One night at Curbside Burgers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, five nerds came together at a wooden picnic table to become the greatest trivia team in the city—the Quizzly Bears. And after a few beers and our first victory, we immediately decided that this thing, this sacred bond about knowing fun facts, had become bigger than all of us. At that moment, the gears started turning for a logo, then a team uniform, and soon I found myself designing an entire brand identity.
Inspiration
The Quizzly Bear brand is rooted in professional sports logos, especially baseball. The classic cursive wordmarks and timeless animal icons of teams like the Chicago Bears represent American pastimes, where people can gather to socialize, eat great food, and root for victory together. What better inspiration is there for a trivia team? It's the meeting of a casual hangout and a competitive game. For the Quizzly Bears, trivia feels like being invested in Sunday sports at a friend's house—cheering, booing, and getting distracted when someone brings over a plate of wings.
PROCESS
This project began with the bear sketch. Because I already had a clear idea for the structure of the logomark, with the floating bear head and crossed pencils behind, I skipped paper sketching and went straight to Illustrator. One initial design decision was figuring out which parts of the face should have positive and negative space. There is no right way to do it, and my research actually showed that many animal logos do it differently. I settled with this blocking because it allowed for large patches of scruffy fur.
