New England Kit?

[JohnM]

On 29/08/2023 at 09:00, Henson Park Old Firm said:

Who'sa good graphic designer in here?

Maybe Beaumont posts on here.

[Damien]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Looking back on Google it looks like 1984 was the first time it was used. 

After looking at it for a while, one thing struck me. Personally I don't think it's a perfect logo at all, and I do think if this was launched nowadays with the level of pedantry and scrutiny that these things get, I think it would be criticised a fair bit. I think it benefits from nostalgia for blokes in their 40's and 50's who grew up watching the likes of Hanley, Gregory, Offiah etc wearing kits with this logo on. 

Sure, it's a nice logo (and clearly far, far superior to the current England one), but I think nostalgia is at play. 

There will always be personal preference in anything. If it was all about nostalgia then people would be loving the badge from before this when we did actually used to be the Aussies regularly. We were whipping boys in 1984, 1986 and won a dead rubber in 1988. In the 1990's we still never beat Australia in a series or won a World Cup. It was hardly all roses on the nostalgia front. I do think the badge being accompanied by some pretty classic jerseys may help somewhat.

I personally think though that it isnt much more complicated than people like the badge because they think its a good badge and is simple and works.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Damien

[DI Keith Fowler]

3 minutes ago, Damien said:

There will always be personal preference in anything. If it was all about nostalgia then people would be loving the badge from before this when we did actually used to be the Aussies regularly. We were whipping boys in 1984, 1986 and won a dead rubber in 1988. In the 1990's we still never beat Australia in a series or won a World Cup. It was hardly all roses on the nostalgia front. I do think the badge being accompanied by some pretty classic jerseys may help somewhat.

I personally think though that it isnt much more complicated than people like the badge because they think its a good badge and is simple and works.

I think it's a bit of both. Also nostalgia tends to be related to the period of when people came of age rather than a period of success, if you look at current RL demographics it's a big chunk of the sport that would say the 80s is when they were young and having all these life experiences. People of my age especially in a football sense are well into 90s nostalgia going back to all the horrid designs of that time.

I suppose that would be the risk of going back to the GB branding having already gone away from it, you'd might not be targeting the right audience in terms of merchandise sales etc.

[Anita Bath]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

Nostalgia isn't necessarily a bad thing - and clearly it is at play to an extent - but it is recognisable and does 'work'. That counts for a lot.

Aye but nostalgia aint what it used to be! (oK, ill get my coat)

[Chrispmartha]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Looking back on Google it looks like 1984 was the first time it was used. 

After looking at it for a while, one thing struck me. Personally I don't think it's a perfect logo at all, and I do think if this was launched nowadays with the level of pedantry and scrutiny that these things get, I think it would be criticised a fair bit. I think it benefits from nostalgia for blokes in their 40's and 50's who grew up watching the likes of Hanley, Gregory, Offiah etc wearing kits with this logo on. 

Sure, it's a nice logo (and clearly far, far superior to the current England one), but I think nostalgia is at play. 

History and nostalgia can play a big part in a good brand.

The GB lion is up there in my opinion as its instantly recognisable, even without any accompanying text, its clean, simple and remarkably its more 'digital ready' than any of the current logos, technically its well drawn (could probably be tidied up ever so slightly) and agin remarkably its bang up to date with modern design trends of distilling a logo down to its essence without anything on there that doesn't need to be.

 

[Chrispmartha]

[gingerjon]

7 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

Transforms the shirt

[Tommygilf]

Who did the RFL get to do the rebrand for England?

As I remember it was part of a "everything in the same format" pattern that the NRL/Kangaroos had at the time with the RFL, England, Super League, Championship, League 1, Challenge Cup and indeed the 1895 Cup adopting the thin shield.

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Nostalgia isn't necessarily a bad thing - and clearly it is at play to an extent - but it is recognisable and does 'work'. That counts for a lot.

I wonder how recognisable it actually is though. 

[Chrispmartha]

7 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Who did the RFL get to do the rebrand for England?

As I remember it was part of a "everything in the same format" pattern that the NRL/Kangaroos had at the time with the RFL, England, Super League, Championship, League 1, Challenge Cup and indeed the 1895 Cup adopting the thin shield.

I think the Agency Matta did it, which are to be fair the go to agency for sports branding, it was launched in 2017 I think

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

There will always be personal preference in anything. If it was all about nostalgia then people would be loving the badge from before this when we did actually used to be the Aussies regularly. We were whipping boys in 1984, 1986 and won a dead rubber in 1988. In the 1990's we still never beat Australia in a series or won a World Cup. It was hardly all roses on the nostalgia front. I do think the badge being accompanied by some pretty classic jerseys may help somewhat.

I personally think though that it isnt much more complicated than people like the badge because they think its a good badge and is simple and works.

Fair points, but I pretty much guarantee that if that was a brand new badge today, people would be critical of the fact it doesn't tell you who it is - which may be an unfair criticism, but then so are many around any new things at the moment.

ON the nostalgia point - many of my peer group still reminisce about the great teams at Wire that included the likes of Des Drummond, John Woods, Les Boyd, Mike Gregory etc. despite the fact that we were a pretty average team (at best) during that period.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Chrispmartha said:

History and nostalgia can play a big part in a good brand.

The GB lion is up there in my opinion as its instantly recognisable, even without any accompanying text, its clean, simple and remarkably its more 'digital ready' than any of the current logos, technically its well drawn (could probably be tidied up ever so slightly) and agin remarkably its bang up to date with modern design trends of distilling a logo down to its essence without anything on there that doesn't need to be.

 

Interestingly, that has been tidied up versus the one that I described as flawed.

 

[Chrispmartha]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

I wonder how recognisable it actually is though. 

In what way, its very recognisable to RL fans, if the argument it isn't recognisable to the general public, not many RL things are.

It's instantly recognisable as a lion

 

By the way I don't think we should use the badge for England, that's not really the point Im making.

I don't think the current badge needs ENGLAND RUGBY LEAGUE on it, it makes the badge out of proportion they should just use it as below

 

[Chrispmartha]

Just now, Dave T said:

Interestingly, that has been tidied up versus the one that I described as flawed.

 

Just looks like they used a dodgy stitching place on that  I don't think the actual logo has changed, this is from 1988

[Damien]

2 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

In what way, its very recognisable to RL fans, if the argument it isn't recognisable to the general public, not many RL things are.

It's instantly recognisable as a lion

 

By the way I don't think we should use the badge for England, that's not really the point Im making.

I don't think the current badge needs ENGLAND RUGBY LEAGUE on it, it makes the badge out of proportion they should just use it as below

 

To be honest I still hate that. The whole shield thing just looks poor and out of proportion, its far too long for the width. Its like they are copying parts of the England Football badge but making it rubbish by also trying to make it different.

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

Just looks like they used a dodgy stitching place on that  I don't think the actual logo has changed, this is from 1988

I like the cheeky smile on the 2019 version

[Dave T]

Just now, Damien said:

To be honest I still hate that. The whole shield thing just looks poor and out of proportion, its far too long for the width. Its like they are copying parts of the England Football badge but making it rubbish by also trying to make it different.

I think they have tried to be too clever. There is the whole thing about trying to craft elements of the history into the logo (Wire did it in theirs too) - when that isn't really needed. You can do that across your whole branding piece, but there is no reason that the England logo needs to be consistent with the Super League logo.

Surely when designing this it should be with a view that it will be a timeless logo that could be used for the next 50 years or more - but linking it so close to comp logos that get refreshed regularly was a bad choice.

If you want references to a chevron - maybe just put one on your kit (which they have finally got round to).

And I agree, it just looks squashed. The dimensions are weird for a sports team logo.

[gingerjon]

11 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

In what way, its very recognisable to RL fans, if the argument it isn't recognisable to the general public, not many RL things are.

It's instantly recognisable as a lion

 

By the way I don't think we should use the badge for England, that's not really the point Im making.

I don't think the current badge needs ENGLAND RUGBY LEAGUE on it, it makes the badge out of proportion they should just use it as below

 

It is a spectacularly ugly badge, really, whatever you do with it.

[Damien]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think they have tried to be too clever. There is the whole thing about trying to craft elements of the history into the logo (Wire did it in theirs too) - when that isn't really needed. You can do that across your whole branding piece, but there is no reason that the England logo needs to be consistent with the Super League logo.

Surely when designing this it should be with a view that it will be a timeless logo that could be used for the next 50 years or more - but linking it so close to comp logos that get refreshed regularly was a bad choice.

If you want references to a chevron - maybe just put one on your kit (which they have finally got round to).

And I agree, it just looks squashed. The dimensions are weird for a sports team logo.

I totally agree. Even though it is relatively new for a modern logo it doesn't even do the job in a digital age (funnily enough the 40 year old GB lion would perfectly). This is from the England RL Twitter, its just pish poor:

[Chrispmartha]

10 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

It is a spectacularly ugly badge, really, whatever you do with it.

On that we agree

[Chrispmartha]

14 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think they have tried to be too clever. There is the whole thing about trying to craft elements of the history into the logo (Wire did it in theirs too) - when that isn't really needed. You can do that across your whole branding piece, but there is no reason that the England logo needs to be consistent with the Super League logo.

Surely when designing this it should be with a view that it will be a timeless logo that could be used for the next 50 years or more - but linking it so close to comp logos that get refreshed regularly was a bad choice.

If you want references to a chevron - maybe just put one on your kit (which they have finally got round to).

And I agree, it just looks squashed. The dimensions are weird for a sports team logo.

I agree there’s absolutely no need for those brands to be aligned 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

On 29/08/2023 at 13:45, Damien said:

Anything would be better than the current logo, it looks horrific on every top and does nothing to help the design of any jersey. If anything needs a rebrand its that.

It's a million times better than the one that came before it, and that says something about his bad the one was!

 

I agree it looks too much like a rip off of the football badge. We lack identity. I'd have loved us to use the lion's head in white and go with a "White Lions" nickname. 

I'm not holding my breath though for a decent brand, badge, kit, or fixture schedule surrounding it to be honest. Utterly amateur.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

Would have loved something along this colour scheme that Real Madrid used a few years ago:

Have a Chevron in those colours, a dark grey sponsor logo and the lion logo and you've got an iconic kit that's separate to anything else in club and international rugby, not to mention subtle and classy.

 

[Chrispmartha]

10 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Would have loved something along this colour scheme that Real Madrid used a few years ago:

Have a Chevron in those colours, a dark grey sponsor logo and the lion logo and you've got an iconic kit that's separate to anything else in club and international rugby, not to mention subtle and classy.

 

The nearest we've had to that, which was my favorite England RL kit we've had I think was the 2013 WC shirt

[Damien]

4 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

The nearest we've had to that, which was my favorite England RL kit we've had I think was the 2013 WC shirt

Yes that was a belting shirt. Even the badge looks in proportion and correct.