War On Logos #12: Why, Romford, Why?
Some of you folks reading this may remember a crappy logo I ranted about that belongs to a team over here in the UK, the Romford Raiders. In that issue of War On Logos, and in the very last paragraph, I mentioned their junior team, the Romford Spitfires, and I also mentioned how their logo was better than what their parent team uses:
See, this isn’t a bad logo at all, and I’d go as far as to say that it’s one of the best logos a British hockey team has ever used, unless of course it’s a generic piece of clipart, has been blatantly stolen borrowed from a professional team (which I can’t seem to identify) or copied off of an old propaganda poster from World War II (which I highly doubt). Maybe it’s a tad bit too detailed to be a sports team’s logo, but I like it anyway. But wait, I just said that the Spitfires’ logo was better than their parent club’s. What did I mean by that?
To keep a long story short, earlier this year and just after the hockey season ended, the Raiders organisation folded, taking their junior teams with them. After a very brief trip to the grave, they came straight back, somehow keeping everything intact from the previous year in time for the 2009/10 season. And rather than give the Raiders a fresh new start, like giving them a much needed identity overhaul with a decent new name and logo, like the one above, they even kept that the same as well, and instead took the opportunity to rebrand the wrong team, i.e. the Spitfires.
Readers, what you’re about to see is one of the worst name and logo combinations a hockey team has ever had. Because the logo below is so bright and garish, I would personally advise you to grab the nearest pair of sunglasses before you scroll the page down any further. Failing that, you could instead turn down the brightness of your monitor. I may also go as far as to advise you to stop reading this article here.
And since you insist on continuing to read it, here it is. But I will not be held responsible for any damage done to your eyes. I did warn you.
I would love to know what they were smoking when they approved of this horrible, horrible thing.
I’m under the assumption that someone within the Raiders organisation has read the article I previously wrote. Because I commented on the fact that the Spitfires had a better name and logo than their parent club, they seemingly out of complete spite went and rebranded the Spitfires with this horrendous logo and newly renamed them the Romford Fury.
The name doesn’t completely go against the Raiders’ apparent tradition of naming their junior teams after aircraft types, since the Fury were (or at least, I’m guessing they were) named after the Hawker Sea Fury, a fighter plane used by the Royal Navy in the Second World War… but who is going to know that? The Sea Fury is not as widely known as the Spitfire is. Everybody knows what Spitfires are, even this generation’s children. In fact, ‘Spitfire’ is used by members of the general public who visit war museums as a catch-all term for similar looking aircraft, including the Sea Fury, only until they are corrected by their grandparents or the museum staff.
And if I didn’t know any of the above, I’d be slating the new name as a ridiculous and extremely generic sounding name. But even when knowing where the name came from, it’s still very stupid and generic. It reminds me of the stereotypical “tough-guy” sounding names a hockey team might be given in a cartoon or comic, like “the Brawlers”, “the Bullies”, “the Demolishers” and “the Fury”… oh, wait.
Now to start tearing the logo to shreds, starting with the unnecessary wordmark. Notice that the “Y” at the end has a ‘tail’ for whatever reason, making it look like a weird “Y” and “L” hybrid (Furyl? Is that even a word?). The text is bending inwards, and I can kind of understand why they did this. It’s because it’s a function in Photoshop, and the designer was thinking “It’s there, and I’m feeling a pointless impulsive urge to use it, therefore I must use it.” Well, it was either that or they were going for a tacky, cheap and generic cartoony look; much like a lot of other UK based teams. Also, if you look carefully you will see a yellow outline around “Romford”, which does not even need to be there, and only makes the wordmark look even more garish.
Speaking of colours, they seem to have for whatever reason gone for a nasty bright blue and orange combination, something that belongs back in the 60’s and 70’s and not in this era, instead of their parent club’s blue and gold. Something else that belongs back in those decades is that completely random blue and orange rainbow shape behind the plane, which in turn is green, and doesn’t even match the team’s colour scheme.
Finally, the Spitfire Sea Fury plane. I myself don’t mind teams that go for a cartoony image, but this is just completely over the top ridiculous. I can’t help but feel that the plane is a generic piece of clipart (the crossed sticks on the front, with a thicker outline than the plane kind of give that away), even if they actually hired somebody to draw it. It’s hideous, and the colours, as I mentioned before, do not match with the rest of the team’s identity. Oh, and look at that, the plane is on fire. On fire. That’s not a very good sign at all.
Stupid identities like this are my single biggest gripe with many UK based teams. It’s great that we get our hockey fix, but not so much when teams bastardise and tacky up the game, seemingly for the sake of it. I have no idea what they think when coming up with this crap, but it certainly doesn’t get them any merchandise sales from fans like us at PowerPlayGoal.com who take the game seriously.
I’m Wildwing64, and I declare War On Logos.