Overwatch. Through it all though, Gervasoni believes there\u2019s a \u201ckind of everyday heroism\u201d or \u201cheroic optimism\u201d that pushes forward life in the city and in the game. It informs everything we did [for New York Excelsior], and we felt it planted the flag of New York in a way that really spoke to what Overwatch is about.It was the Latin meaning of Excelsior, ever upward, that drew the team to the word\u2014coincidentally, it's emblazoned on the New York flag, too. Now it's the name of New York City\u2019s Overwatch League team. Mother Design felt the name was \u201ccore to New York,\u201d Gervasoni said. The heroic optimism of \u201cever upward\u201d was appealing, and for Mother Design, that\u2019s what defines the New York lifestyle. Not only that, but Overwatch is a game that's continuously moving forward thanks to its evolving gameplay and regular updates. \u201cIt informs everything we did [for New York Excelsior], and we felt it planted the flag of New York in a way that really spoke to what Overwatch is about,\u201d Gervasoni said. The name Excelsior and its abbreviation, NYXL, is really important to Gervasoni and his team, despite some backlash against the non-traditional formatting. \u201cSome people seem to just want a plural noun,\u201d Gervasoni said. \u201cEven with the London team, Spitfire came out, and people were like, \u2018Oh, it should just be Spitfires, with an \u2018s\u2019. Excelsior is more about an attitude and a spirit than it is about just a plural noun, like Rangers or Warriors.\u201d With its design-forward logo, Excelsior is innovating in a field where other franchises stuck to traditional sports branding. Mother Design is trying something new with its Overwatch League design. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to be on the frontier of pushing this, to not be afraid of behaving in a new way that feels kind of ownable and exciting and not just on a well-trodden path that sports have been on before.\u201d With Mother New York, Excelsior is building a community that speaks to the \u201cNew York-ness\u201d of diversity and influence coming together. There\u2019s symbolism in the name and its logo that\u2019s meant to inspire and drive forward not only the team, but the industry, too. Update, Nov. 29 at 10am ET: This article has been updated to clarify Mother Design's inspiration for the project as the meaning of the word Excelsior.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/11131546\/b543abd4-ee02-42cb-b5a8-9ab9983dcd84.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/909"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398531,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8410\/revisions\/398531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8410"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=8410"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=8410"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=8410"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
