MLS Impact Rebrand as Club de Foot Montreal

[the admiral 28,760]

2 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

gibberish meant to justify the turd.

The third of what?

[Digby 6,587]

7 minutes ago, TrueYankee26 said:

With a logo like this I am a little surprised they didn't rebrand to Olympique de Montreal.

 

Winter Olympic looking logo, Olympique is the name of many soccer clubs from France like Marseille

The long-running explanation is that the IOC’s dogged trademark lawyers won’t let that fly for any team doing business in the US (or probably not Canada either). 
 

plus Montreal Olympique already came and went in the early 1970s. Though their weird modernist logo was even better IMO.

[mfoster 38]

Colors aside, my first thought was to compare it to the Sarajevo '84 Olympic logo...

 

 

[BryanSmalls 111]

Can't wait until they rebrand back to Montréal Impact FC.

[rams80 4,275]

6 hours ago, Survival79 said:

 

Urge to eviscerate marketing team rising.... rising.... rising.....

[FinsUp1214 5,677]

Just my two cents:

 

- The name is ridiculous. I audibly laughed out loud when I read it. The market speak is beyond awful.

- It really seems like the Alouettes’ recent rebrand may have inspired them to go the lifestyle brand route as well, and I don’t think that’s a bad idea. 
- To be honest? I love the crest and the branding. Again, not the name, but the branding itself appeals to me. The modernist snowflake made up of arrows and M’s is something I like a lot.

- For those opposed to Helvetica, I think it’s actually a perfect typeface selection. Canadian modernist-era design is very Helvetica heavy, and I made that connection instantly. (On a related note, I highly reccomend Design Canada for those who love documentaries. A very excellent deep-dive into Canadian Modernism). 
 

This is one of my favorite archival design sites to reference and study, and shows some good examples of Canadian Modernism that may help visually explain what Montréal was going for graphically (I’m assuming, at least):

 

https://canadamodern.org

[Digby 6,587]

Nice writeup on this whole thing in SI. They got Thierry Henry out here talking about it. Here's a detail that kind of sucks:
 

Quote

 

The blue border represents the waters surrounding the Île de Montréal. It gets mostly lost amid the black, however, as CF Montreal bows to whatever relentless pressure seems to be put on MLS clubs to prioritize that color. Expect the distinctive blue-and-black stripes the Impact featured on its primary jersey for the past five seasons to disappear along with the old name.

“All colors combined make black,” Kingsley said. “It’s a metaphor for our story. It’s key to the makeup of the city. Think about our nightlife. People come to Montreal for what happens in the dark.”

The club’s new uniforms should be revealed next month.

 

 

 

[the admiral 28,760]

23 minutes ago, FinsUp1214 said:

Just my two cents:

 

- The name is ridiculous. I audibly laughed out loud when I read it. The market speak is beyond awful.

- It really seems like the Alouettes’ recent rebrand may have inspired them to go the lifestyle brand route as well, and I don’t think that’s a bad idea. 
- To be honest? I love the crest and the branding. Again, not the name, but the branding itself appeals to me. The modernist snowflake made up of arrows and M’s is something I like a lot.

- For those opposed to Helvetica, I think it’s actually a perfect typeface selection. Canadian modernist-era design is very Helvetica heavy, and I made that connection instantly. (On a related note, I highly reccomend Design Canada for those who love documentaries. A very excellent deep-dive into Canadian Modernism). 
 

This is one of my favorite archival design sites to reference and study, and shows some good examples of Canadian Modernism that may help visually explain what Montréal was going for graphically (I’m assuming, at least):

 

https://canadamodern.org

 

I've been obsessed with this since I discovered the QMJHL. What a find, thanks so much!

I still think you can do better than Helvetica, though. Bauhaus, that's a Canadian modernist font in my eyes.

[Friedrich Stuart Macbeth 140]

Dig the logo. Hate the name. What damn shame. Because apparently, MLS teams can't do both at the same time.

 

To the guy who came up with the name, look at teams in Ligue 1 and how they name their club. It'll save you a lot of embarrassment later.

 

[BrandMooreArt 3,766]

Very strong work here. the name is the name — not much you can do about that on the Design side. in regards to that the only thing im not crazy about are the colors. but the concept and execution is so good. i dont believe that Bloomington logo will be an issue; different countries, so trademarks shouldnt be an problem? kind of unfortunate coincidence though.

 

i love the Swiss Modernism style the logo was designed in. the very best of that stuff has a geometric wit or playfulness to it. Montreal was a hot spot for the style and you can imagine how many of *Burton Kramer's or Paul Rand's logos they must have looked at for inspiration. and its a sneaky good font choice; Helvetica was a staple of the Swiss style and its looks like that on first glance, but PangramPangram confirmed it's their font "Neue Montreal". 

 

* you can thumb through some of this stuff to see that influence: https://www.pinterest.com/RealBMooreCreative/swiss-modernism/

[FinsUp1214 5,677]

39 minutes ago, BrandMooreArt said:

Helvetica was a staple of the Swiss style and its looks like that on first glance, but PangramPangram confirmed it's their font "Neue Montreal". 

Ah! I should’ve looked closer at the lowercase “a”, now I can see the difference! In any case, that’s a very nice sans-serif font.

[Digby 6,587]

I kinda would’ve expected the Montreal Metro font, but maybe that’s too thin and spindly for an application like this. I’m pretty sure said font is not Helvetica, unless it’s unrecognizable when the letters are super narrow but with major kerning? Very idiosyncratic metro system they’ve got in Montreal, appropriately.

[monkeypower 3,019]

6 hours ago, Digby said:

The long-running explanation is that the IOC’s dogged trademark lawyers won’t let that fly for any team doing business in the US (or probably not Canada either). 
 

plus Montreal Olympique already came and went in the early 1970s. Though their weird modernist logo was even better IMO.

 

Well there is the Gatineau Olympiques of the QMJHL, who have used the name since 1976 and whose logo has used three of the Olympic Rings since then and been the Torch since 2002.

[M4One 1,419]

Nice logo, not so nice name.  Apparently, there's already a petition to get the name changed back with 2000 names.  I doubt the team will, but soccer might be the one sport where the fans might be able to make it happen, if it's an overwhelming majority of them.

[Eastport76 335]

7 hours ago, mfoster said:

Colors aside, my first thought was to compare it to the Sarajevo '84 Olympic logo...

 

 

Same.   It's exactly almost same as the 84' logo. 

 

 

Edited January 15 by Eastport76

[Dynasty 2,411]

A little surprised at the praise for the logo; I was expecting the opposite.

 

I don't know what to say about it. For me, it's closer to "meh" rather than "ugh."

[Friedrich Stuart Macbeth 140]

4 hours ago, Friedrich Stuart Macbeth said:

Dig the logo. Hate the name. What damn shame. Because apparently, MLS teams can't do both at the same time.

 

To the guy who came up with the name, look at teams in Ligue 1 and how they name their club. It'll save you a lot of embarrassment later.

 

To further emphasise my point:

• OGC Nice
• Lille OSC
• RC Lens
• Le Harve AC
• Olympique Lyon
• AS Monaco
• RSC Anderlecht

The last part is Belgian. Still, anything but Clube de Foot.

 

[_J_ 2,058]

6 hours ago, Friedrich Stuart Macbeth said:

To further emphasise my point:

• OGC Nice
• Lille OSC
• RC Lens
• Le Harve AC
• Olympique Lyon
• AS Monaco
• RSC Anderlecht

The last part is Belgian. Still, anything but Clube de Foot.

 

And when we(OM fans) rightfully lambast Lyon we refer to them as FC Lyon.

[the admiral 28,760]

9 hours ago, Digby said:

I kinda would’ve expected the Montreal Metro font, but maybe that’s too thin and spindly for an application like this. I’m pretty sure said font is not Helvetica, unless it’s unrecognizable when the letters are super narrow but with major kerning? Very idiosyncratic metro system they’ve got in Montreal, appropriately.

 

I believe Montreal uses Univers Condensed. You can tell them apart by their Gs

 

It drives me up a wall that Chicago transit uses Helvetica. It's so boring and it feels like ripping off New York. A medium-weight Avant Garde would have been nice. 

[Digby 6,587]

22 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

I believe Montreal uses Univers Condensed. You can tell them apart by their Gs

 

It drives me up a wall that Chicago transit uses Helvetica. It's so boring and it feels like ripping off New York. A medium-weight Avant Garde would have been nice. 

And they use it in a very New Yorky application — at least Boston’s long-running style is different, sticking with all caps and the solid color stripes (and not black backdrops).

 

I like those newer, west coast transit systems that use sorta DIN-like newish typefaces. Can’t see those working on even the most lifestyle-brand of sports brands though, apart maybe from the Raptors numbers.