The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

I am sure you can guess a lot of them, but one is that I approach every brief like a chance to change or impact everything.

Sometimes it was said in a positive tone.

Sometimes it was said in a less than positive tone.

And they were right.

They still are.

Because whenever we/I get a brief, my starting point is ‘what excites me about the brief’ … quickly followed by ‘how insanely big could we make the idea’ … quickly followed by me getting ridiculous excited about the potential, totally ignoring the fact that all they wanted was a shelf wobbler. Or something.

You think I’m joking don’t you? Well I am, but only just.

My strength/weakness is I always dream massive. Proper massive.

Sometimes it’s paid off – creating the first 4×4 on 2 wheels for Peugeot Mopeds in Vietnam.

Sometimes it’s been a total and unmitigated disaster – trying to get Porsche to bring rally car culture to China.

But pretty much all the time I’ve been able to look in the mirror and know I gave them what they needed, albeit in bigger, more provocative ways than they may have wanted … imagined … or expected.

And you know what, I’m good with that … which probably explains why the quote from the KLF – ‘Don’t give them what they want, give them what they’ll never forget’ – resonated with me so hard.

Anyway, the reason I say this is because waaaaaaaaay back in 1973, this ad appeared in the good, old Nottingham Evening Post.

It was an ad to design the Nottingham Forest Football Club badge.

If that sounds strange, wait till you hear the reason.

Originally, the Forest badge was the Nottingham Coat of Arms … it’s the emblem featured in the middle of the ad.

After discovering they could not copyright it, they decided they had to come up with a new badge and – for reasons no one has really got a good answer for – they decided to run a competition in the local paper, recruiting two lecturers in art and design as advisers.

Despite this being before the glory years of the Clough era, and a prize of just £25, the response was massive.

There were 855 entries from as far away as Australia and Germany … with one man submitting 27 designs.

After a judging process, David Lewis was crowned the winner with this …

David was 29 at the time, working as a graphic designer and lecturer at Nottingham’s College of Art.

He was a football nut and fancied a shot at winning the cash, but there was one problem … one of the judges, a man called Wilf Payne, was the head of the department where he worked.

David said …

“I didn’t think that any design I entered could have been judged fairly if he knew it was mine, and I also didn’t want to embarrass the judges. I did want to enter, though, so I decided to use my mother’s maiden name to hide my real identity. My mother’s side of the family were Italian immigrants and her maiden name was Lago. So I submitted my design as Lago and it wasn’t until afterwards that the judges found out my real name.”

Thank god he did that, because otherwise he may not have won and football – not just Nottingham Forest – would have missed out on one of the most beautiful and distinctive football club logos of all time.

Simple, yet powerful.

Accessible, yet iconic.

Universal, yet truly Nottingham … thanks to the tree representing Sherwood Forest, the wavy lines reflecting the river Trent [where the City Ground stands next to] and the red/white colour formation to reflect the club colours.

Forest’s badge has remained unchanged ever since David’s design – except for the addition of 2 stars to celebrate Forest’s back-to-back European Cup triumphs in 1979 and 1980.

Hell, the club is known to fans as ‘the tricky tree’s’ thanks to the logo.

And a few years ago, an American magazine ran an article on the most memorable and liked sports logos across the world and Davi’d design was in the top 10.

THE. TOP. TEN.

The point is, David Lewis could have approached the competition ‘pitch brief’ as many approach real pitch briefs.

Giving them exactly what they ask for in ways they would expect or feel comfortable with … which in this case would be a badge that represents Nottingham Forest and takes design cues from the existing logo.

But David thought bigger than that.

He wanted to create a design for Nottingham Forest that would be known, respected and revered across all sports and across all countries. A badge that could play outside the lines of the game and into culture.

A designer badge. Literally and figuratively.

And he did it. Beautifully and brilliantly.

Which is why the next time you get a brief – whether for a pitch or an existing client – just remember this story, because the whole industry could do with being more David Lewis.