MLS Nashville unveils logo

[Sykotyk]

This is just a horrible logo. Such a shame. The usl logo wasn't the best. But this was a severe downgrade. 

[Gothamite]

7 hours ago, conner62 said:

The logo is terrible but the colors make sense. Navy and gold are the colors on the city flag of Nashville. There would have been a revolt if the colors were changed. Gold will be the primary uniform color

 

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It would indeed have made sense to use those colors.  But they didn’t. 

[Digby]

10 hours ago, conner62 said:

The logo is terrible but the colors make sense. Navy and gold are the colors on the city flag of Nashville. There would have been a revolt if the colors were changed. Gold will be the primary uniform color

 

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Of course but compare that gold to the greenish sickly shade the team is using! It’s bad and reads as either amateur or a bad idea from the branding team.

[andrewharrington]

I like the monogram quite a bit. It’s very unique and recognizable, especially for a sports mark. I also like the thought process behind the brand and I appreciate they avoided doing something overtly stereotypical of Nashville. With that said, though, I think this needs another round or two to really make it sing.

 

[29texan]

On 2/21/2019 at 8:39 AM, DC in Da House w/o a Doubt said:

 

Looks like they chose an octagon because that's the shape the sound wave-N makes.  

 

Here's what it looks like when you removed Nashville SC and squish the octagon back to size

 

 

 

...I'm gonna play with this later, if you don't mind. 

[tBBP]

There's so much I wanna say about this given everything I saw leading up to this but...I don't even know if it's worth the keystrokes at this point.

 

I try to be as open-minded as possible when it comes to certain things...but that is supposed to be a pro-level crest??  All the many muses a Nashville sport  club could use around here and...I just wanna see the creative brief on this.

[xbhaskarx]

On 2/21/2019 at 6:39 AM, DC in Da House w/o a Doubt said:

 

Looks like they chose an octagon because that's the shape the sound wave-N makes.  

 

Here's what it looks like when you removed Nashville SC and squish the octagon back to size

 

 

 

This looks so much better already... someone put "Nashville Soccer Club" around this please...

[Gothamite]

12 hours ago, andrewharrington said:

I appreciate they avoided doing something overtly stereotypical of Nashville.

 

Music isn't “overly stereotypical of Nashville”?

[Red Wolf]

Between this, the Nashville Sounds, and the Predators' guitar pick secondary logo, it's kind of embarrassing that the Titans hate Nashville so much that they don't have any music related imagery.

[Dynasty]

It makes me think of math homework; not Nashville... or soccer.

[tBBP]

On 2/23/2019 at 2:24 AM, Red Wolf said:

Between this, the Nashville Sounds, and the Predators' guitar pick secondary logo, it's kind of embarrassing that the Titans hate Nashville so much that they don't have any music related imagery.

 

I see what you did here!

 

Based on some of the merch, either intentionally or "accidentally", it seems part of the goal of this brand was to create some type of zubaz-ish "team-specific" pattern utilizing the logo itself. 

 

 

 

Oh--and this thing is being roasted around town right now, and even by some other clubs. Someone has already began a petition to change this branding, and at last check it was already up to 178 of 200 signatures...

 

https://www.change.org/p/mls-restore-nashville-soccer-club-s-original-logo?recruiter=937874049&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition

[Gothamite]

178 signatures is a long way from Timbers territory.  How are the organized SGs taking it?

[andrewharrington]

On 2/23/2019 at 12:09 AM, Gothamite said:

 

Music isn't “overly stereotypical of Nashville”?

 

I didn’t say “overly.” I said “overtly,” meaning I appreciate that they avoided going straight to guitar strings, notes, picks, piano keys, etc. and instead tried to find a different way to design a brand around sound and music. I don’t think they were very successful in that endeavor, but it’s pretty clear that using those low-hanging symbols of the Nashville music scene in this color scheme would have made them look like an affiliate of the Predators.

[Gothamite]

Sorry, I misread. 

 

I do appreciate that they tried a new tack with the stereotypical Nashville iconography, but it’s still stereotypical Nashville iconography.  Still feels like it was designed by people who had never been to Nashville. 

 

And I actually love that N on its own.  That’s how awful everything around it is. 

[andrewharrington]

11 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Sorry, I misread. 

 

I do appreciate that they tried a new tack with the stereotypical Nashville iconography, but it’s still stereotypical Nashville iconography.  Still feels like it was designed by people who had never been to Nashville. 

 

And I actually love that N on its own.  That’s how awful everything around it is. 

 

That’s the saddest part. It’s like signing Daniel Day Lewis to star in “Dude, Where’s My Car? The Musical.”

[schlim]

5 hours ago, Buc said:

Based on some of the merch, either intentionally or "accidentally", it seems part of the goal of this brand was to create some type of zubaz-ish "team-specific" pattern utilizing the logo itself. 

 

Well, this would be effective if soccer teams could make jersey manufacturers use the patterns in their shirts every year, but the designed change so much it'll be there once and gone again real fast. This is an annoying thing about soccer and MLS in general - no team ever sticks to a pattern or design. It seems like all the patterns just get shifted around from team to team over the years. There's no Yankee pinstripes and there won't be any Nashville zubaz.

[tBBP]

I don't know that I'd go THAT far. @Bucfan56 knows some of the inner workings of the restrictions adidas (or whatever manufacturer) places on the creativity of the clubs' kits. So how much of that is the club, how much of that is the league, and how much of that is the manufacturer we really don't know (unless someone tells us). That said, some clubs have established and do establish some type of lasting inconography. As to why some seem to have moved away from their established "thing", like LA Galaxy with the sash and the Philadelphia Union with the broad chest stripe ans center-chest badge, I personally don't know (but hope somebody in here might).  That to the side, Portland and Vancouver still maintain their hoops, Montreal still has their vertical stripes, I think the Fire got their chest stripe thing back--those are just the ones off the top of my head. (But bear in mind I'm no MLS expert, either.). Having said all that, I suppose if some team wanted to trot out some kind of pattern and make it their "thing", it might be possible, if the league and manufacturer don't restrict them too much--or if the club itself doesn't 86 it.

 

(I keep thinking about Sporting KC and how for a short while there they were like the Oregon of MLS, what with all the different patterns from the argyle to the stripes, but all in keeping with their two-tone blue aesthetic--but they haven't even done that in a while, I don't think. I still personally wish they'd have found a way to keep the "state line" stripe thing they had going on several years ago.)

[FiddySicks]

You basically summed it up, Buc. It would be really nice if soccer clubs could pick a design or branding aspect and just stick to it, but it’s honestly usually not up to them. Some companies are more flexible about what they’ll do for you. Adidas, for example, is MUCH more willing to give lower level clubs the freedom to do what they want than say Nike is, but even they’ll put certain restrictions on that (We’re facing a bit of a challenge with that right now, actually). There’s also usually a mandate that you change your jersey style every 12 to 24 months (depending on overall sales numbers), because these companies have decided that sales numbers tend to level out after that period of time. 

 

I can’t say exactly for sure how it works in MLS because we’re not yet an MLS team (although one of my bosses did this same job for the Earthquakes, so I get the feeling it’s pretty similar), but it pretty much works like this. Each team usually gets full autonomy over their branding package (Logos and the like) and how they want to utilize that branding. But when it comes to actual apparel, that’s pretty much all up to the manufacturer. These major manufacturers are only going to give so many options to most teams, and if you don’t like that direction, you can either accept that or find a new apparel company. The more valuable your brand is, the more say you’ll get in the overall process. Also, the larger the apparel company is, the less they’ll let you variate. We used to use a smaller company out of (I think) Italy called Lotto, and they would basically do anything we wanted. This was great for the flexibility we had, but the apparel itself was rather subpar and they were only able to make so much due to the size of the company and the fact that they were based on the other side of the world. We use Nike now, and while that’s great for quality purposes and what we can offer in terms of overall product, it’s basically given us little to no say in how the apparel is constructed. 

 

I dont want want to say too much, but this reflects rather strongly in our upcoming 2019 kits. We wanted to do something VERY specific, and Nike pretty much told us haha no, you’ll get what we give you in a style we offer that’s the closest to what you’re looking for. 

 

Overall, there is SO much more to this process than most people even realize. I’ve had to problem solve on several issues that I didn’t even know existed before I started doing this. 

[IceCap]

On 2/22/2019 at 2:48 PM, andrewharrington said:

With that said, though, I think this needs another round or two to really make it sing.

 

[Pa02]

Nice color scheme, Rams or chargers should use something similar.