a-Thought

One would think that technology and so are not related that much. Well a friend of mine once said to me “we live in a digital era” I made a joke about that statement, seeing everything going digital I keep referring to that line. It is no exactly his direct quote first come first serve I heard it from him first. With that said a team of developers have partnered to create a mobile application called Jobado. This app is basically taking care of you having to go pick up your friends one by one. What the application does, is locate your friends, not only does it do that it also allows users to share games and soccer news. The app started as an idea, but now it has been launched and operates more of the application: here

The images below give an idea of what the app can do.

The organisation that caught my eye in the research paper journey I am embarking on is “Football is coming Home”. The organisation is all about Football, not on football in this country (South Africa) alone, but all across the world.  This organisation is managed by four well educated soccer fanatics and a part that has made a name on them on the field of play. The Members consist of, Peter Alegi who is a professor of History at Michigan State University; He is also a writer for Laduma Soccer (Read More Here). The second member of the Organisation is David Patrick Lane who was born in Uruguay and raised in Liverpool, He is currently settling in to South Africa. He is conducting research for a book on the African Diaspora and football (more). The third member of Football is Coming is Mohlomi Maubane is based in Soweto he is a football writer and researcher for both TV and Print. The last member is Jonathan Faull He was a striker for amateur football club.  

The concept of the websites, was before the 2010 FIFA world cup in South Africa, Its aim was to document the spirit of the world cup hence the name football is coming home. They team decided to make it a living idea. This is a great platform for me to use, in order to get writing on branding and soccer, the blogs content is really dynamic compared to footballs most blog, where talks are structured on the field, and not off the field.

Soccer is Africa’s passion, for many years it has grown tremendously, professionally and amateur. Street soccer or amateur football in Africa and South African communities unites people and brings communities together. This article is about me and you seeing in Thomas Hoeffgen’s lens. Thomas Hoeffgen is a photographer.

According to the website African digital art “The enthusiasm and passion with which soccer is played in Africa are inevitably transferred to the onlooker. Internationally successful fashion and advertising photographer Thomas Hoeffgen experienced the same thing when he flew to Nigeria in 1999 for a story on soccer.” This journey led him to exploring the concept of street soccer. His photography is amazing as it depicts the exact setting of the environment He is exploring. I liked the high quality of the photographs. It documents the beautiful nature of the sport.

This is inspiration to me, as a part of me enjoys photography. And looking at this has got me inspired in that In my area there is also interesting visuals on street soccer as it tends to differ from culture to culture in this I mean, the type of soccer balls, environment and clothes. I have compiled some of the photographs from Thomas Hoeffgen. Enjoy :)

The first part of this post(An Idea #1) Covered the concept that interested graphic designers and writers Should get engaged in providing information about our South African soccer teams. In a nutshell it covered that we lack background information regarding soccer teams in the country especially pertaining branding. This is a concern for me, being a designer and a soccer fan, my curiosity in knowing about this information and yet less is available. I will share with you what is already been happening in other parts of the world in comparison to what I have concerns about. In the research journey I took I came across a website called Green-Label.com it writes articles about skating, sneakers and art etc. They featured an article about logos in sport.

The article looked at the most well known logos in sport, the content, is made up of the graphic designer, year and works they have created in their careers. I took one example of how the articles are written, below is the Chicago Bulls logo. It was created by Theodore W. Drake; in 1966 it served the Chicago Bulls since they began. Tills still day it is modified but never and hardly changes. That is just one example, now anyone knows where one can find this type of information in our country? That is my quest. More of this content here

Chicago Bulls Logo

Now in regards to our country South Africa, less of interest is dedicated to having an online platform that caters for this kind of content. This is really interesting as of that serves a great thing to know the visual history of our teams, most from how supporting soccer teams it a bloodline, I supported Kaizer Chiefs from my father’s influence till this day I still do.

With education and school, I am very keen to know a lot more with what I support, a lot more referring to branding.

Reference

During the course of this year I have been writing a paper about graphic design in sport my main focus is South African soccer. The concern is the availability of information pertaining branding in the profession. Less of the history of branding be it literature or visual information is limited.

If we look at other professions, like American Basketball information a rich history of branding is available to the public. Branding is a refer to a mark, in this case a logo, color signage, or slogan. Example kaiser Chiefs Football Club, the logo is the the circle with the chief their slogan is "love and peace".

This is a two way street I seem to think, factor number is the number of interested people about this data, two would be the writers/designers that care to dwell in this subject. Arsenal as a team in my observation has a timeline of how they came into being with their branding and their logo. Two writers by the name of John Simmons & Matt Simmons both teamed up to create a book called Winning Together: “The story of the Arsenal brand”. The book explores the how branding influences soccer fans and grows loyalty. More importantly it explains how the brand grew since it was established interested findings on branding that has not been shifted by the change of times as it evolved.

This in a sense brings me to the understanding that South Africa needs one of those stories, Ideas maybe be not around a book or publishing it, social media have seen a great improvement and if used to the core will do a lot of change. Teams are online people are online, now and again, people use soccer clubs apps, it can be a forum or within the teams app to include a history of their branding. This could be a form of an app that contains all the collected data on finding about this topic.

I am sure I am not one candidate as a soccer fan myself that would like to know the “face” of the PSL teams and their history. This would help I think, provide suitable literature for both soccer and branding.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this topic, as to how interested are you in knowing your team’s history specifically branding history.  Do share.

Reference

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Brand-Stories-Arsenal-together/dp/1904879608

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Simmons

With the Soweto derby under in a few minutes, I decided to share observations online on social media of how the audience interprets the brands. The Soweto derby is one of the world’s biggest football match and it is well known for its hype and its evolution from two of the biggest team in South Africa, Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. With the game and social media are buzzing, Face book and Twitter.  It is always interesting after social media was used to market the game and the brands. The observation made is on my circle of friends. On how they interpret the brand(s), mostly it is driven by the love and hate of football ‘rivalry’. This idea of a branding culture explains the culture of the people behind the brand and the people of the people outside of the brand the end users, internal and external of a brand.

This football match has me thinking about a brand culture. - John Meyer, Lemon.ly explains “A great culture helps dictate every piece of the brand from the tweets to the design of the logo. Cultures are known outside of the company walls, too. Just think of how you perceive brands like Google, Zappos and Disney.”

The collage of images below show the interpretation of the external culture of these two Soweto giants.

The images were collected online on social media.

Refence

The article I posted before this one was about the most famous soccer brands in South Africa. It was mainly about their logos/emblem. That brought me to getting information from the Orlando Pirates logo, which is what the blog aims to address the lack of information about branding in South African Soccer, there’s less information available about these brands and details on their brand image. I found an interesting article while researching. I got a rationale of the Orlando Pirates logo, which as far as my research went it’s the only team with its logo rationale on their site.

The logo was created by Bethuel Mokgosi[1], the first logo started with the Pc with a triangular shield then the logo became a skull and a circle, it eventually went back to the shield, more developed this time. The logo was revamped when Ivin Khoza came into the picture at Orlando Pirates in 1991; ‘he brought with him an abundant level of professionalism and business acumen that would change the clubs fortunes forever. In 1998, Dr. Khoza took a bold decision to change the look of the somewhat aging emblem.’

The emblem consists of a shield, skull & bones with a star. The crest embodies the logo together, the skull and bones according to Mr Khoza, the skull and bones represent the word ‘pirates’. These elements evolved over time, the star is for the African Champions cup, and it is included in a team’s logo when a team wins the tournament. This on

The current Orlando Pirates logo is the picture below. And it embodies all the elements of the Orlando Pirates logo changes over time. And it is involve the shield and the circle, it got a revamp same time as their kit. This current logo as it still careers the developed visual of the previous logos.

Reference

A brand is a mark, name or symbol and it is used to make the one organization distinct to the sellers and competitors. This article covers the well known brands in South African sports mainly soccer. Soccer logos have been a great thing about soccer logos is that they represent the pride of your hometown of inheritance. By inheritance I mean soccer is a culture in South Africa and a lot of soccer fans I know support these teams because of influence, its either from the parents perspective or from the your friends. The logo’s that will be shown here are logo’s that were created and then changed modified through time, and they have been there since they came into being.

Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Moroka Swallows (below), these have stand through time although some have been revamped and changed, they do not change the assets completely.

These logos are well known brands in the country in terms of soccer, the logos are well designed and all look like a family in terms of them being competing brands, I will break down the Orlando Pirates Logo’s history details about the logo, in the next article. These logos or emblem are seen in all of South African houses and in transportation's be it cars taxis and other vehicles. The image below show far a brand can go, it shows the power of an icon logo/emblem has for a brand, you get this right your business or organization will be a success, as tiny as is it does wonders in terms of branding and for an organization.

Image Source: enca

Reference

http://www.orlandopiratesfc.com/default.asp?cId=14427&cat=Anniversary

http://green-label.com/style/the-10-best-sports-team-logos-ever/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kaizer_Chiefs.png

The argument about (graphic) design and culture incorporating South African elements into our design style has been dealt with in so many ways and talks around it are very interesting. I was reading a paper by Moeketsi Lebakeng, were he is writing about fusing our South African cultures with graphic design elements. The paper got me inspired with regards to the variety of cultures we have in the country.

In his paper He is referencing people like Gath Walker a well known south African designer, who has had an influence the graphic design scene of South Africa and started a couple of design Magazines like I-Jusi. What inspired me the most is that it got me thinking about creating my own design based on the findings from my culture which is SiSwati. The Swati people use graphic elements in their dresses, line, shape, texture and color that embraces graphic design for me, and my culture. Based on what Moeketsi wrote about in the paper I can establish that it is an interesting fact to incorporate our cultures as designers but the point in terms of advertising, it would be tricky. I mean South Africa with so many cultures and language doing an ad targeting one group of a culture or sub-cultures that we have in S.A. One it would only narrow the advert to one target audience or a group of people, which limits the brand from getting a wider target audience.

And a lot of designers in South African use cultural elements, like Sindiso Nyoni, using African patterns with a mixture of western patterns aswell. On the illustration below.

  Test illustration of SA recording artist Toya Da Lazy

Also the KFC ad uses South African slang, their copyright says, “Sithi Salute klever” lloosely, ‘sithi’ means saying, and Kleva means a smart person according to KFC street smart person. In all the ad has been a success in fusing our identity as south Africans in advertising and graphic design, but what is still missing is the visual identity elements found in cultures, that’s one part a sub-culture with street slang used in the KFC ad.

In all it is an ongoing thing, and people are coming with new ways of doing it example would be The Calabash stadium that was created for the 2010, FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Reference:

http://www.kfc.co.za/streetwise/

Greetings All, I am currently doing a situation analysis on my paper, I would love your response in voting by clicking the options given. Vote between the two Kaiser Chiefs jersey for the one you like, Comments are allowed too. Just a click will be appreciated thank you In advance.

Image Sources:

alkymotra

The changing of social media in recent years has seen great and major changes. Social media is a virtual platform for people to share ideas and communicate with their friends and families. Statistics provided by eMarketer's writer Catherine Boyle, show that Facebook is the leading social network by 51% and twitter at 22%.

Social Media has helped grow small business, corporate and sport. Soccer campaigns are championed by using the social media platform, i.e. The Carling Black Label Cup more and more people are using mobile devices and are online. Soccer teams in South Africa and all over the world are using this social media to its full potential lately.

As a person using social media myself, and liking pages of South African soccer, specifically the Kaiser Chiefs and Orlando Pirates mainly because they the biggest teams in South Africa. In witnessing these two teams, the response from the fans is great. The online presence of the teams makes it much easier to access the information quickly and easy. They recently launched a new soccer kit and published it online the response from people was great. I liked the online presentation of these two teams’ jerseys. Pirate’s was digital photography and Kaiser Chiefs was done on a 3d presentation. That shows the design aspect and the platform social media has brought in soccer and in other fields as well.

To my personal experience the more effective your online presence is the better the chances of growing your organization and expanding your target market in the virtual space.

Reference

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Which-Social-Networks-Growing-Fastest-Worldwide/1009884

For many soccer is just soccer and there’s nothing more to it, this article covers part of design in soccer. Graphic design and advertising inspiration comes from everywhere and it is the target audience that sometimes requires a certain communication method, by investigating your target audience one designer or illustrator will create a work of art that is the breath of the finding, on the target audience.

Design in soccer, or soccer in design. In whichever way you call it one way or another influence is great in South Africa, especially during the FIFA 2010 World Cup this phenomenon manifested. An example will be the illustration of the “makarapa” hat won and one of the proudly South African items that we have in soccer. South Africa has a unique culture in soccer, the word “makarapa” it’s a Xhosa word that literally means ‘migrant worker’, and these workers are known for their safety hats (Souter, Design Indaba). The supporters of the teams source out the safety hats from hardware. The hats are crafted and painted based on the team being supported. The picture below shows one example of the “makarapa” hat, won by a soccer supporter.

However the link between designers and soccer is depended on a particular brief or on personal projects. During the 2010 soccer world cup soccer had an impact in advertising and design. Brands tapped into using soccer as an inspiration platform for their advertising. Nandos is one of them; they crafted an illustration inspired by the hat. Illustration created by Meryke Naude together with Justin Joshua and Peet Pienaar, all three being graphic designers and illustrators with inspiration took from “makarapa”. The illustration, has the makarapa hat, within the makarapa, there’s story telling about South Africa, the Soweto towers, the taxi industry, nature and the cultures there of. The story telling can be seen in the icons being used in the illustration, maze meal, words like “mzansi”, a venecular word meaning South Africa. 

Design is everywhere, yet it interest me in this country with so many cultures, and one of them being football and the reach colors within the game, murals, hats, t-shirts, to rides painting. One of the reasons, I love design as a graphic design student it is everywhere and you learn about new things every day, and it connects all the industries into one by getting different projects.

Reference

http://www.designindaba.com/news/soccer-art

http://www.designindaba.com/news/beautiful-religion

http://www.designindaba.com/news/head-start-2010-fever

Inspiration is the word that is in every creative’s minds and thoughts. It is what is regarded as a spark for new and fresh ideas. It comes at an un-expected state. Most designers search for inspiration in all aspects of life before and after a brief. Inspiration can be a great thing during the first stages of the brief, but that’s where my point is, one doesn’t or is not aware when creative thoughts will appear and be inspired to do something and tackle a brief. Here I am referring to Artistic inspiration. Artistic inspiration refers to an unconscious burst of creativity in a literary, musical, or other artistic endeavour.

In all the three years of graphic design, I have been getting inspiration in random things, things of not my interest. An example here maybe from watching shows on TV of sports I don’t usually watch like tennis for instance, then an idea kicks to do a type inspired by the tennis racket. I believe it’s in every designers mind to be inspired when they choose to or during a brief, but it does not happen like that. I witnessed that another thing with inspiration and being inspired since it’s a random event it does not last for long and it does not come at your desk or in your creative space if so, consider yourself lucky. When it comes and is off no event that is taking place at that time, event referring to a brief, that thought or idea can be reserved to the latter stage of a brief that might be similar to what the thoughts were that transpired at a certain event and time.

Gathering inspiration is a great and awesome thing, it’s like you moved to do something at that point in time. In all these events inspiration does not last for long too, it appears and disappear. I get most of my inspiration for creative work by appreciating photography, I also go to exhibitions of any sort since the source of inspiration is not really clear, I am sometimes curious and not aware in that state I get inspired. Here are my questions;

What do you do to get inspired?

What events inspire you to create?

Which ever way you get inspired, I would like to know and how you let go of it and for it to be seen in your work?

Advertising is everywhere; consumers are filled with brands on the daily. Product placement plays a good role in not creating visual pollution and annoying consumers. A smartly executed placement of the product brings revenue to the brand. The brands that utilize good product placement are more likely to increase their sales.

Product placement refers to a method of advertising that is natural and can be produced without disclosure, it is often found in film, television, music videos and books. This is a very good way of selling a product and marketing your brand through this form of advertising. The reason why this does not create clutter and annoys the audience is that it comes natural; it becomes part of an environment be it on Television or Music video and gaming. Placing your product in a non- commercial environment but using commercial content, it creates brand awareness to the consumer without annoying them and invading their private space. Reasons this came to my interest is when YouTube started introducing the ads before you watch a video. Now as for many people I know, the reason you want to watch a video is that, you want to watch that particular video, waiting thirty seconds as tiny as it is can be, it’s annoying this is what I refer to as invading your private space. One other thing is that these are always irrelevant of what you are about to watch after you have skipped the advert.

Brand and products need to consider a smart way of doing this, and look at its impact to utilize it to its fullest.

Hello everybody, I am Sibusiso Lukhele a Graphic Design student. This is my space of showcasing creativity, in pictures, words, and illustrations. This blog will consist of writings about graphic design, I would like to invite you to take part in this journey and lets share ideas and of course feel free to ask me anything on this blog or leave a comment.

I love photography, design, illustration and most of all web development. Oh and typrography, an aspiring hand letterer. :) 

Looking forward to hearing from you.