How does a brand agency build a league identity like Ultimate Sevens from scratch?
Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium will be centred around a different kind of ball on Thursday when the Ultimate Sevens rolls into town for its inaugural finals day.
Backed by BIA Sports Group – the owners of Premier League club Sunderland – the Ultimate Sevens is brand new, and with it comes six teams that have been designed and built from scratch.
Albion Athletic, Atlantic Novas, Clan Tarzan, Foudre Bleue, Pacific Current and Sol Feroz are all, in part, the brainchild of Nomad Studio, the agency which created their branding.
Brand timescale
“We had six weeks to do it – to name them, the themes, and design them, and get them trademarked – which is insane,” the firm’s co-founder Stu Watson tells City AM.
“You’ve got this brief of geolocation – trying to tag it to Celtic or to the big rugby states – and then you have to decide whether you want to fit in.
“Do you want to look like all the other sports brands, or do you want to stand out? We call that a shifting neighborhood.”
Watson adds that the moth design of the Ultimate Sevens branding – which his firm did not do – was “out there” and explains how branding like this must either fall into line, which risks being boring like Major League Soccer, or be completely different, like the Premier League’s 20 clubs, and risk being too unfamiliar for a new audience.
The Ultimate Sevens had planned three events before this week’s finals on Thursday but a leg in Madrid was cancelled, reportedly to save costs.
But after events in Cardiff and Biarritz, London will host the conclusion. But how close were some of the team names to not happening?
“There were names that everyone loved,” Watson says, “and then some didn’t [hit] and it was back to the drawing board.
“Or we got a name, but then we couldn’t get the trademark because it was similar to something else. And then you’ve got to be careful of cliches.”
Zero to hero
Nomad Studio has worked on a number of projects for the likes of Sky Sports and Tottenham Hotspur, and designed the most recent Premier League logo in four weeks.
“We’re really proud of a bit of Americana influence in that as well,” Watson says when asked to compare his work on the Ultimate Sevens to other projects.
“Our thinking was creating something that looks amazing on a baseball cap and that probably sounds a bit frivolous, but that’s how you get fandom.
“If you see a cool person walking down the street with one of the monograms on the baseball cap, then you’re kind of halfway there.”
Sport is full of club re-brands that have gone down like lead balloons with fanbases. But when there are no legacy fans to irritate, and a blank sheet of paper to brainstorm upon, it feels difficult to go wrong.
Watson says there was plenty on the cutting room floor, and enough material to create new franchises should the Ultimate Sevens expand beyond its current six teams.
It speaks to the surge in new sports that an entire brand can be designed and completed within six weeks. But capturing new fanbases when the market is so saturated relies on such.