Austin FC

[Sport]

On 8/25/2018 at 11:25 PM, NicDB said:

 

The NHL worked in Columbus?

 

Yes. 

[BrandMooreArt]

2 hours ago, McCarthy said:

But I don't see anything in the work that I haven't seen before. Trees have been rendered in this exact visual style dozens of times before. My first thought was the Citrus Bowl logo from the 19 hundred and 90's. If you're talking about the simple act of using a tree famous to this city to represent the club as breaking status quo, in that case I can't see how that breaks status quo either. I'm almost positive you could find a famous tree in every city in the country that has historical value specific to that city that would sound good in a press release (which is why it's curious that it was left out of the explanation graphic they put out.) Even in just the sports world the Golden State Warriors wore a similarly rendered tree in the most recent NBA Finals, albeit with an alternate, non-primary logo. It's a tree like we've seen before inside of a shield, which for soccer is the very definition of status quo for that sport's design aesthetic. I'm failing to see how this is at all a piece of revolutionary work or reaching a deeper level. I suppose I disagree with your thesis. 

 

well, if you're going to look at the work with that big of a "telescope", of course there's nothing new about it. you'll spend your life looking at "tree logos" if you do a google search. the status quo doesn't have to include the entire history of graphic design, you have to look at the area you're given: an MLS team in the city of Austin. no other team uses a tree as their symbol and im sure that's far from what most people would have come to when creating a symbol for Austin. 

 

if your definition of status quo has to include much more than that, and really groundbreaking work must be viewed through that "telescope" then we'll agree to disagree. but i think you'd be better served looking at the goals, the brief, the mission of the project with that same detailed eye you use for the kerning and line work

[MJWalker45]

10 minutes ago, BrandMooreArt said:

 

well, if you're going to look at the work with that big of a "telescope", of course there's nothing new about it. you'll spend your life looking at "tree logos" if you do a google search. the status quo doesn't have to include the entire history of graphic design, you have to look at the area you're given: an MLS team in the city of Austin. no other team uses a tree as their symbol and im sure that's far from what most people would have come to when creating a symbol for Austin. 

Another thing to remember is that Nashville will be entering the league too. While that shouldn't influence Austin's design, it would be expected by most that a guitar of some sort will be involved in their logo or somewhere else in their branding. 

[BrandMooreArt]

55 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

Another thing to remember is that Nashville will be entering the league too. While that shouldn't influence Austin's design, it would be expected by most that a guitar of some sort will be involved in their logo or somewhere else in their branding. 

 

thats a great point. it will be interesting to see what they come up with and if they play to what they are or what they're known for. but for Nashville? the latter might go over much better than it would in Austin

 

let me try to get ahead of that a bit; why would you do something so outside of the norm for Austin but play towards the expected with Nashville? you have to ask what is right for what you're representing. i never just say "break the status quo!" i say "do it with reason". Austin gives you that reason because that is who they are at their core. that city is built on weird, before it was cool. what's right for Nashville? what captures that city's personality and spirit? it might be a guitar, but i'd bet it would probably have to look like something Hank Williams III would play rather than somrthing his grandfather would own

[Sport]

43 minutes ago, BrandMooreArt said:

 

well, if you're going to look at the work with that big of a "telescope", of course there's nothing new about it. you'll spend your life looking at "tree logos" if you do a google search. the status quo doesn't have to include the entire history of graphic design, you have to look at the area you're given: an MLS team in the city of Austin. no other team uses a tree as their symbol and im sure that's far from what most people would have come to when creating a symbol for Austin. 

That's only true depending on what you think of the Portland Timbers' badge. Austin's is different enough that they won't encroach on the other's identity, and that isn't even a problem for me - two different teams use mountains in their badge, after all, but the Timbers use a lot of tree imagery in their work so Austin is not the first to go the local flora route. I'm being a bit pedantic, but it's not 100% true that no other team uses a tree as their symbol.
 

I guess I'm just less impressed that the design team did research, which in their case means they looked out their window. If the rubric for our MLS identities demands some local identifier they should get points for not rolling with the most obvious, basic-bitch thing for Austin. That means they can't use the following: music imagery, bats, cowboy imagery, longhorns, and/or Texasy stuff. But the thing they settled on is also a thing that basically every city has. There's an oak tree outside of my office here in future MLS city Cincinnati right now. 

 

and still where does this break the status quo of the now-established MLS design aesthetic? An NFL or NHL style logo, an angry anthropomorphized tree kicking a ball - those would've gone against type and expectations. If you go to the MLS page on the mothership and put this logo in place of the Crew's it blends right in with all of the rest because it's a shield with a simply-rendered design element inside of it. Almost the entirety of MLS does the same, which is fine, but Austin FC is not breaking any rules over here. I kind of feel like they're following them, which is why your status quo comment caught my attention. 

 

Even the name Austin FC is status quo. Related: I'll buy a jersey of the next MLS team who calls themselves the [City Name][Nicknames] and not Sporting FC Cityname United Athletico 

[Pharos04]

Looking over it again and trying to dismiss the now-impossible to see Broccoli aspect of the crest, it does try to certainly play it safe.  It's a shield, to go with the other 18 shield crests in the league. Basic imagery that then tries to nike-speak its way into drawing connections.  It just...is.  It's very unremarkable.  it doesn't really stand out too much.  Now, when paired with a potential green/black hoops or stripes design? it may look decent.  but on it's own it feels very generic and bland.  it doesn't stand out. As others have said, you could literally swap out "Austin" for any other city and you could draw the same conclusions and connections if you tried hard enough. But you could break down each descriptor that they gave and mix it for anything else. 

Ignore the soccer-based descriptions, so no Eleven Leaves or FC, that's a third of the reasons given removed

The city name "proudly positioned at the top": of the 18 current crests that feature the City Name on them, Eleven of those have the city name at the very top.  So not exactly a unique expression

Bright Verde is a "signature color".  Ok so they want to own a specific shade of green.  As discussed with the other teams that use green, not a unique color even if it is different.  the Crew's Yellow, Orlando's purple, Houston's orange...THOSE are signature colors. is green considered a color associated with Austin? let alone this specific green?

so that's 2/3rds of the choices given dismissed as they are just nonsense to fill up reasons to pick design choices.  Austin isn't going to go at the bottom of the crest with the shape chosen, and the choice of green isn't exactly given.  So now let's focus on the contending parts: the broccoli

 

Intertwined Oaks.  Ok so Austin has an important tree left over from the other 13 that have been destroyed that is supposedly where Stephen F Austin met with local tribes to set up a boundary due to raids. Even though "No historical documentation exists to support this event actually taking place".  Not denying that this is or isn't an important tree.  But as mentioned before there are many many many towns and cities that have their own historical "tree" where the town charter was signed, or the land was purchased by the local tribes for pocket change.  It's not a unique and identifiable image.  It's a tree.  Now, someone mentioned how Nottingham Forest FC has owned a decent tree crest for a long time.  Well, yeah, it works.  Nottingham is forever tied as the location of Sherwood Forest.  It makes sense!  But back to this crest, none of this is even used to justify the choice of the broccoli.  No mention of the Treaty Oak, no mention of the abundance of Oaks...when you start talking about Oaks, unfortunately there's another city that springs to mind: OAKland! Literally meaning "Land of Oaks".  And the "bond between club and city" well, how long has the club been bonding with the city? is it engrained in the local populace and synonymous in the sporting world with each other? 

 

The Roots: Why even use this as a reason.  Roots take years to grown and become...well, rooted into the ground.  Somehow they are meant to symbolize the 4 directions, not being rooted into the city.  and a Foundation for the club sounds more of the same crap they were using to justify the intertwined trees earlier. 

 

the badge itself is okay at best.  but not something to say is in the top 5 of the league. It's very mediocre for a professional club to want to wear.  The FC should definitely be white to match with the Austin.  it blends in too much.  And it really doesn't matter who made it or what their portfolio is or how great they have been.  If they produced something mediocre, it's mediocre.  It honestly feels like something that would fit in USL or USLD3 with how bland and generic it feels looking at it. 

 

Anyways, that's my $0.02 on the subject.  It's not inspirational or outstanding or anything like that.  It's just...there. and no amount of nikespeak or doubletalk or justification that isn't explicitly stated by the group who paid to have this done can make their reasoning or choices better.

 

[Gothamite]

36 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

Even the name Austin FC is status quo. Related: I'll buy a jersey of the next MLS team who calls themselves the [City Name][Nicknames] and not Sporting FC Cityname United Athletico 

 

That's fine.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

But it's perhaps no surprise that MLS has been thriving at the same time it stopped trying to "Americanize" the sport and embraced aspects of the world's approach.  In other worlds, there are a lot of fans who appreciate things like FC and the ability to create team nicknames ourselves rather than having a marketing company spoonfeed them to us.   

[Sport]

1 minute ago, Gothamite said:

 

That's fine.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

But it's perhaps no surprise that MLS has been thriving at the same time it stopped trying to "Americanize" the sport and embraced aspects of the world's approach.  In other worlds, there are a lot of fans who appreciate things like FC and the ability to create team nicknames ourselves rather than having a marketing company spoonfeed them to us.   

 

But choosing to name your team FC or United are marketing company derived names being spoonfed to the fans. Except they're supposed to sound authentic and futboly, which kind of makes it worse. In Cincinnati a bunch of execs sat around a table and decided Fussball Club was a thing they were going to call their team and a thing I'm going to have to say to people. 

 

I didn't have a problem with the first few teams who did it because, like you said, it allows for organic nicknames (though the badge sort of dictates where to go most of the time - Austin FC fans are already calling this team they don't yet have the "Oaks" because the logo created by a branding company told them to). But when every single team is doing it, including my own, it becomes tiresome. I just want one new team to have the beanbag to be the Austin Mudbats, or whatever. If Austin was embracing it's "weirdness" as has been suggested they wouldn't have named the team the exact same thing as everyone else.  

[Gothamite]

7 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

I just want one new team to have the beanbag to be the Austin Mudbats, or whatever.

 

We had that.  It wasn't good.

[Sport]

1 minute ago, Gothamite said:

 

We had that.  It wasn't good.

 

It'd be fine now. The problem was more the league starting in the mid 1990's than anything. We'd never get a San Jose Clash or Dallas Burn or Kansas City Wiz in any other time except for 1996. For the record, Columbus Crew was actually a good name and throwing the SC on the back of it did nothing except make it sound like they were trying too hard. I know a lot of Crew fans who hated that decision. 

 

[IceCap]

2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

That's fine.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

But it's perhaps no surprise that MLS has been thriving at the same time it stopped trying to "Americanize" the sport and embraced aspects of the world's approach.  In other worlds, there are a lot of fans who appreciate things like FC and the ability to create team nicknames ourselves rather than having a marketing company spoonfeed them to us.   

I don’t have a problem with European-style names in MLS, and have defended them since they started popping up in the league.

And the name “Austin FC” is certainly not what’s wrong with this identity. 

 

It’s just that all of that being said? Using the name “Austin FC” is very much fitting in with MLS’ status quo.

This isn’t a bad thing, because the current MLS status quo is far more successful and aesthetically pleasing then the one that came before it. It’s just that BMA’s assertion that this identity breaks the status quo is kind of lacking in merit. 

 

2 hours ago, McCarthy said:

I guess I'm just less impressed that the design team did research, which in their case means they looked out their window.

I don’t think this design team did any research beyond “hey a tree!” 

It’s been pointed out many times that oak trees in the Austin area were used as meeting points for local Native tribes. And that a particularly famous oak tree in the area was the spot where Stephen Austin negotiated boundary disputes with many of those Native tribes. 

 

All of this history should have been front and centre when they unveiled the logo. It’s practically there on a silver platter when it comes to justifying an oak tree for an Austin-based team. 

 

And they didn’t mention any of that. They mentioned empty brand-speak like “the four roots represent North, South, East, and West Austin,” “the colour green represents creativity,” and “we put the city’s name on it because it’s also our name.”

Yeah, great story you’re telling there, guys. Way to smash that status quo. 

 

The only reason I can fathom as to why the historical significance of oak trees to Austin wasn’t mentioned was because the design team didn’t know about them. And only discovered the happy coincidence after the fact. 

 

BMA asserted that the guys behind this rebrand, having been in the city for eight years, were true Austinites. Maybe they are. Still? It’s extremely likely you could live in a place for eight years and still not realize every historical tidbit the locale has to offer. 

And that’s fine, except when you’re paid to design a logo that resonates with the spirit of the locale. Then maybe you ought to Google a thing or two before you start your design process. 

 

As I said to @andrewharrington...we need to stop assuming that professional designers know what they talk about when they clumsily handle history. 

 

3 hours ago, BrandMooreArt said:

Austin gives you that reason because that is who they are at their core. that city is built on weird, before it was cool.

Did you know that one of Austin’s nicknames is “the City of the Violet Crown”? 

That’s a pretty weird nickname. Lots of potential imagery to draw from that. And it won’t look like a mark that can be used elsewhere, like an oak tree can be. 

 

See? Look at what you can dig up with a quick Google search. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

MLS hit peak absurdity with Cincinnati Fussball Club. I'm onboard with the Euro stylings, but that one is goofy.

Inter Miami is fine though. It's a sweet logo. Nashville will likely be an FC or SC, but they could also easily be the Nashville Opry and I'd be all right with that.

 

5 hours ago, McCarthy said:

 

 You know what would've broken the status quo and I'm 50% serious here - use a burglar as the logo, call the team/the supporters group the Thieves FC or Villains United or Austin Bandits. Own your nefarious origin. Every other fanbase will hate this team as long as Precourt owns it so own the troll role. Be the Oakland Raiders of MLS. A tree is almost so inoffensive and statement-free it's offensive.  

 

It's been a decade, so tempers have cooled a bit, but I hated OKC so much when that team started. I would have hated them less had they gone with this:

 

[Gothamite]

7 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

It'd be fine now. The problem was more the league starting in the mid 1990's than anything. We'd never get a San Jose Clash or Dallas Burn or Kansas City Wiz in any other time except for 1996.

 

And yet you're advocating for a "Austin Mudbats"?

 

No, that's not fine.  That's terrible, and would be a huge downgrade from what Precourt is trying to do.

 

[BrandMooreArt]

1 hour ago, McCarthy said:

I guess I'm just less impressed that the design team did research, which in their case means they looked out their window. If the rubric for our MLS identities demands some local identifier they should get points for not rolling with the most obvious, basic-bitch thing for Austin. That means they can't use the following: music imagery, bats, cowboy imagery, longhorns, and/or Texasy stuff. But the thing they settled on is also a thing that basically every city has. There's an oak tree outside of my office here in future MLS city Cincinnati right now. 

 

and still where does this break the status quo of the now-established MLS design aesthetic? An NFL or NHL style logo, an angry anthropomorphized tree kicking a ball - those would've gone against type and expectations. If you go to the MLS page on the mothership and put this logo in place of the Crew's it blends right in with all of the rest because it's a shield with a simply-rendered design element inside of it. Almost the entirety of MLS does the same, which is fine, but Austin FC is not breaking any rules over here. I kind of feel like they're following them, which is why your status quo comment caught my attention. 

 

 

its not just an oak tree to them like Lions is to Detroit. it means something more there, not only in city history but as a symbol for the things they were trying to communicate. togetherness, growth, roots, or whatever. i think there's certainly a discussion to be had about those things and if they're really the right things to communicate, but the oak tree as a symbol of all that works really well, i think. 

 

this was never about the aesthetic. of course, its the most basic of shield shapes, i never praised that— it's about the idea, the oak tree itself as a concept, as a symbol for the team. you know that logo design (especially crests in this game) is not about the surface level polish, it's about the ideas and putting forth something that is already meaningful. someone once said "good design is thinking made visible" and thats what i admire about the logo. not what it looks like but what it is and the concept behind it. its very easy to say "we're the Lions" and you draw a Lion and that's your logo; its a whole other level to distill a description of a city, a team, or the unity of the two into a single symbol. what i admire isn't the look of the logo, its all the things behind why they arrived at it. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

2 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Did you know that one of Austin’s nicknames is “the City of the Violet Crown”?  

That’s a pretty weird nickname. Lots of potential imagery to draw from that. And it won’t look like a mark that can be used elsewhere, like an oak tree can be.  

 

 

I initially read that as "Violent Crown," which would be amazing.

[DC in Da House w/o a Doubt]

count me among those that like the European style names.  The "American" styles just come off as bush league to me.  They were all so 90'sy.  They remind me of the Washington Warthogs, an indoor soccer team from the 90's.  MLS is better off when comparable to the EPL than the Continental Indoor Soccer League (CISL, of course)

 

  

[officeglenn]

6 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

I initially read that as "Violent Crown," which would be amazing.

 

I initially read yours as "Violent Clown," which would even more amazing.

[IceCap]

5 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

And yet you're advocating for a "Austin Mudbats"?

 

No, that's not fine.  That's terrible, and would be a huge downgrade from what Precourt is trying to do.

 

Again, Austin FC is a fine name. It’s just not status quo-breaking. 

 

[Gothamite]

1 minute ago, Ice_Cap said:

The only reason I can fathom as to why the historical significance of oak trees to Austin wasn’t mentioned was because the design team didn’t know about them. And only discovered the happy coincidence after the fact. 

 

That's the only thing that makes any sense.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Just now, officeglenn said:

 

I initially read yours as "Violent Clown," which would even more amazing.

 

And pertinent. Either with ICP or Pennywise. Or the Portland Timbers!