Need graphic design help

[ChristyHC]

First, you need a short back story. My family is into sport stacking and is going to be hosting a tournament in MI in June. If you don't know what sport stacking is it is stacking 12 cups into pyramids in patterns as fast as you can. You can see my son at a tournament here.

Second back story you need to know is that if you ask someone from Michigan where they are from they will often use their hand to model the shape of Michigan and then point to the spot where their city is.

So for our tournament we need a logo. I totally stink at this kind of thing, but since I have photoshop skills they asked me to come up with something using the slogan "The fastest hands in Michigan" with the idea of "hands" being in the shape of MI. I took a picture of my sons hands over a picture of Michigan and added some sketch effects. The tulip (the tournament is in Holland, MI) is to show where Holland is.

Here is a rough draft I'm working on:


Please give me some constructive criticism!!!
What color scheme should I use?
My dh wanted the words on the graphic, but how do I make them stand out. I've tried a light background (top words) and a dark shadow (bottom words). I've tried strokes too but didn't like the result.
Do I clean up the hands more? Do I try to make them stick out more?

Help - I need ideas to make this better.

[taracotta7]

I would get rid of the stacked cups (because WSSA would be sufficient for those looking for the tournament, I think). I would also take the text off the hands and mix some fonts. Do I serif font for the majority of it and then use a simple script font (like Lavanderia or something along it's lines) to use on words you want to accent. Maybe even change the font color on the script to the navy color to really have it stand out.

Not really a graphic artist but I think the cleaner/simpler it is the better. I hope that helps.

[KateD]

I like Tara's suggestions. If that still doesn't clean it up enough, you could try moving the text to where the stacked cups are now.

[ChristyHC]

Ok, I played with is some more - thanks for the tips. I'd totally forgotten I was going to go back and mess around with the font choices.

I'm ready for some more ideas:

[dana]

first - i have to say that i watched several of your videos - how cool!! your sons are adorable! what a fun thing for you all to do together - i love that your DH and son can do it as a team, too!

i like the second graphic w/ the words to the side and the blues ... the cups on the hand are a little off though - maybe just one cup? or something smaller? it's looking good though!