Leeds United Football Club's Logo caught offside!
Just a quick one guys!
There is a song that Arsenal fans sing to Tottenham fans that goes "It's happened again, it's happened agaaaaain, Tottenham Hotspur its happen again. Now Tottenham Hotspur can be swapped from the song and be replaced design community. Yes, there has been another backlash from the public regarding the re-design of a clubs logo This time its Leeds United Football Club crest. As it stands the fans have definitely made their voices heard and it is deafening.
The capacity of the Leeds Football stadium at Ellen road is nearly 38,000. Now the petition online for the removal of the new logo is 75,000 and counting. Its probably going to double the stadiums capacity. Why does this keep happening? If it's not a football club it's a University. Whats happening to the craft of logo design? When I first laid eyes on the new LUFC crest my first thought was, why is the face covered? and the hand across the chest feels a little fascist. Traditionally the left hand has been used as opposed to the right so that there is not any far-right linkage. I think they should have known that when designing the club crest. A quick google search of the origins of the "Leeds salute" would have made this apparent.
🎥 | Celebrating fans at the heart of our identity #MOT #LUFC pic.twitter.com/TjdaFUT19X
— Leeds United (@LUFC) January 24, 2018
The outcry by fans is understandable. The crest lacks any historical substance. Yes, they have the "Leeds salute" but the concept is just not appropriate. I know they were trying to move away from the Yorkshire rose so that they could make the identity their own, but it just does not work. Design, particularly logo design is very subjective, some will like it and some won't. A logo is deemed successful if it meets the criteria set out in the design brief.
What went wrong in the design process? Does the whole process of designing club crests need to be rethought?
Re-design of club crest is a complete mind field.
There is one thing that people get passionate and that is their local football club. One thing that I see is that any deviation from tradition can be dangerous. A logo re-design is either an evolution or a revolution. The design team behind the logo went for the revolution. The fans were very quick to tell them that they were completely offside with this re-design.
The club has now retracted the logo and I think will go through another process of collaborating with the fan base. It will be interesting to see how this plays out!