Footy fans are passionate, critical, and typically hard to please … they also don’t deal well with change.
So when NRL team Canterbury Bulldogs unveiled their new logo during the week, the reaction was swift and mostly unkind.
The club has only had five variations of the logo in its history, and this latest version has attempted to pay homage to the ones before it with the inaugural club insignia featuring on the collar, and designers saying the new face is “derived directly” from the previous face.
But fans aren’t buying it, believing it looks to much like a cartoon image or something created by AI. There were also two small features about the new dog that didn’t make sense to many.
Veteran sports journalist Mark Gottlieb said it was “boring” and it could “literally” be a logo for any bulldog team in the world.
“Classic case of someone needing a logo to be more ‘fierce’ though. And a design company needing a paycheck,” he said on social media.
But passionate Dogs fan Larry Taylor was more scathing, reflecting the sentiment of many supporters.
“Woeful 😂. Might as well call it Barry the Bulldog and put him on Cartoon Network … Personally, I hate it,” he said.
“This looks like it should be on a kid’s Paw Patrol shirt,” another fan said, referencing the Canadian animated series Paw Patrol.
And another: “Lifetime Doggies supporter and I don’t like this new Paw Patrol logo, too cartoonish.”
Suspicions about an AI generated image was also a strong theme throughout the criticism.
“After the travesty of the new Raiders logo🤢, I feel sorry for the Bulldogs. I wish NRL teams would leave the AI crayons at home,” one person raged on social media.
Another fan asked: “Who bought a chatgpt account and played around with it for an hour 😂?”
And another: “Looks AI. I liked their old school one, personally. 🤷🏻♂️.”
Many fans wondered why there was a need for change, while others took issue with some key details about the new dog’s head. One was the teeth or lack of.
“Why no teeth? Usually a pretty dominant characteristic in a Bulldog,” one fan wondered.
And another: “Bit docile, looks sedated – need to show a vicious growling teeth logo.”
Another simply added: “Toothless.”
And another: “Looks cartoony. No teeth (literally).”
The other minor detail some fans had with it was the eyes.
In fact, one fan even attempted to edit them to show how it could be improved.
“The new NRL bulldogs new logo isn’t sitting well for me,” the fan said.
“The eyes make a huge difference. Just edited using the phone edit tool and makes a whole difference, rough edit but you get the picture.”
Bulldogs chief Aaron Warburton said the new emblem reflected “who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going”.
“It is more than just a logo,” he said.
“It carries forward the fighting spirit that has defined this club since 1935, while facing the future head-on with confidence and pride.
“We’re incredibly proud of the design and believe it strikes the right balance between paying tribute to our 90-year legacy and capturing the energy, ambition and unity that will define our future.”
But the sales pitch failed on some and worked on others.
“Proper marketing types who know their stuff and work with the big corporates know a rebrand goes from 1) I hate it, to 2) I’m adjusting, to 3) I love it,” one social media calmly suggested.
And another: “I like it. It looks like a what you’d imagine a modern Bulldog logo to look like. The breakdown of its creation shows they took into consideration the clubs history and also looked to rebrand for the modern online world. Works for me.”
And another: “I love it!!! I understand and sympathise with those who don’t like it but … suck it up because this is our Logo moving forward and more importantly We Are The Bulldogs!!”
But another said: “There’s still time to change this shitty logo … It’s awful.”
