A kick in the right direction
Since 2001, Barclays, the British multinational banking and financial services company, has been the title sponsor of the Premier League’s seasons, however, this season, the sponsorship expires. So, to coincide with this major change, the Premier League revealed a bold new visual aesthetic. DixonBaxi, creative agency, was tasked with coming up with the creative direction for the broadcasting rebrand, which will reach an audience of two billion viewers.
DixonBaxi commissioned MassiveMusic to create an entirely new audio brand to complement the new visual identity for the Premier League’s 2016/17 season.
Design Studio, a global brand and design agency, worked with the Premier League to produce a new logo, which took on quite a modern take in comparison to the original. Despite, also, using the lion icon, a symbol that is part of the competition’s heritage, it has been altered to keep contemporary. One of the biggest benefits of this new logo is its flexibility; it can be shrunk, enlarged or made different colours, without affecting quality and, still, remains recognisably associated with the Premier League.
DixonBaxi worked on all on-air aspects, creating a series of concepts that support the Premier League experience. Design language is used to give fluidity between the live-data, league tables and player profiles, enhancing the game for fans. With a ‘broader visual and tonal language’, show titles have become more human and great depth has been added to the brand. Also, combining live action with confident typography and animation, it has been ensured that none of the experience is missed. Having watched hundreds of hours of football, DixonBaxi have all the graphics and titles directly influenced by real, on-the-field movement, truly bring the experience to life.
Along with this fresh new visual, MassiveMusic’s London office has revitalised the audio identity of the Premier League’s international broadcast shows, taking it in an equally striking direction as its new visuals. Both companies worked together to produce the celebratory ‘walk on anthem’, heard at the start of every Premiere League match, of this season. This was done to fully grasp the range of emotions that the Premier League fans experience. A ‘real’ feel was added to the anthem by using manipulated location sounds from a Premier League match at White Hart Lane, and incorporating that with “rousing and unexpected instrumentation”, as head of branding UK, Roscoe Williamson mentions, creating a “hair-standing-on-the-back-of-your-neck emotion.”
They devised a musical concept surrounding three key elements: the global community that surrounds the Premier League, the requirement for a contemporary feel and the emotion stemming from the ‘theatre’ of the game. MassiveMusic decided on an over-arching theme for the brand, Premier League’s broadcast shows.
Williamson says, “DixonBaxi, DesignStudio, and Premier League have gone for an ultra-contemporary look with the visual branding, and we felt that it was really important for us to do something with the music to reflect how brave they’d been with the visual aesthetic. The Premier League had an opportunity to own a space in music as we found that the majority of leagues around the world sounded exactly the same.”
