Abbotsford Pilots - Brand Design Case Study

When the NHL's Vancouver Canucks announced in 2021 that they would be moving their American Hockey League farm team from Utica, NY to Abbotsford, British Columbia (former home of Calgary's AHL farm team), I quickly began a design exploration for the new franchise.

Drawing from regional hockey history, I designed new marks for a franchise named the Abbotsford Pilots. The original Pilots franchise continue to play in the Pacific Junior Hockey League, a Junior "B" league. The Pilots were named for the world famous Abbotsford Air Show, which continues to this day.

The marks I developed feature a classic biplane soaring above a sloped PILOTS wordmark in an upward trajectory, in an homage to the Canucks' classic "skate" logo of 1978-1997. I prepared two variations of the logo, in both the team's current colour palette and their classic red and yellow colour palette. The "P" in the wordmark is a direct recreation of one of the Pilots' original and most iconic logos.

The alternate again are prepared in both colour schemes, with an "A" crossed with a hockey stick in the style of the current Canucks' alternate mark, and bordered by a star.