Involve assists North Coburg Rebels in club re-brand

The North Coburg Rebels Baseball Club have revealed the design of their new logo as part of a re-branding, the result of winning a competition held by creative design agency and Vicsport preferred partner, Involve.

A creative agency with experience working with clients from several industries including the sport and recreation sector, Involve has developed identities for a number of businesses and events including the Victorian Sport Awards.

To assist grassroots sport, Involve held a competition for Vicsport members in late 2019, offering a $1,000 design service for an organisation which was facing a challenge that was ‘serving as a thorn in their side’.

“Involve recognises that many smaller sporting organisations cannot afford to pay to engage professional services for branding, marketing and/or communications so we wanted to give back to the grassroots sporting community,” said Involve Creative Director, Wally Tench.

“I first became aware of Involve's design competition via Vicsport’s newsletter, Sportsview, and since we had been discussing refreshing our branding at the Rebels for a long time, I decided to enter but I never expected to win,” said North Coburg Rebels committee member, Danielle Senyschyn.

After assessing their communication materials, Wally saw the opportunity to create more professional and cohesive messaging for the club.

“We saw that the Rebels were doing a lot of things right but a few initiative suggestions would pull all their communications together to not only support their members but attract new participants and thank their financial contributors,” he said.

“We started by reviewing the Rebels’ website and promotional materials, making creative recommendations to improve their brand position and message consistency. The club committee also asked us to focus on recreating the Rebels’ logo which had been attempted previously but unsuccessfully.

“Involve provided three modern and refreshed variations of the logo to be considered by the committee. A preferred option was then selected which we refined while also providing website assets, print posters and promotional cards to show how the brand could be presented.”

The Rebels were after a new logo that informed those that were unaware of the club exactly who the Rebels were and Danielle was extremely pleased with Involve’s results.

“We didn't have any real requirements for the new logo besides maintaining our club colours so we were very open to new ideas,” she said. “The new design actually incorporates part of the logo of the club the Rebels originated from which was a nice throwback that we had all forgotten about until we saw the concepts.”

This type of project would ordinarily take 2-3 months but as community sport was put on hold due to COVID-19, the project timeline blew out. Once restrictions eased, the Rebels were able to complete the project and reveal their new logo in October 2020.

“The club became a little preoccupied with the uncertainty of getting a season underway during COVID,” said Danielle. “Once it became clear that winter was off the table for baseball, I got back in touch with Involve to start the process again and from there, it was a quick turnaround with the committee deciding on the logo almost immediately.”

Involve are now running another design competition, providing creative assistance to an organisation that “has a need but find the funds tight.”

Check out the latest edition of Vicsport’s e-newsletter, Sportsview, for more details or contact Involve directly by email or their website.