San Diego MLS expansion

[Dilbert]

What a reveal!

[Survival79]

[Dilbert]

My favorite one yet

[Brave-Bird 08]

MLS needs to upon up some DP slots for some graphic designers

[McCall]

46 minutes ago, Survival79 said:

"FC: We are a Football Club in Major League Soccer"

 

 

[Captain Invader]

1 hour ago, Dilbert said:

What a reveal!

The logo, or crest, as it appears on this sign doesn’t look as bad to me.  The chrome looks more like a light shade of blue.  And no gradients.

[VampyrRabbit]

It looks like for merch the crest won't have all that s**** on the grey parts, and the name and swirly thing will be white.

 

 

[PK22]

 

I don't hate the logo as much when its just the "flow" (what a dumb name for that thing) or Community Crest with the SD in the middle instead of the FC. I don't like taking a circular item as the main focus and then putting it into a shield. The little triangles of empty space really bother me.

 

While the flow/community chest portions only are not  good logos by any means, its better than the full shield and I hope they lean into using those secondary marks more regularly.

 

 

[Sykotyk]

2 hours ago, VampyrRabbit said:

It looks like for merch the crest won't have all that s**** on the grey parts, and the name and swirly thing will be white.

 

 

If they can't reproduce the logo shown online and in video.... They shouldn't have used that logo. 

[VampyrRabbit]

2 hours ago, Sykotyk said:

If they can't reproduce the logo shown online and in video.... They shouldn't have used that logo. 

I'm sure they can, but they realised that the crest looks a lot better without all the crap on the grey and white bits, and therefore decided not to put it on there.

[WestCoastBias]

It gives me Motor City FC vibes

[Maroon]

6 hours ago, VampyrRabbit said:

It looks like for merch the crest won't have all that s**** on the grey parts, and the name and swirly thing will be white.

 

 

Though still not great, this looks so much better.

[SCL]

6 hours ago, PK22 said:

 

I don't hate the logo as much when its just the "flow" (what a dumb name for that thing) or Community Crest with the SD in the middle instead of the FC. I don't like taking a circular item as the main focus and then putting it into a shield. The little triangles of empty space really bother me.

 

While the flow/community chest portions only are not  good logos by any means, its better than the full shield and I hope they lean into using those secondary marks more regularly.

 

 

Beyond terrible, looks like an attachment for a food processor. The font is horrendous and all under the sheen of 2007-2018 era auto/iphone skeuomorphism. This logo would be terrible by USL League 2 standards.

[tBBP]

8 hours ago, PK22 said:

 

I don't hate the logo as much when its just the "flow" (what a dumb name for that thing) or Community Crest with the SD in the middle instead of the FC. I don't like taking a circular item as the main focus and then putting it into a shield. The little triangles of empty space really bother me.

 

While the flow/community chest portions only are not  good logos by any means, its better than the full shield and I hope they lean into using those secondary marks more regularly.

 

 

 

Okay, so...setting aside the web 2.0 gradients, I think there are some good functional concepts in here. Of course, I'm doing some reverse engineering in my head so I may be way off base on this, but it seems as if they wanted to go the modular route, or systematic branding route i.e. each piece of the final whole can be broken down and used on its own. From that perspective, I think it works.

 

Now, with all that said...I done been to San Diego a time or two, and navy and chrome are the absolute LAST colors I think of then I think SD. I don't know how much of the "azul" has to do with the NFL team that used to play there and now plays about 100 miles up the 5 or if they chose that dark navy base to show off the other three or four colors. I don't entirely hate the concept of the yellow/red/sky blue gradient (part of me thinks they may have been trying to capture sunrise/sunset skies with that rather than "colors of the community", but whatever), but all this does raise the question in my mind of what the club's principal colorway is...or is about to turn into another Denver Alex English-era Denver Nuggets/Kansas City Wizards type of branding situation—which, I must admit, I wouldn't entirely hate. 

 

All that said: they'd have been better off just calling in Matthew Wolff...dude's been crushing the badge design game for a while now. 

[VampyrRabbit]

7 minutes ago, tBBP said:

Now, with all that said...I done been to San Diego a time or two, and navy and chrome are the absolute LAST colors I think of then I think SD. I don't know how much of the "azul" has to do with the NFL team that used to play there and now plays about 100 miles up the 5 or if they chose that dark navy base to show off the other three or four colors.

The Navy could have something to do with the US Navy being the top employer in San Diego too.

[Cujo]

On 10/19/2023 at 3:13 PM, aawagner011 said:

 

 

Looks like the logo for a got dam moped bicycle company

[PK22]

49 minutes ago, tBBP said:

 

I don't entirely hate the concept of the yellow/red/sky blue gradient (part of me thinks they may have been trying to capture sunrise/sunset skies with that rather than "colors of the community", but whatever), but all this does raise the question in my mind of what the club's principal colorway is...or is about to turn into another Denver Alex English-era Denver Nuggets/Kansas City Wizards type of branding situation—which, I must admit, I wouldn't entirely hate. 

 

 

 

Considering they used this picture and description for the chrome, that very well could be the case, especially for the change kit. If they do end up using chrome on the kits, it better be metallic, if its just navy and flat gray, I will be extremely disappointed.

[tBBP]

8 minutes ago, PK22 said:

 

 

Considering they used this picture and description for the chrome, that very well could be the case, especially for the change kit. If they do end up using chrome on the kits, it better be metallic, if its just navy and flat gray, I will be extremely disappointed.

 

Thanks for posting that; I didn't see that at first. So, my deduction from that—and the way they probably should have phrased that for better clarity and accuracy—is that since chrome literally reflects all colors shone into it, they chose chrome to figuratively (and also quite literally) reflect all the colors in the community. Psychologically, it does make sense, so I'll give them points for thinking outside the box a little bit—even if the execution comes off a good bit corny.

 

As to @PK22's point about the navy represe—um, reflecting the presence of the US Navy, that's also very valid and I don't know how that missed me the first time , as over-familiar with the Navy as I am.

 

All that though gets back to my initial question: what's this club's principal colorway? Navy and chrome? I want to see how that translates on their kits—though if know MLS, their debut primary kit will be all navy with chrome accoutrements and probably some semblance of the "community colors" treatment either as collar/cuff trim, some kind of striping be it pinstripes or otherwise...or maybe, and this would actually be a cool-as-heck idea, they'll apply the CCs to the adidas stripes. (If they do, they better do it to the socks, too.) In that guise, I imagine their change kit will simply be a white or light gray/"chrome" color-swap of the primaries....

[logo-maker]

54 minutes ago, tBBP said:

 

Thanks for posting that; I didn't see that at first. So, my deduction from that—and the way they probably should have phrased that for better clarity and accuracy—is that since chrome literally reflects all colors shone into it, they chose chrome to figuratively (and also quite literally) reflect all the colors in the community. Psychologically, it does make sense, so I'll give them points for thinking outside the box a little bit—even if the execution comes off a good bit corny.

 

As to @PK22's point about the navy represe—um, reflecting the presence of the US Navy, that's also very valid and I don't know how that missed me the first time , as over-familiar with the Navy as I am.

 

All that though gets back to my initial question: what's this club's principal colorway? Navy and chrome? I want to see how that translates on their kits—though if know MLS, their debut primary kit will be all navy with chrome accoutrements and probably some semblance of the "community colors" treatment either as collar/cuff trim, some kind of striping be it pinstripes or otherwise...or maybe, and this would actually be a cool-as-heck idea, they'll apply the CCs to the adidas stripes. (If they do, they better do it to the socks, too.) In that guise, I imagine their change kit will simply be a white or light gray/"chrome" color-swap of the primaries....

 

Hm... Maybe they could add 'chrome' sort of like what Liverpool did with their away kit last year:

 

[Digby]

On 2023-10-20 at 10:52 AM, kmccarthy27 said:

I feel the way it works sometimes is the team asks for a logo, and while the team is getting community/fans input, SUM separately hire some company to do their own logo independent of the team. These ideas are then combine, the fans input gets ignored, and then the league gets some designs, and then they take their one choice to the team and be like "Take it or leave it". I feel like Columbus (name change), Montreal (snowflake), Chicago (fire logo), owners did not have a choice this is what the league gave them. And part of the way to save face was those owners were forced by the league to take the bullet. 

 

I think the Sounders had enough clout to say NO to MLS/SUM to be able to have more control. I would say Portalnd (when they switched to the secondary) and LA (lafc) as well.  

Does SUM control branding at all? I’d imagine there’s some centralized approval process but every recent rebrand has suggested that the teams themselves hire various different creative agencies, e.g. apparently this club used an agency that doesn’t do much sports but did do the Costa Rica fed. Sounders talked about a local design group there that they worked with. I think LAFC and Chicago mk.3 had hired Wolff. Etc.

 

in short, it’s on the teams and their execs to get their partnerships right and produce good work.