Need For Speed — Brand Identity Design

It is 5:30am on Tuesday April whatever the what, dark, cold … and busy on the track at Scona Highschool in Edmonton, AB. It’s Need For Speed. This is a brand and identity story.

If you put in time at the oval office, you know the work is always better put in with others turning left for seemingly infinite laps. Need for Speed is exactly that, a group of dedicated runners looking to run fast together.

2021 Colour Update

Sonya did a screen print on a navy singlet, I had to do it. I mean, the original is nice, but this navy palette is so much more mature.

The original icon has stood up extremely well, but the palette needed an update, so I spent a weekend refreshing the look a little from this original design four years old at this point.

Icon and Palette

How do you do an icon about a track group that meets on the track with no pre/post routine, no external meeting location, and the only geographic inspiration to draw from is a five lane main artery one way road headed straight the hell out of town?

You don’t. You simply find a way to make a new track logo, and go from there.

I do my research, scour the internet, and believe I have a completely fresh take on the same 3/6/7/8/9/10 ring interpretation of that sacred place where folks run in circles for no reason but to feel pain. To run around in circles faster than everyone else running in circles — in pain. How’s that for a circular inception-al argument.

I’m dizzy just trying to re-read that word soup.

In July of 2017, my junior design toolbox consists of gradients, flat-sharp-simple iconography, and bright colours. Fast forward to 2021 and … consistency is a good thing? Right?

Me
Four versions of the same track and field rings logo. Three rings are white, on orange, black, and navy backgrounds. The last is black on a grey background.

That animation game is so hawt right now 🔥

It occurred to me that the NFS font feels like the Netflix logo font, so, let’s drop a Netflix’esq animation on the logo with the hawt new colours.

Brand Identity Design in Action 🏃🏼‍♂️

I really really really love to build out flexible identities which results in deep colour palettes and simple line logos that can easy morph however they see fit. Combining a hot sauce logo, strong colours, and my story telling photography has never let me down, and it hasn’t here with Need For Speed.

The cutest little track family you’ll ever find at 5:30am.

All Brand Identity Design work needs to land on Merch

What is even the point of producing a running group brand and identity if it doesn’t end up on merch. It would be criminal. Luckily Sonya and the team have put this logo to good use with multiple merch drops over the years.

I’ve photographed this logo in a lot of races and training sessions, including wearing it on my chest and ankles during a Take The Bridge race during the Boston Marathon in 2019.

TTB Boston 2019 … yeah. My first international street race under the NFS logo.
The logo getting pinned up for some work at Castrol Speedway for a 5K race.
A quick studio session with the NFS sock hotness with spikes in Edmonton, AB, Canada.
A quick studio session with the NFS sock hotness with spikes in Amiskwaciy-Wâskahikan.

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