United States soccer fans don't agree on much, but there's one thing they all seem to dislike: the country's crest. Dating back to sometime before the 1998 World Cup cycle, it looks every bit like something you'd imagine was designed in the 1990s from the font to the overall aesthetic. People have been calling for a reboot for years.
U.S. Soccer releases centennial crest: It still sucks
Instead of taking this opportunity for a grand reboot, they almost literally slap lipstick on a pig.
So, you can imagine my excitement when I saw an email in my inbox titled “U.S. Soccer Centennial Crest.” For a brief moment, at least, I figured the U.S. Soccer had come to its senses and reverted back to one of the older designs. Of course, that’s not what happened.
Turns out, the only difference between the “centennial” and the normal crest was a flag across the bottom that says 1913-2013. Bummer.
What’s so bad you ask? Well, let’s go top to bottom:
- The stars. Best I can tell, these are supposed to represent the three levels of American soccer: men's, women's and youth. OK, I guess that's not the worst thing, but can we at least make them less stylized?
- The font. First off, they are using two sans-serif fonts, kind of a design no-no. They are also using italics as the main font. No one does this. Why? There's nothing classy about italics.
- The soccer ball. Is there really any point in making it look as if it's moving? Of course not.
- The stripes. There are 11. Are we to assume that's because there are 11 players on the pitch? If so, that's really dumb. Let's just make it 13 and let it look like our actual flag.
I’m not a graphic designer, so I’m not going to pretend to have a ready-made improvement. But I think we can all agree that improving upon this would not be difficult. The good news is that the World Cup is still about a year-and-a-half away. There’s plenty of time to get rid of this monstrosity.
See More:
