Austin FC

[Sport]

9 hours ago, GFB said:

4. Basing your opinion of the intentions/awareness of the designers off of that awful design-speak explanation graphic is dumb (I don’t remember if it was you or someone else who stated this belief). That could have just as easily come from a PSV employee who wasn’t privy to the design meetings and strategy sessions. Or the written copy could have come from someone who lost the forest for the trees and forgot to explain the big idea in all the little details. The point is, many designers don’t write their own copy and it’s up to the client to communicate that.

 

 

 

Agreed, that’s one of the cheesiest, worst offenses of bullshirt we’ve ever seen to justify design choices. However, some of what they mentioned are valid reasons for why a team would choose a tree to represent their club. Roots, strength, growth, bond with the community, etc.

 

But what we have here is a team who is in the process of moving and moving for no other reason than their dickhead owner wants to own a team in Austin, Texas and did a lot of work and underhand tactics to make Columbus look worse than it is to justify the move. It’s all dirty play so I don’t know how they can with a straight face and with all earnestness sit here and try to claim those values with that icon. We can see in real time that it’s full of :censored:. 

 

In the design process they took a team in this situation and chose to use a tree and they chose it for those stated reasons which can only mean one of three things happened:

1 they chose to use a tree because Austin has a lot of trees and didn’t see the obvious irony and are therefore blind and tonedeaf.

2. They recognized the obvious irony, but didn’t care that the intrinsic values upon which this badge is crafted are demonstrably untrue, which means they’re mean and don’t care that all meaning associated with their mark is inherently valueless

3. They recognized the irony and did it as a deliberate middle finger from Precourt to Columbus, which is psychotic. 

 

In no case are the optics good. 

 

I think the real answer is probably the first one. They probably just thought “hey cool, oak tree” and didn’t see the problem. Itd be fine for an expansion team but It’s a load for a team that was literally uprooted and swiped and that’s why I can’t have any appreciation for what they’ve delivered. These logos aren’t going to exist in a vacuum, they shouldn’t be designed in a vacuum and it seems like this was. 

[Digby]

At the very least it's going to make from quality tifo.

 

Particulary from fans of, ah, the other primarily green, tree-themed team that plays in a small-market white hipster town.

[BrandMooreArt]

@McCarthy after giving this some more thought, i think im coming back around to being ok with the tree imagery. because, there is no way Columbus fans are going to be ok with this, no way to remedy this move, no way Austin could win in this regard. so if thats the case, why not "lay down your roots" in your new home? this also gives the connotation of moving to another place— not staying in one place. 

[IceCap]

1 minute ago, BrandMooreArt said:

this also gives the connotation of moving to another place— not staying in one place. 

Trees literally stay in one place though. They don’t walk around.  

[SFGiants58]

3 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Trees literally stay in one place though. They don’t walk around.  

 

 

Austin Ents?

[MJWalker45]

41 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Trees literally stay in one place though. They don’t walk around.  

I think he means that in a sense of the team being a vagabond that's decided Austin is where they settled down. 

[Sport]

1 minute ago, BrandMooreArt said:

@McCarthy after giving this some more thought, i think im coming back around to being ok with the tree imagery. because, there is no way Columbus fans are going to be ok with this, no way to remedy this move, no way Austin could win in this regard. so if thats the case, why not "lay down your roots" in your new home? this also gives the connotation of moving to another place— not staying in one place. 

 

That's inventing intention that they didn't have when they designed the logo. It's pretty clear to me they wanted to use an oak tree because there's a bunch in Austin and I guess a certain famous tree and then later someone tacked on a bunch of nonsense to ascribe some meaning to parts of the logo. Those reasons read pretty hollow and false when viewed in the full context of what's happening. I think it's that simple. 

You can't remedy the move, but you can avoid making it worse by not suggesting the team's got these core values that we're all watching them violate as we speak. They should've considered how it would read in context to the move, in context to the former city and it feels like either they never thought about it or they did and didn't care. If all they'd said was "depicted in the center of the badge is the treaty oak tree" then it would've been a non-issue. 
 

[TalktoChuck]

They should have gone with Austin Wanderers FC.

[BrandMooreArt]

1 hour ago, McCarthy said:

 

That's inventing intention that they didn't have when they designed the logo. It's pretty clear to me they wanted to use an oak tree because there's a bunch in Austin and I guess a certain famous tree and then later someone tacked on a bunch of nonsense to ascribe some meaning to parts of the logo. Those reasons read pretty hollow and false when viewed in the full context of what's happening. I think it's that simple. 

You can't remedy the move, but you can avoid making it worse by not suggesting the team's got these core values that we're all watching them violate as we speak. They should've considered how it would read in context to the move, in context to the former city and it feels like either they never thought about it or they did and didn't care. If all they'd said was "depicted in the center of the badge is the treaty oak tree" then it would've been a non-issue. 
 

 

we’re talking about connotations and our own interpretations though. if you can pit forth that “i see the team being uprooted” why cant i say “i see the team as laying down roots”? that is a prt of logo design, a 2 way conversation. the logo says what was intended and then we make another connection

[Gothamite]

7 hours ago, BrandMooreArt said:

we’re talking about connotations and our own interpretations though. if you can pit forth that “i see the team being uprooted” why cant i say “i see the team as laying down roots”? 

 

Because we’re talking about Anthony Precourt here.  

[rams80]

21 hours ago, BrandMooreArt said:

 

can confirm; and well said. i'll place this here again...

 

"It's more about the Treaty Oak, a 500 year old oak tree that is pretty famous down here. Also, there are oak trees EVERYWHERE around this city so that was a huge inspiration as well." - Steve Wolf

 

That seems like kind of a big detail to omit, especially since the "symbolism" graphic was filled to the brim with meaningless marketingspeak bull .

 

It's bad enough that nowadays every single pixel in a logo must have more symbolism than a friggin' Anton Chekhov play-it's worse when you miss out on actual non-bull symbolism.

[Sport]

10 hours ago, BrandMooreArt said:

 

we’re talking about connotations and our own interpretations though. if you can pit forth that “i see the team being uprooted” why cant i say “i see the team as laying down roots”?

 

that is a prt of logo design, a 2 way conversation. the logo says what was intended and then we make another connection

Because trust and actions and being able to trust actions are important. The move is actually happening while "laying down roots" has come from Precourt before, when he bought the Crew, and 4 years ago when he introduced a new badge for Columbus with similar themes. His actions make it impossible to trust what they say when what they say has so often been outright lies in a very real scheme to rob one of MLS' charter cities. And I know because this guy is a true venture capitalist that if he got a better deal tomorrow from, let's say, Sacramento then he'd be laying down his roots in Sacramento tomorrow, which is another reason I can't put any stock into the meaning behind this logo.

 

Plus their efforts at laying down roots in Austin so far have been clumsy, at best. An astroturfed social media campaign, settling for a location in the suburbs (which is just hilarious because his main gripe with Columbus was that the stadium was too far from downtown), and bribing city officials, but that's a whole different can of worms. 

 

You can't separate this franchise from how it's being stolen from Columbus and to use a tree, to say you have roots, to say you have a bond between club and city, can only be viewed as laughably hypocritical...I feel for Wolf and team because it's my worst nightmare to put something out that I put a lot of time and thought into and have people point out an interpretation that I hadn't considered or noticed. It's also a nightmare to build something from your point of view and not think about how it'll be seen from another, or to have it high-jacked by something like that awful explanation graphics. And now it's too late to go back, meaning's been attached to it that is inherently fraudulent. 

[DC in Da House w/o a Doubt]

Someone mentioned you could switch out the name for any other city, so I gave it a try

 

[Gothamite]

Yep, checks out.

 

[schlim]

I was born in Schenectady! Let me tell you about all the oak trees that surrounded the Stockade area that are now in the city's Central Park...

lol

I do always appreciate Schenectady references.

[Gothamite]

3 minutes ago, schlim said:

I do always appreciate Schenectady references.

 

Well, of course.  It's a "legendary City" with "vibrancy and creative energy".  Says so right there.   

[shark]

"Unused Logos"

https://www.massivereport.com/2018/10/12/17968262/misson-accomplished-saved-the-crew-columbus-crew-sc-mls-2018-jimmy-haslam

[Dilbert]

5 minutes ago, shark said:

"Unused Logos"

https://www.massivereport.com/2018/10/12/17968262/misson-accomplished-saved-the-crew-columbus-crew-sc-mls-2018-jimmy-haslam

Not yet. Precourt and Austin will more than likely get their team in the form of expansion. It just wont be the Crew moving to Austin.

[MJWalker45]

49 minutes ago, Dilbert said:

Not yet. Precourt and Austin will more than likely get their team in the form of expansion. It just wont be the Crew moving to Austin.

Hopefully with a better logo.

[zigbazah]

To me, it looks like a logo for a health & wellness MLM company. Just remove the FC. 

Come to think of it, that's kinda fitting for MLS.