Beacon Hill Bees

My Senior Thesis at SUNY Purchase, the Beacon Hill Bees were a fictitious rebirth of a former MLB team, the Boston Bees. The project scope included the brand identity design, uniform design, sourcing for uniform production,and a 60 page process book that detailed the project from concept tocompletion. The cap and jersey were made in collaboration with Seattle-based manufacturer, Ebbets Field Flannels.

Identity & Uniforms

I consider the BHB icon as “the” key component in shifting how I thought about my design style, and where I wanted to head with my career. Going into the project I thought I wanted to get into sports branding. I followed all of the sports branding agencies closely and was dreaming of one day working on heavy vector logos and type for minor league baseball teams.

Over 100 bee icons later I realized that the heavy vector logo style I dreamed of one day doing for a job, just isn’t an aesthetic that I enjoy working in, and that it wasn’t a direction I could see myself taking my career anymore.

The positive was that I became fascinated with the process of creating icons. Taking an object or concept, and simplifying it down, abstracting it, creating variations. The process of drawing bee, after bee, after bee just stuck. I no longer wanted to create highly stylized logos, but rather simpler-the-better icons.

Uniforms

Designing and producing the uniforms was hands down the most exiting part of the project for me. I’ve always been a nerd when it came to baseball uniform kits and their histories, so to be able to create my own sets was a dream. I produced a one-off sample of the home jersey and ballcap with Ebbets Field Flannel. That process was a blast and definitely fueled the love for apparel production that eventually lead to The Beaten Path Distribution. I was super lucky to get to drive from New York to Seattle upon my graduation and got to meet the team at Ebbets that helped me through my first real apparel production adventure. Thank you Meghan!

Process Book

Concept Sketches