Friday, August 31, 2007

Adidas Is Ruining Football

Adidas has been ruining the game from an aesthetic point of view. I know they have been a pioneer in football kit design for many years, but recently they have been coming out with some awful designs. Then they exacerbate the problem by using these crappy designs as templates that they use for many different teams around the world. Let's be honest a lot of these shirts look like training shirts. I mean it's friggin' ridiculous. They are taking all these football federations and clubs for granted. I mean some kid at Parson's could come up with something better than this crap. Say what you want about Nike, they were innovative this past world cup by ditching the templates and giving each team their own identity. The other major kit manufacturer is using templates. Templates, templates, templates. It's like if you are an Adidas-supplied team, you're getting one of 3 templates and maybe if you're lucky they'll embellish it a little bit. If you agree with me, leave a comment and hopefully someone at Adidas will read this and get the message. You are dressing some of the greatest teams in all of sport. Give them their own individuality. And not every single shirt has to have those damn stripes running down the sleeves. And if you do have to put the stripes on there, they don't always have to be contrasting. I've seen regular Adidas gear where the stripes are not contrasting and that looks pretty cool. Sometimes the best type of branding and marketing can be subtle.