Musings on colors and shirt sponsors

M.Willis, a design and soccer blog, has been undertaking a project redesigning MLB with soccer identities. Today, the blog unveiled the series of designs for the NL West, which includes the hometown LA Dodgers (link). The LA Angels were already covered in this project (link).

The Dodger part of the article got me thinking on two aspects of the Galaxy identity, the colors and the shirt sponsor. LA began as a teal and gold franchise at the Rose Bowl, at a time when teal was the hot color in uniform design. San Jose Sharks, Florida Marlins, Charlotte Hornets, Jacksonville Jaguars. If you were an expansion team in the 90s, there was a 50/50 chance teal would be one of your colors.

When LA moved into The Home Depot Center, the teal was darkened to a forest green. Then with Beckham came a third color change, to the blue-white-and-gold now associated with the Galaxy worldwide. However, for these past six going on seven years, the Galaxy have worn white as their primary uniform color.

The design article mentions how when name checked the Dodgers are associated with Dodger Blue. It goes on to say that the all-white kitted teams in Europe use white as a primary color and not as a default color the way it's used in the United States.

I would argue the Galaxy have used white as a default color and not as a primary color. Looking at the design comments on the AL West article, he designed an off-white shirt for the Angels with a scarlet open collar. The scarlet is the primary color on that off-white kit.

Think back to the first Galaxy white primaries with the blue collar. Then there were the blue shouldered homes, and now the blue sashed home shirts. Blue is the primary color, with white used to convey a clean relaxed look. Maybe I'm crazy, but I would like to see the Galaxy switch to blue at home in the future.

The other talking point is the shirt sponsor. The design project using Singapore Airlines for the Dodgers and Toyota-Scion for the Angels bring up two great ideas. Anyone who's watched Mad Men knows that airlines and cars are highly prized for an ad agency. It's no different in the shirt sponsor world.

The Portland Timbers have had great success with Alaska Airlines, why not go after Thai Airways or AeroMexico or British Airways. Toyota has their offices in Torrance, certainly they'd have interest in sponsoring the Galaxy. Supplement companies in general have come and gone and have been taken to court. It's time the Galaxy got a sponsor that fans could truly embrace.