Discussion Fitzroy Lion Logo Discussion

[Silent Alarm]

Hah! Jesus!

I love how someone who says "this is about pure design! Not history!" ends up sparking the biggest non-design '...if Fitzroy were in the competition'/their merits of existence debate so far. The irony!

 

[El_Scorcho]

Personally I can't see much of a difference between the lion that is on the 1970 Fitzroy membership ticket and the lion that appeared in the VFL-AFL official Fitzroy logo. In my view they are virtually the same lion. As far as I'm concerned, its clear that both are THE Fitzroy lion.

However....if some want to distinguish between the two (because one or two lines are different in the tail, or what has been embroidered on the Fitzroy jumper differs slightly from what the lion looks like in printed form), then in the context of the "merger", the trademarked VFL-AFL Fitzroy lion is THE Fitzroy lion.

I guess that's where we might disagree.

The cleaned up lion I posted is much more similar to the Scanlens lion than the original lion.

The ones posted on the memberships here are the one that Mero posted. The one in the VFL shield style logo is the newer one. They are both, in heraldry terms, a gold lion passant with an Australian football under their right front paw, but in terms of how they are drawn they are very different. The face is different, the shape is different, the lines are in different places.

My entire point in this thread is that a single colour gold lion passant with it's front right paw on an Australian football is going to be recognisable as a Fitzroy lion, and updating the current lion to fix the linework would not amount to a new lion or a different design. It would still be recognisable as THE Fitzroy lion, just as the two different lion designs above are, despite being different, without question THE Fitzroy lion.

 

[Matele]

I'm actually very pro Fitzroy and I'd be happy with a bye and 19 teams in order to give them their place back in the league, despite broadly believing there are too many teams in Melbourne.

The league would be more interesting with the Fitzroy Lions and Brisbane Bears.

Agreed. If any club from Melbourne were to have dissolved in the 90's, Fitzroy shouldn't have been one of them. The comp would be far more interesting with all the inaugural clubs still running around. The demise of The Bears moniker is also a major shame for mine.

On topic however, I see the current Fitzroy Lion logo as an old car your dad may have owned when you were younger that you happen to inherit. It's beat up and needs some repair work, what are you going to do? Let it degrade as it holds all those memories? Or restore it and enjoy the thing the way it was meant to be, knowing those memories aren't going anywhere.

To me, the current Fitzroy Lion seems like a bit of a slap to the supporters of old (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). I can appreciate and understand that it is the last piece of untouched Fitzroy history/iconography left in the league, and I can understand that some supporters love its rough edges and stuff, but if its possible, remove your emotions from it. The longer it stays, the more I see it actually degrading the Fitzroy name. Would it not be far better to clean it up and show pride in the name of Fitzroy, over letting it age and degrade over time?

The PL is the extreme of what the current Lions could do in terms of updating the logo, and I don't think the lessons learnt from that venture have been lost on anyone. However a slight clean up like the one proposed by ES? How would that be insulting to Fitzroy fans of old?

Any logo change done by any club will be controversial. It just happens to be that any logo change by Brisbane will evoke a harsher response than most because of the history prevelant.

A clean up would evoke more good in the Fitzroy brand/image than bad in my opinion.

 

[Spanna_]

Let's be realistic here- 11 teams in Melbourne is never going to work in a national competition. Somebody had to move, and it was Fitzroy who drew the shortest straw. Everyone knew the potential of a merger, it was no surprise. Way back Richmond were going to move there under Alan Bond's ownership, Brisbane is a big enough market in a expanding league. The Bears made too many mistakes involving revenue and ownership. It was ominous. Some Melbourne clubs had to move.

A merger made perfect sense. Fitzroy is Fitzroy, but the Brisbane Lions have there own separate identity now. People are forgetting these are two different unique football clubs, not just one club which everyone is very sentimental with.

So, I see there reason for a slight modification on the logo, its not like its a major change. Just a cleanup, because Fitzroy is Fitzroy. Brisbane Lions are Brisbane Lions.

 

[Dylan8]

I don't want this to turn into a discussion of the merits of Fitzroy's survival.

 

[rabbitoh21]

I don't want this to turn into a discussion of the merits of Fitzroy's survival.

Have you read the other Dylan8 pages worth?

 

[Roylion]

My entire point in this thread is that a single colour gold lion passant with it's front right paw on an Australian football is going to be recognisable as a Fitzroy lion, and updating the current lion to fix the linework would not amount to a new lion or a different design. It would still be recognisable as THE Fitzroy lion, just as the two different lion designs above are, despite being different, without question THE Fitzroy lion.

OK. We're going around in circles a bit here.

The points I have tried to make:

1) that the Costa lion which is oft-quoted on here as a superior logo to the existing one is, in my view, an unsuitable replacement for the existing Fitzroy lion. The shading and the maroon outline are unnecessary changes - made just for the sake of change or for some desire to display the lion as more of a three dimensional logo.

2) I don't see a pressing need for changes to occur - but apparently the logo needs to be part of the 21st century and not the 20th century. I don't see the continued use of the existing lion to be detrimental to the memory of Fitzroy in the AFL competition.

3) that despite some question here about which Fitzroy lion is the actual "Fitzroy lion" detailed in the agreement, the "Fitzroy lion" in the context of the "merger" with the Brisbane Lions is the trademarked lion that appeared on the trademarked AFL Fitzroy logo, first trademarked in 1984. By the 2010 court settlement with the Fitzroy Football Club, the Brisbane Lions will be using said lion until 2024.

4) that the "Fitzroy lion" designed by the art director of George Coates is almost the same as the current "Fitzroy lion" used by the Brisbane Lions. Certainly the lion that appeared upon the 1970 membership ticket has the same pose, the same elements and almost the same internal lines that the current lion has. Whatever rendering "Scanlens" came up with on their cards from at least 1973 onwards, there's no doubt that it was very heavily based on the George Coates "Fitzroy lion" to the point where they can be regarded as essentially the same logo. I have little doubt that there are going to be some slightly different elements between a logo that is embroidered on jumpers or embossed on a membership card and a Lion that is printed on flat paper or card. I understand and essentially agree with the point that "updating the current lion to fix the linework would not amount to a new lion." What I question is whether it is necessary that it occur. I understand that some think from their particular aesthetic viewpoint that an "update" is desirable. They are certainly entitled to their opinion.

Whatever the case, the George Coates Fitzroy lion logo is very different logo to the original Fitzroy lion used between 1957 and 1964, as displayed in the image below.

 

[Silent Alarm]

Agreed. If any club from Melbourne were to have dissolved in the 90's, Fitzroy shouldn't have been one of them. The comp would be far more interesting with all the inaugural clubs still running around. The demise of The Bears moniker is also a major shame for mine.

On topic however, I see the current Fitzroy Lion logo as an old car your dad may have owned when you were younger that you happen to inherit. It's beat up and needs some repair work, what are you going to do? Let it degrade as it holds all those memories? Or restore it and enjoy the thing the way it was meant to be, knowing those memories aren't going anywhere.

To me, the current Fitzroy Lion seems like a bit of a slap to the supporters of old (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). I can appreciate and understand that it is the last piece of untouched Fitzroy history/iconography left in the league, and I can understand that some supporters love its rough edges and stuff, but if its possible, remove your emotions from it. The longer it stays, the more I see it actually degrading the Fitzroy name. Would it not be far better to clean it up and show pride in the name of Fitzroy, over letting it age and degrade over time?

The PL is the extreme of what the current Lions could do in terms of updating the logo, and I don't think the lessons learnt from that venture have been lost on anyone. However a slight clean up like the one proposed by ES? How would that be insulting to Fitzroy fans of old?

Any logo change done by any club will be controversial. It just happens to be that any logo change by Brisbane will evoke a harsher response than most because of the history prevelant.

A clean up would evoke more good in the Fitzroy brand/image than bad in my opinion.

This is one weird and nonsensical post.

 

[Fizzler]

Roylion do you ever feel that Brisbane are trying to claim the lion and that it is Fitzroy's or do you have other feelings?

 

[Roylion]

Roylion do you ever feel that Brisbane are trying to claim the lion and that it is Fitzroy's or do you have other feelings?

Brisbane trying to claim the lion? Not sure what that means.

The "Fitzroy lion" is the AFL's trademark. They allow the Brisbane Lions to use said trademark, as part of their AFL licence.. The lion happens to be the same logo as the one Fitzroy used in the VFL-AFL. Therefore that becomes one of Brisbane's visible connections with Fitzroy's tenure in the AFL. And that is important for a great many Fitzroy supporters in Victoria now supporting the Brisbane Lions based in Queensland. Queensland supporters of the Brisbane Lions now see the same lion as the "premiership lion". Personally? I only support the Brisbane Lions because of their connection to Fitzroy. Weaken those connections (i.e. introducing the paddlepop) and my support weakens correspondingly. Whether Brisbane wants my support (and the support of thousands of other Fitzroy supporters) is essentially up to them.

 

[Mero]

The Brisbane jumper with the Coates-Fitzroy Lion.
A cleaned up version of that would look awesome on the Brisbane jumpers.
And in my opinion, it's just as much the Fitzroy lion as the 1976 Scanlen-Fitzroy lion.
But I'm not a Fitzroy supporter, so people like Roylion should be the ones deciding what's on their team jumpers.

 

[Silent Alarm]

That just looks like it'd need way more of a clean-up than the current one. And considering that looks a fair bit different to the current one, you'd end up with a pretty drastically different looking lion.

 

[Dylan8]

fyi

The El_Scorcho Lion to scale with the premiership lion (bit bigger on the 2015-> edition)

 

[____]

This is an interesting discussion, on the Lions logo I designed (in 2012) I made a very slight change to our premiership winning Lion, to combat my OCDness, not sure how many would pick up on it

 

[Dylan8]

This is an interesting discussion, on the Lions logo I designed (in 2012) I made a very slight change to our premiership winning Lion, to combat my OCDness, not sure how many would pick up on it

View attachment 204345

Is it a wee bit straighter?

 

[El_Scorcho]

The back is heavier and doesn't scoop as much as it comes up to the mane.

 

[Strauchanside]

This is what was embroidered onto club jumpers 1968-1979, and appeared on membership tickets in the same era.
1968 - 1980 - 22 years of this lion
1976 - 1996 - 20 years of the Scanlen's "Fitzroy Lion".

I'd be happy if Brisbane went back to something similar to this one.

Except the 1968-80 use of the above Lion is only 12 years, not 22, therefore the 'Scanlens' Lions' tenure of 20 years is the majority version.

 

[Mero]

Except the 1968-80 use of the above Lion is only 12 years, not 22, therefore the 'Scanlens' Lions' tenure of 20 years is the majority version.

Maths Shmaths.