About the time that we were getting ready to unveil the team name and logos, the Phillies announced Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt would be the Threshers Manager. Mike was the star of the inaugural TV ads we produced with the Threshers, and we was a awesome to work with! He laughed, did whatever we asked, and made the whole experience tons of fun! Here’s some of the photos of the big unveiling in Clearwater and working with Mike…






If you’d like to explore more of the Threshers project, swing by our Website, PlanBBranding.com. Also, if you have any questions have about the project, we’d love to explain more!

When Case and I were working for the San Diego Padres, they had just started a spirt group/street team called the Pad Squad. They’re a group of fun, energetic staff members who organize in-game contests, show up at community events, and promote goodwill for the Padres. As the two of us were building the Threshers brand we though, “These guys need a Pad Squad of their own!” Below are a list of potential names and uniform mock-ups…

Whenever we approach a new Minor League team, we always try to do something we’ve never seen before. For the Clearwater uniforms, the vision was a Thresher chasing a ball on all fielding uniforms – and a Thresher holding a bat on all batting uniforms (Batting Practice Jerseys & Caps and Helmets). Here’s what we dreamed up…

Clearwater is pretty well know for its snowbirds – folks who come down to Florida for the warm winters, then head back up to their northeast homes for the summer. Below is “Ernest,” the first mascot we pitched to the Threshers. We dreamed up a dude straight from the movie Cocoon (which was filmed down in St. Pete).

Our idea was that Ernest would have a Captain Hook/Crocodile-like relationship with sharks: Ernest would be terrified when he heard the Jaws theme. And this would be a good balance to the Kids Club having power over the sharks.

Ernest didn’t see the light of day. We’re pretty sure it’s because no parent wants their kid hugging a dirty old man mascot showing his nipples…

I don’t think that we’ve completely acknowledged what a crazy two weeks it’s been. Not only did we ship a ton of Edition caps but we sold out of both Pirate Charlie and Mobile.



It all blew our minds. A lot of that had do do with all the great coverage from sites like Hypebeast, Strictly Fitteds, The Hundreds, New Era Cap Talk, Street Giant, Clothing Wire, For All to Envy, Vibe Magazine who called The Clink Room “The Best New Fitted Hat Company”, Pea-be.com, and Uncrate.com. We’re so grateful for the plugs that everyone gave us. Thank you so much.



Just to give you an idea of the number of visitors that we got. On Tuesday of last week we had around 12,000 unique visitors. Unique! That’s a crazy number. When we broke 10,000 in a day, Jay called me and was like “,This is kinda freaky.” It was. There are so many new faces around here, we’re glad you’re here and we hope you participate and help to make Clink better. Big love and thanks to all our new Clinkers, and of course, big love and thanks to all our longtime Clinkers. Have a great weekend everyone.

Two things that I can’t stop playing in the studio this week are Uhh Yeah Dude and Jarvis Cocker’s “Jarvis”.

Uhh Yeah Dude is the best podcast I’ve dowloaded in a long time. I can’t get enough of Jonathan and Seth. Jonathan’s Dad is Jon Larroquette of “Night Court” so he lends his strange LA/ Hollywood childhood perspective to Seth hilarious take. They’re both funny as hell. I don’t think I’ve laughed out loud this often while listening or watching anything ever. Start in around Episode 125, once you’re hooked, work your way from the top or bottom. And there’s over 200 hours of listening! Thank you UYD. UYD for life. Someone give these guys a radio or TV show. (Thanks Russ for introducing me to them.)



Jarvis Cocker should need no introduction. I love him in Pulp, but I have to say that his first solo album has got me. His lyrics are brilliant. A little cynical, but he’s British so what do you expect. Start with “Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time” or “Black Magic”.

The Selby is one of my favorite new sites (thanks Miles!). Not only is it voyeuristic, which is always interesting, but I love to see how creative people fill and build their living spaces. Seriously, spend an hour going through all these slide shows. Some of these homes make me very jealous.

We sent Andrew and his crew back to Reno last night to cover more footage for us. The stuff we shot the first round was great, we just didn’t get enough footage to edit it at the pace we wanted. Jay or I weren’t there but these were the sketches that we sent with him so he knew what we needed. I love that we have talented people that we can trust with this sort of thing.

Casey and I continued to discuss “mystery.” Mystery is obviously something we associate with the ocean and what lies beneath. Pretty soon we figured the way to create mystery for the Threshers brand was not to show all our cards. The idea is to provide visual peaks at the Brand Story, then let the fan fill in the rest with their imagination. Those possibilities in-between create the mystery.


The obvious (show all your cards) answer is to illustrate a shark attacking. So we focused on what happens before – and after the attack. Above is the Home cap mark and an Alternate Merchandising Mark, showing the Thresher sneaking in for the kill, and the aftermath of a life preserver after an attack. Then we let the fan’s imagination explore what happens in-between. We applied this to the hurricane-swept palm tree as well.

(On a size note: One goal was to create a killer cap, that anyone would buy. Not just baseball or even sports fans. Until the Threshers, no pro team had ever presented a direct shark mark. San Jose’s logo attacks a hockey stick, and the Jupiter Hammerhead wore a baseball hat leaning on a lighthouse next to a fishhook. Phew! We knew if the cap logo was overly simple, we’d have a hit.)


Another approach we took to mystery was to address the fear of sharks. Casey and I hate when kids are placated or even talk down to. Today’s kids are smarter and more savvy than we ever were. Think about it: Spongebob is one of the most complex ideas ever presented to kids – and they love it! So whenever we get a chance, we like to give kids the power. Above is the Lil’ Anglers kids club logo (using a familiar recycled concept!). Our vision was that if adults are scared of sharks, then kids shouldn’t be. Here’s a kid powering his Thresher ride with a carrot in front.

Tune in tomorrow, when we present the mascot that got rejected, and the team uniforms!

We took the Phillies feedback on the Thresher swooping under the lettering and came back with these three new concepts.


Being both the Single ‘A’ Affiliate and Spring Training Home of the Phillies, the look was missing a healthy dose of Scarlet. To bring out that chill-out, relaxed Florida vacation vibe, we added both Sand and Peach. You’ll notice the “sunset” rendering of the lettering.

Casey and I are really into using “zing!” colors to make team identities stand out. Anything to break up the ubiquitous Red, White & Blue. For the Threshers we added Indigo Blue (Washington Wizards), Peach and Sand to traditional Navy and Red.

The Phillies loved ‘C’ but wanted the Thresher be chasing the ball in ‘B.’ Great call. Concept ‘A’ didn’t make the Phase IV cut, but it lives on in our latest Edition!

Tune in tomorrow, as we lock-in on that “mystery” logo we’d been searching for!

Oh, and one more thing. Logos and uniforms are just a small part of developing any team brand. We also develop mascots, dream up custom food items, and even theme songs. Here’s some of the street addressees we pitched for the new ballpark (notice the “unlucky” 13)…

13 Dry Dock Drive
13 Rough Water Road
13 Survivor Drive
13 Deep Blue Blvd
13 Shark Tank Terrace

Big thanks to Erik and Jeff for sending these photos. Love them both. Erik for his artistic take, Jeff for his exuberant Jeffness. Pick up that Threshers hat while you still can. Still can’t believe how many people picked one of these caps up. It was a huge week. Thanks again, everyone that bought one. Send in those photos and we’ll post em!

Here’s the first round of Threshers concepts being digitized in Illustrator. Just knowing this shark beats its prey then goes in for the kill, evokes images of speed, stealth and aggression. That’s what we initially went for. These early concepts were also inspired by that rubbery rendering style of the Miami Dolphins logo.


E and F are two failed attempts at alternate logos. You’ll notice the reflection of a palm tree in the baseball. “Mystery” was something this brand really needed. We weren’t sure exactly how to execute it, but we were starting to think about it.

The Phillies liked the idea of the Thresher sneaking under the text, so we went back to the drawing board to explore that angle even more.

Tune in tomorrow when we show the Phase IV Edition design we pitched to the club…

Hey guys, we wanted to give you glimpse into what we’ve been working on for the last 4 or 5 months since the Taco Shop League winners were announced. This is a brief run down of what’s happened since then…

Once we had our winners we began preparing the artwork to submit it to New Era. At that time we heard back from New Era Legal that they weren’t comfortable producing the caps from the contest. We began a process that lasted for 2 months with both sides trying to come to some sort of agreement where we could fulfill our promise to you to have New Era produce the caps. In the end we couldn’t find that common ground. It’s not their fault, it’s not our fault, it’s just the way it works sometimes. We still have a great relationship with New Era. We love our Rep, we love all the people that we work with up in Buffalo. We will still be producing our Edition and official on-field caps with them. We love their work and we know you guys love their product.

We apologize if you feel mislead. Just know we have done everything in our power to fulfill that original promise.

Looking forward, we’ve spent the last two months trying to find a suitable alternative. We did a ton of research, consulting Nai from Strictly Fitteds, fielding samples and pitches from a dozen companies. After all that exploring we’ve decided to go with Elm Company. And it’s been great. The quality of their product is great and they’ve let us customize the heck out of the caps. So many awesome details, custom labels, tags, fabrics, and stickers. What’s going to be cool about this cap is that it will be a true Clink cap. There are some details that we want to keep secret till the drop of the cap but check out a few of the details below.



Elm is a brand that’s been around for a long time, their customer service has been superb, and their product is great. Originally, we wanted to wait to tell everyone once we had a cap that we felt 100% about, that should be in a month or two, but in the spirit of openness we thought we’d tell you now.

We’ve talked on the phone with most of the contest winners. They have all been so understanding, thank you for that. If I haven’t talked you, call me and we can discuss everything. Prize/royalty money will be the same and we think you’re going to love this Clink/Elm cap. Thanks for all your support understanding.

Casey + Jason

Because the Thresher shark isn’t as common as Tiger Sharks, Hammerheads or Great Whites, we created this simple billboard to pitch the idea to the Phillies Organization…


The billboard was so effective, the Phillies though we should use this educate Clearwater on the name change. But Casey and I really wanted to get Clearwater hyped before the big unveiling.

One of my favorite quotes is, “If people aren’t talking about your brand, it’s dead.” So to get the market talking, we boldly plastered this billboard all over Clearwater. We didn’t explain it. We didn’t connect it to the team. We just kept silent…

About as soon as the boards went up, the Board of Tourism was ringing off the hook with Tampa Bay citizens freaking out about the beaches being unsafe! Viacom leased the billboards, so they were getting their share of calls as well. The folks at Viacom did an amazing job keeping it all under wraps. For a whole month, people were writing into newspapers and calling talk radio shows to debate the boards! Just to add to the chaos, we released this billboard a month later…

…which was followed by this newspaper ad…


Tune in tomorrow, when we’ll unveil the first logo concepts!

Just got the first set of Taco Shop League samples. Long time commin’. They look amazing, a few tweaks and we’re off to the races. Kurt, Kevin, and Erick, hit me up if you want more looks. They’re on the right path, but need a little more polishing. Thanks for a huge week guys. We are humbled by your support of The Clink Room. Man do I love Clinkers.

Before we arrived in Clearwater, the organization had done some informal surveying of a few ideas: Beach Dogs – which people either loved or hated. The Barracudas and Kingfish which did spark much passion. And the Sand Sharks which scored really high with kids – but it needed some pizzaz.

Choosing the correct name may be the toughest decision facing any new ball club. It is important that the name reflects the characteristics of the area. It also must be simple, unique, marketable, and must fill the fans and organization’s staff with enough imagery to develop a colorful brand story.


During our research on Clearwater Beach, we stopped by the docks and conducted informal interviews of local fishermen. When asked what they we’re pulling out of the gulf, one story stood out: The fishermen spoke of a shark with the longest tail, that first stuns its prey by whipping them, then darting in for the kill. This mysterious “Thresher” shark instantly captured our imaginations!

Here’s the metrics we worked out to justify its marketability…

Next up, selling the Threshers name to the Clearwater staff, the Phillies ownership, and the fans…

Cheers to the new Clinkers who just caught a ride over from uncrate! Welcome!

Today we’re starting a behind the scenes look at building the Clearwater Threshers team identity. Normally we do this leading up to an Edition launch – but Casey and I thought we’d switch it up.


Here’s a little background: The Clearwater Threshers are the Class ‘A’ Minor League affiliate of Philadelphia. Their ballpark is also Spring Training home of the Phillies. Up until 2004, the Clearwater club was nicknamed the ‘Clearwater Phillies’ and sported the old school logo you see here. As they geared up to move into a new ballpark, they thought it was time to give Clearwater it’s own hometown identity. We thought so too!


Today we’ll set the stage…

Clearwater is one of those classic Florida towns. It’s part of the Tampa Bay market, but embodies great Florida kitsch! Hulk Hogan doesn’t live far away, its got old folks, trailers, lawn flamingos, a store that sells ONLY christmas stuff…year round. It’s also home to the Original Hooters. Want one of those long T-shirts with the bikini airbrushed on it? Clearwater Beach. There you’ll find the best barefoot bars playing Jimmy Buffett. But we had to learn this firsthand…


Storytelling is so important to developing a great brand. Our job is to take that hometown story, turn up the juice, and pump it into the team identity. To make sure Clearwater’s brand was authentic, we headed to Florida to become honorary Clearwater citizens. Our research started where any San Diego kids would start….the beach!


Tune in tomorrow to learn how we came up with the “Threshers” name…

Wow, what a big day it’s been! A HUGE thanks to everyone who made the Threshers Phase IV launch a success!

Thanks to Luis at Hypebeast Nai at Strictly Fitteds Pete at The Hundreds Francesco at New Era Cap Talk, Andre at Street Giant Steve at Clothing Wire Kirk at For All to Envy and to Chris over Vibe Magazine who called The Clink Room “The Best New Fitted Hat Company.” Awesome!

Most importantly, to The 150 Club and all the Clinkers who picked up the latest Edition…you guys are the best!