Your Association Gets a New Logo….!!!

A little work has been going on in 2012 to try to understand and upgrade our “Brand Image”.  Part of that has been an initiative at BIFFA HQ to get a more contemporary logo design….. to replace the FF with a wreath around it from 1997 (I think…!).  We wanted to trap a sense of the beautiful, graceful keelboat that it is. We wanted to get a sense of movement, even speed if we can – we also wanted to trap the three sail, exciting spinnaker reaching part of the boat’s character – and of course still feature our double “f” logo….and our keel!!!

And here is the new logo …  What do you think??!!!!!  (I like it, obviously)

David Hume on the Logo Debate….

On the subject of Logo’s, the use of movement is good, the use of spinnaker shape is key to the image but take care re the flowing shape – the current proposals look very ‘J class’ Beken of Cowes and age the brand. The thrusting bow is powerful and strong, but loose the keel shape – it is of that era and the American’s are rumoured to have made better looking cars than that! A good planning bow wave below the hull outline will do. In fact a clever schematic of your favourite picture- Eddie May’s the grey fifteen at Skandia Cowes Week – would capture it all, plus the simple word ‘FIFTEEN’. International Moths actually do fly these days, so romance has been replaced by fact, we have lost the ‘bragging’ rights on the flying score. Best to appear credible I believe.

David Hume

FF Logos – The Lyn Wallace Collection!!……

A couple of days back, I showed you the “Fly a Fifteen” Logo from Lyn Wallace in Victoria.  Just to show you how flexible a good idea can be, did you notice the Aussies used this adaptation for the Melbourne Worlds Event Logo.

I think this is really super stuff and the kind of direction we ought to go.

Another Logo – How About this One ?!!…..

In recent days, we have posted some material about modernising our BIFFA logo collection and getting something more modern, more contemporary and that says much more about the image of the boat that we wish to convey. The Aussies are very lucky in having Lyn Wallace in Victoria to think about the topic for them.  What do you think of this one??

Lyn has sent me two samples – I’ll post the second one in a couple of days time.

New Logo Idea Number 1…..

Following our blog item a couple of days ago about logos, it was Keith Jamieson who I think first suggested to me that our UK Association logo (not to be confused with the sail insignia)  might need a bit of updating. Keith also fancied something stylish like the Aussie Logo but with two FF’s in it.  For myself, I strongly feel it should transmit “FF Racing” and feature “spinnakering excitement”,…. and a bit of “motion” somehow. I suggested that you might send in some ideas from your Fleet…..  Just to get us going, here’s my “one I made earlier” as they say on Blue Peter…

FF Logos….

Have you considered what image our various logos transmit to the marketplace??  You will remember Greg’s piece in the year book which summed up the image challenge in those immortal words…..  “The Old Man’s Boat…”

None of who have raced in the Class would believe that about the boat for a moment. So why does everyone else seem to?  I find it hard to figure out how we give this impression – at least from BIFFA we need to reflect on everything we write and put online.

Part of that will be our logos.  It’s different by country…. Towards the end of this article I’ll show you the Irish Logo, and the Australian 50th logo.  If you think about the local image they convey in their markets and compare them with ours in UK… what do you think??

Purely for myself, I think they are a good bit more “contemporary”… modern… stylish  than we have in UK.

Then there is this one – I call it the Fred Perry logo. Did we do it for the 1997 Worlds in Cowes maybe. Fred passed away in 1995, which I think slightly gives me a nagging feeling about it. What do you normally associate wreaths with??

So that is our three – how contemporary does the “Hull” logo (above) look these days??

So – here are the challengers. First the Irish one…  It looks really modern don’t you find?  Could be something out of Topshop. There’s a few other things too… Like, for a start,  it is showing the boat moving and you get an impression of speed. As I say it feels very current, don’t you find? Is that the colours maybe, or would it still look good in black and white?? Hmm… It also shows a spinnaker… which we all know is very central to the boat at its most exciting… Actually it reminds me of an updated version of the Paul Elvstrom logo in his 1960’s book – do you remember that??

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So what did the Aussies come up with for their 50th Anniversary logo?? A wreath??  No None of that!! This is what they created for the event. I reckon this is very promising… spinnaker, boat looks beautiful, looks like it is leaping out of the logo, let alone moving…

I was wondering if somehow we could adapt this one, but get two boats racing side by side in some way…

So what to do?  Well, we need some help. Is anyone out there in the Class an ace graphic designer, has one for a spouse, has kids who are good at this kind of thing, living next door to a designer?

If you can come up with something you like, then scan it over to datchetman@flyingfifteen.com in jpeg format… and we’ll put it on the blog for everyone to take a look at it…..

Flying Fifteen Logo Clothing…..

A few people have asked me this year where you can get “Flying Fifteen” branded clothing from.  To my mind, in our little Club Community it is important that we support our class brand and that we seem more ‘numerous’ than any other fleet. So when you want new T-Shirts, Polo shirts,  Fleeces, Sweaters etc, I’d like you to think about it for us.

At the simple end, if you want our Fleet FF Logo photo on a T Shirt I can give you the photo (the “Datchet Flying Fifteens” photo) and you can go to any number of places on the internet and order one. I use photobox.co.uk and snapfish.com , but there’s plenty of choice. Just ask me for the photo if you want to give it a try. By the way, you get discount usually for modest bulk orders.

The other place I go for Sweaters, Polo Shirts and Fleeces is Ocean World at Cowes. ( http://www.oceanworld.co.uk ). I quite like their stuff, I must say. You just choose the product from their website, then phone them and ask for their standard FF logo on it. You can also ask to have your sail number or boat name embroidered on it, if you wish. Again you get discount for small bulk orders.

Just very occasionally you will see BIFFA offering products too. You have to be a BIFFA member of course, are you?  Well, anyway, if you see the BIFFA kit advertised, then snap it up….