Small update on the progress of the Roar kit. My first submission for your approval, is the ‘Royal blue’ design. I think I address all the problem areas I pointed out in my previous post.

As I have said in previous posts, I’m no longer going to bitch about bad design. I’m going to show a reason for my bitching, then offer, what I think to be, a suitable solution. My first mission, should I choose to accept it, is my beloved football team. See here for my previous ranting and bitching.

Here is my work and thinking to date.

Problem: No pride in the Roar
Solution: Redesign the team artwork and design to inspire pride in the players, supports and sponsors.

So how will a change in the team identity restore pride? Well, in my supporter/designer opinion, it all boils down to, what I call, our inner G.I.JOE. “WTF” I hear you say. It’s simple. All players want to feel like they are putting on their battle gear. All sponsors want to see their symbol emblazoned on a sophisticated athletic machine and all supporters want to feel like they are offering cover fire in some kind of beach assault. You want to feel like you are part of a fierce fighting force. Whether winning or loosing, you want to feel honor and pride. Do I feel this now? NO! BIG FAT NO! I feel like the people involved are trying to produce a product, not a team. And as it stands, I wouldn’t want to buy that product. It’s the ‘Homebrand‘ of the A-League.

I appreciate that it’s a tricky task to please everyone with one product. Producing something such as this must have 11 billion million people that have to be happy with the final product. The players have to want to wear it, the sponsors need to have their logo on it, the supports have to want to wear it, it needs to have retail value, it needs to be iconic, it needs to pass through focus groups etc etc, blah blah blah, gimme, gimme, gimme, I want, I want, I want! In the end, like with all things, you need to reach a compromise. I don’t feel this has reached that. I feel like the sponsors are happy, the guys in the office who paid for it are happy, and the one dutch player on our team is happy. This is not a compromise. This is a catastrophic failure.

This is what I think makes it fail as a uniform.

1. Colour: Horrific! -
Orange I am willing to accept. I almost like it. It’s now part of our history and it symbolizes our connection to the dutch club that effectively started Roar.
Maroon is never OK with me. How it became the state colour is beyond me. What’s also beyond me is why they chose to increase the use the QUEENSLAND colour, when we changed FROM Queensland Roar, to Brisbane Roar. Am I the only one who doesn’t see the logic there? Surely with two other Queensland teams, you would stay away from a state colour.
Blue The only colour that holds the three together, and they remove it. Further to that, blue is a Brisbane colour. Horrific!

2. Logo/shield/Icon: Yankee doodle bullshit! – This is football. Not Gridiron. Not Rugby League. This is the ‘Beautiful game’. One of the worlds oldest games. It’s about skill, grace and athleticism. Not Shoulder pads, cheerleaders, bringing back the biff, commercials, blimps, etc. I’m not saying it has to be ‘ye olde english‘, but a little less garish and in-your-face seems to be a better place to start from. I love the fact that our symbol is a Lion. It’s a proud animal. But this one looks like it’s about to start talking to sponge bob in a funny accent.

3. Kit shape and pattern: Again, it’s not subtle. It’s got massive shoulder pads. It makes it seem clunky and top heavy. Not nimble and agile. And again, the colour ratio doesn’t work.

4. Sponsors: Right, I am going to start by saying, I KNOW that money makes the world go around. And I KNOW that if we didn’t have sponsors, it wouldn’t exist. THAT NOW SAID, if I have one more person say to me ‘Coffee club? What team’s that?’ I will punch them in the face. Then I will go to jail. Then my life will be ruined. And that’s ALL because there was no balance in the size of the main supporter logo on the front of a football kit. Seriously. HOW BIG DO YOU WANT IT COFFEE CLUB? I find the size of it completely offensive. You don’t have an elaborate logo! It’s not full of intricate details that need to be seen, and it definitely does not have be at the size it’s placed at. To me, it just further cheapens the team, and makes me despise the Coffee Club even further than I already do. (On a personal note, it’s a joke that a ‘Club’ that’s entirely based around coffee, makes bad coffee!) A team should never be known more for it’s sponsor, than it’s actually name. Never. Let’s just be thankfully that WoW Sight and Sound is not the main sponsor. I would have to change codes if that logo was on the front.

In general, I think it all lacks respect for the players and the game.

So bitching and ranting now aside, what would my recommendations be to make the uniform a success.

I think that we need to look at this team as a ‘Royal’ team. We are the first/oldest QLD team. We are the capital city. The ‘premier’ QLD team. We have the Lion as our symbol. We have the largest castle/stadium. So let’s run with that.

1. Colours: Orange and Blue. Similar to before, but lets make it a little more adult shall we? The orange can remain the same, but I think the blue should be darkened to a more regal and authoritative blue. It should demand respect from the moment the players enter the field.

2. Logo/shield/Icon: Keep the lion. The lion is great! It’s mean, regal and powerful. However, once again, tone it down. Simplify the design, and give it some balls! The lion should look like the first word to come out of its mouth is something like ‘REPENT’, not ‘ziggy wiggy woooo!’

3. Shape: The design should be sleek and accent an athletes muscular structure. More and more teams are starting to do this in their uniform design. Yet we seemed to have made ours look slow and top heavy. Sharp lines. Clean shapes.

4. Sponsors: If it were up to me, there would be no corporate sponsorship on the front of the uniform. Obviously, this will never EVER happen. It’s a shame that teams should be forced to run around with a name bigger than their own on their kits, but we will never be able to avoid that. But lets drop a couple of centimetres off shall we? Maybe make it not so visible from the moon. I mean, the 09/10 logo size doesn’t even do itself justice. You would be amazed what negative space can do.

I suppose in general, I want to see the team adopt a more serious image. Below is the start of my vision. Just a start. But hopefully you can already see the more serious/royal tone I want to adopt.

I will post a finished kit, and hopefully a new logo/shield soon. But please note, it will be one of many designs. This is a process that takes time and experimenting. Someone just needs to tell the Roar board that they have to continue through till a result, not stop half way through the experimenting.

~~~~~~ Work in progress~~~~~~~

Let’s see how many tennis analogies I can put into fifteen (1) post. Commence scoring… now.

So why the lack of Aces on my blog this month? And how has BSR managed to bounce three off the net already? Well, I’m going to put it all down to my trip to Nrth Queensland. Whether this is truly to blame for my tardiness, is irrelevant and not applicable.

Excuses now explained, I shall move onto my somewhat lackluster offering for this post.

Today’s graphical offering is a photo I took of the pipe organ in St James Cathedral in the bustling metropolis of Townsville. Got a bit of a soft spot for the St Jims organ now. I played it on the final track of our last album. It really makes the song rumble.

Anyway, that’s my first point for the set. Hopefully I will pull out a few more aces in the coming days, and move to at least a deuce situation.

These tennis analogies suck. apologies.

Just read something on my blog, and it made me wince with embarrassment. I promise I’ll try harder. (And maybe go through to correct them all. Still undecided)

It seems we have entered the Twilight Zone. Instead of me posting relatively consistently, and BSR posting every now and then, we have found ourselves in a situation where BSR is catching up, and only two shy of my July blog tally. This will not do. So in an effort to quash this latest blog offensive, I’m going to post my latest half finished work.

I decided it was time for a bit of Japanese action. So out came the samurai horseman. In the end, I actually want to ad a bit of a ‘tech’ feel to it. And I’m thinking of putting some sort of type into it that’s completely un-samurai. eg. ‘I’ll fucking have you boy!’, or something of a similar ilk.

Need to stay angry and focused. I seem to work better when I am.

No blogs lately for myself. Here is one I did for the band.

Working on website on the weekend. Will post some screen shots.