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Creative Music Marketing Design

Bands FC: meet the designers imagining band logos as football crests

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By John McCarthy | Opinion Editor

July 18, 2018 | 6 min read

Football clubs and bands boast some of the strongest brands to grace the land, each having to signal a heritage, a mentality and a philosophy that people will love.

Bands FC

Bands FC's favourite picks

In this knowledge, a handful of creatives have pulled together on Twitter to imagine bands as football teams on a fast-growing account named Bands FC.

Created by Mark Liptrott of Concrete Studio and Nick Fraser, "merchman" for The Charlatans, the account is crossing demographics between music and football fans by pairing iconic identities from both worlds together.

After only a month on Twitter, Bands FC has already amassed over 11,000 followers. It has also accrued too many logos to count.

The Drum caught up with Fraser to find out more about how music, football and branding collided.

"There’s something recognisable about club crests and band logos that get the heart beating that bit faster," he said. "Panini sticker albums and music festival posters are something that we all love staring at. Everyone picks up on the music and football element but there is a third part to complete everything – a love of graphics and fonts.

"There’s a loyalty to bands and teams that doesn’t exist in many other worlds," Fraser went on. "We all spend a lot of time at gigs and matches and talking about football and records. They already played a major part in our worlds – before they joined forces and took over completely."

Fraser and Liptrott wisely tapped into the football fervour around the World Cup to grow the account. The fact it is also festival season in the music world probably caused no harm either.

Back at the start, they drafted and shared their designs with music title NME. Its team was keen, and this willingness to cover the designs led to the creation of the Bands FC account.

Gaining momentum as a social media fixture, it has built up a loyal following as fans try to dissect the bands and teams inspiring each effort. And that's not mentioning the meta references sometimes bundled in there too.

One Minute Briefs alumnus Rich Bayley delivered a compelling Daft Punk design which Sony is enquiring after too, showing how the group may be onto something larger if they keep developing intriguing work. The response has proved a fitting testament to the labour of love from all involved. "Do what you love and it’s likely others will love it too," Fraser said. "Enjoy what you do and a 19 hour day spent on it just flies by – follow your instinct on what’s right."

The founders' favourite logos so far are the Daft Punk, Echo and the Bunnymen and Wu Tang Clang efforts which have been embedded with this piece. With a back catalogue of buzzworthy designs and now a platform to distribute them, there is a path forming to monetise this work. Bands FC has already paired with Frightened Rabbit to sell enamel badges of its crest. With permission from the band, the proceeds were donated to charity following the passing of its front man Scott Hutchison earlier this year.

The pair have built a reputation welding together music and clever design. They previously launched a mobile website reimagining singles from The Charlatans as mobile apps, taking inspiration from the most popular apps of the day.

At the moment, there are a few more charity partnerships in the works with Camera Obscura, Public Service Broadcasting and The Charlatans. From there, it can only grow.

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