There is a beautiful football shirt somewhere underneath all those logos.
That might sound harsh, but FC Annecy’s new third kit raises a question that becomes increasingly difficult to ignore when looking at modern football shirts: how many sponsors can you put on a kit before they start getting in the way of the design?
Because the actual concept here is rather lovely.
Annecy have turned to the landscape surrounding them, embracing Lac d’Annecy and the forested mountains of Haute-Savoie for a shirt built around one particularly alluring colour.
Is it blue? Is it green?
Depending on the light and how you perceive it, there’s a little of both. It feels appropriate for a design inspired by a place where the blues of the lake sit alongside the greens of the landscape surrounding it.
The black and white collar, sleeves and detailing provide the contrast, but importantly don’t compete with that unusual base colour. It’s relatively simple and allows the shade itself to become the main design feature.
Then come the sponsors.
One sponsor is part of football shirt design. Two barely raises an eyebrow anymore. Add more and suddenly the actual design can find itself fighting for space.
There’s obviously a commercial reality behind it, particularly for clubs outside football’s wealthiest few. Those partnerships bring valuable revenue and removing them isn’t as straightforward as deciding that the shirt would look nicer without them.
But where is the line?
Does a shirt stop feeling like a considered piece of design when five or six different companies are competing for attention across it? Or have we simply become so accustomed to sponsor-heavy kits that it doesn’t really matter anymore?
Annecy’s third shirt makes that debate particularly interesting because underneath everything is a deliberately calm concept.
Water. Forest. Mountains. Reflection.
A kit inspired by the natural beauty of Haute-Savoie, carrying considerably more visual noise than the landscape that inspired it.
Perhaps that’s modern football in a shirt.
Images; @fcannecy
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