Do You Feel Our Crest Is Truly Unique?

[jaycrewz]

So lately Ive been thinking about NYCFC's branding. I enjoy the fact that first division football is finally in the city of NY, but I dislike the lack of individuality in our teams colors and kit design.

Today I decided to give a look over the redesign given to Melbourne Heart, who became Melbourne City Football Club following their purchase by City Football Group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_City_FC

I liked that they were able to avoid having light blue dominate their home kit. Also, they retained red and white in their away kit...keeping with their traditional colors as Melbourne Heart. However, what bothered me was the badge. The middle of their badge pays homage to the heritage of the city and keeps the old colors. But the outer rim is clearly the NYCFC design pawned off onto Melbourne.

They were not given any originality on the outer portions of their badge. The colors and font are exactly the same. And the two old Melbourne Heart hearts on the Melbourne City badge, are in the same spot as the "5 boros" pentagon on the NYCFC badge.

So this got me thinking. "Since Melbourne City's badge isnt that original...and NYCFC's jersey isnt original at all...I wonder if the stories are true about how our badge was designed. Is it truly paying homage to the subway token of the past?" So I decided to find out if Manchester City ever had a different crest in the patch that may have influenced the two new City Football Group teams.

If you look at my attached pic, the bottom left Man City badge was the first they used. It was introduced in 1965. The bottom right badge was introduced in 1972. Man City's current eagle badge was adopted in the late 90s.

Anyways....maybe Im just being paranoid about originality, individualism, and identity...but do you feel our badge is truly unique? Do you buy the story about how they came up with it? I know the only thing in common with Manchester City's old badge is the circle and curved lettering...but it got me wondering how much thought they put into it....since clearly they didnt put tremendous thought into Melbourne's new badge.

This all said, I very much like the circular badge better than the dark blue shield choice the fans were given during the vote period for our badge.

 

[Ahab_Flanders]

If you look at the subway token, the dots and the text are arranged in the same positions as in our crest. This doesn't match the old Man City Badge, but is conveniently a circle like the old MC badge. So, they design our badge based on the token, but it is also similar to the circular theme they wanted to go with across the brand. Next they design a modified version of that badge for Melbourne City.

I'd be willing to bet that in the next few years Man City will unveil a new circular badge that looks more like ours than like their old one.

Here's a mock-up I made back in January

 

[Gavin23]

If you look at the subway token, the dots and the text are arranged in the same positions as in our crest. This doesn't match the old Man City Badge, but is conveniently a circle like the old MC badge. So, they design our badge based on the token, but it is also similar to the circular theme they wanted to go with across the brand. Next they design a modified version of that badge for Melbourne City.

I'd be willing to bet that in the next few years Man City will unveil a new circular badge that looks more like ours than like their old one.

Here's a mock-up I made back in January
View attachment 2560

Wow you designed that logo? Impressive and pretty.

Anyway its clear with the Crest they are trying to follow a uniform pattern. It doesnt bother me so much as our Crest looks good and some of the design choices can easily be justified.

Melbournes is terrible though.

I absolutely hate our kits though and want new ones for next season.

 

[LionNYC]

We're an expansion team with no prior team history and part of a football conglomerate. It's going to be hard to find something truly unique.

 

[jaycrewz]

Wow you designed that logo? Impressive and pretty.

Anyway its clear with the Crest they are trying to follow a uniform pattern. It doesnt bother me so much as our Crest looks good and some of the design choices can easily be justified.

Melbournes is terrible though.

I absolutely hate our kits though and want new ones for next season.

Agree.

1. There was no reason for them to pawn off the NYCFC design onto Melbourne. Plus I dont think the inner circles colors work well with the outer circle colors of their badge.

2. Dear god please give us new kits next year. Its unfair that Melbourne was able to escape all that light blue and we werent. Then again, another A-league team already had light blue as a primary color, so the Australian football association wouldnt allow Melbourne to change.

 

[whill4]

I think it's original enough. The only one I think it looks similar to is Inter Milan's.

 

[jaycrewz]

If you look at the subway token, the dots and the text are arranged in the same positions as in our crest. This doesn't match the old Man City Badge, but is conveniently a circle like the old MC badge. So, they design our badge based on the token, but it is also similar to the circular theme they wanted to go with across the brand. Next they design a modified version of that badge for Melbourne City.

I'd be willing to bet that in the next few years Man City will unveil a new circular badge that looks more like ours than like their old one.

Here's a mock-up I made back in January
View attachment 2560

http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_Tokens

Check out that link. I like that our badge combines two elements of the original token, and the final token. For those who dont care to click, the pentagon's from the final token are used to represent to the side dots of the original token. Im glad I learned that. I definitely feel more proud of the patch after looking things over more.

I think it's original enough. The only one I think it looks similar to is Inter Milan's.

Well, Real Madrid also use interlocking letters within a circle. They just have a crown on top without words. Interlocking letters though has always been something NY teams have used.

 

[kas_tippler]

Gorton FC, forerunners to Manchester City. Fantastic crest and even better black and white kit.

 

[tigerstrom29]

I really like our crest. It's modern but still very original and classy. The whole subway-token-story with the 5 borough, the NYC in the middle with a true touch of America and the orange outlining. It's great!
To be honest I had never seen the Melbourne crest before. And sure it has simularities with our crest, which kinda bothers me. But we all know the story about how we are here today, with the ownership. And I'm sure that if the City Football Group invest money in a club, let's say..in Brazil. That club would probably have simularities to our crest aswell.
I just don't wanna see NYCFC become one of many clubs following a certain pattern och structure with the branding..like our rivals in Jersey with their whole RB-thing.

The kits this season are pretty good. But I really hope that we'll get a more unique homeshirt next season. More darker blue on the shirt and some orange in it.

 

[SFphoto]

It's all about branding and I'm fine with that. The NYCFC badge is timeless. Especially for the MLS.

 

[tigerstrom29]

We have the best crest design in MLS. I would probably say that Crew's new crest is second.

 

[NYCFCFan10]

If you look at the subway token, the dots and the text are arranged in the same positions as in our crest. This doesn't match the old Man City Badge, but is conveniently a circle like the old MC badge. So, they design our badge based on the token, but it is also similar to the circular theme they wanted to go with across the brand. Next they design a modified version of that badge for Melbourne City.

I'd be willing to bet that in the next few years Man City will unveil a new circular badge that looks more like ours than like their old one.

Here's a mock-up I made back in January
View attachment 2560

I put this theory out there a while back.

If MCFC switches their crest -- and I think they will -- then I have no doubt that the whole "vote for the crest!" thing was all fraudulent and just a show to get fans involved.

 

[Falastur]

I put this theory out there a while back.

If MCFC switches their crest -- and I think they will -- then I have no doubt that the whole "vote for the crest!" thing was all fraudulent and just a show to get fans involved.

How do you know that if the vote had been for the shield, all the new badges wouldn't have been based on the shield?

 

[NYCFCFan10]

How do you know that if the vote had been for the shield, all the new badges wouldn't have been based on the shield?

I believe what they did is took the one they wanted and put it up against the worst one that the artist produced.

The vote was "legitimate" but disingenuous. It was like voting for which to eat: a ham sandwich or a plate with a dog turd on it. You know which will win, you don't need a vote.

They hyped it up as though a bunch of the fan submissions would be voted on but in the end it was only a selection of two by one artist. Why not three or four selections to vote on? Well, because they can't as effectively control the outcome then.

The speed at which Melbourne City adopted a copy confirmed my suspicions that they planned this.

 

[NYCFCFan10]

Consider this.

The voting ended for our crest in early March.

The winner was revealed on March 20th, 2014.

Melbourne City had their crest and kits ready to present by June 5th, 2014. 2 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days after we revealed ours. That's pretty damn quick in the world of big business. This is going to be the face of a multimillion dollar investment. They put together their crest and uniforms that quickly?

No alternate crest with the shield was ever revealed for Melbourne. Which seems like something that would leak out if they were just going to follow the branding and had versions of both crests ready to go.

 

[mgarbowski]

I'd rather not be part of a brand marketing ploy, but I'm resigned to it because what choice do I have. That said, I can accept the badge as a reasonable merging of group branding with local individual identity. The home kit is still an insult, especially given how Soriano specifically lied about it. Start at 1:32

But I still like the badge.

 

[Gavin23]

I agree with bowski. The badge is acceptable because it still incoporates enough unique and local elements into it. If i was Melbourne fan id be more upset about crest than kits. On our end im more upset about thr kits than the crest. Good thing is that kits change far more frequently than Crests...so we have time on our side.

 

[Seth]

The home kit is still an insult, especially given how Soriano specifically lied about it.

Well, first off, I happen to be a Man City fan so it's quite possible that colors my thinking. Just wanted to mention it up top though.

So I watched the video, and what he said seemed to me to be relatively harmless. "NYCFC will have its own identity," more or less (don't remember it exactly). And that's it. To me that did not imply our jerseys should be orange with giant purple polka dots, it was just one small comment. And so far that seems pretty accurate as opposed to it being some sort of vicious lie. I've not really seen hide nor hair of Man City except for the color of the primary jersey. I'm just not getting how sky blue comes out as an insult.

Whenever this comes up I try to imagine I'm a rabid United fan who hates City, just to see how I might feel about things. Seems to me that if I ignore everything on this board and from the Third Rail and just think about what the team says and what happens on the field there's really no mention of City at all. Maybe the commentators or analysts mention it now and then, but it's not like there's a bit at the bottom of the billboards that say "NYCFC, brought to you by Man City."

But also, if I wasn't an EPL fan and then a City fan after that I don't think any of this would make any sense to me whatsoever. If I was "just" an MLS fan who all of a sudden found I had a local team in my city I think I'd just be thrilled. To me the Man City connection is a bonus because I'm a fan, but to the casual fan who's just started following soccer and now has a team on the correct side of the Hudson I can't imagine the distant owners matter one bit as I see very little evidence of their presence.

Maybe I missed something, or perhaps I'm just totally wrong about this. I just don't see it though.


Seth

 

[NYCFCFan10]

Someone on Blue-Moon, the MCFC forum, called our primary uniform, "The best Manchester City kits I've ever seen." Not being facetious or insulting. It was a geniune comment to which many agreed there.

As for Soriano, he was asked about the uniforms, the ManCity blue in particular, and replied with an answer heavily implying we wouldn't be playing in Manchester clone uniforms but we are.

Its like the people that like to point out that the "Lampard coming in 2015, buy season tickets now!" billboards never said the start of 2015. Again disingenuous.

So why should we believe this vote to be anything more than another trick? Maybe not an outright lie but certainly not conducted in good faith.

 

[mgarbowski]

Well, first off, I happen to be a Man City fan so it's quite possible that colors my thinking. Just wanted to mention it up top though.

So I watched the video, and what he said seemed to me to be relatively harmless. "NYCFC will have its own identity," more or less (don't remember it exactly). And that's it. To me that did not imply our jerseys should be orange with giant purple polka dots, it was just one small comment. And so far that seems pretty accurate as opposed to it being some sort of vicious lie. I've not really seen hide nor hair of Man City except for the color of the primary jersey. I'm just not getting how sky blue comes out as an insult.

*******

Seth

I don't know why you're intentionally ignoring the question he said that in response to, because it completely kills your argument.
He was specifically answering the question "Are you thinking of things like, New York City FC playing in sky blue?" To answer that by saying "New York City is going to have its own personality. It's going to be a team on its own." was a lie.

The best anyone can claim is he misled by purposefully avoiding the question. He never actually said anything about the uniform. Fine. I'm a lawyer. I know how that works. But when someone does that in a press conference, I write them off as a liar. When someone does it in a deposition, I remind them they should avoid perjury. I get enough of parsing bullshit in my day job. I don't need it as a fan.

And that was Day 1. Ferran Soriano started his relationship with New York City with a lie.

We might all feel different about CFG if they started out by openly admitting "Of course this is a branding effort. That's why we're doing it. But we also believe this combined entity will bring enough benefits to overcome any hesitancy New Yorkers might have about being considered second class, or getting a hand-me-down identity. We understand we have to earn this city's trust and we intend to do so."

But they didn't do that. They lied, and MCFC fans who say "You should love those who lied to you" don't help.

ETA: You want the last word you can have it. I spent more time than I should have hashing this out last fall during the days of the uniform reveal and the Lampsy fiasco.