The Focus
Designing Stadium Livery for India’s top-tier football league, testing the limits of scale and passion to evoke pride in the game
Creating highly flexible visual language that can be improvised for a variety of formats, sizes and on-the-spot changes across all stadiums
Extending visual language guidelines for usage on websites, social media and broadcast
The Design
Elephant has worked with Reliance ISL to create stadium livery since the first season in 2013. After five successful seasons of establishing the visual equity, a fresh and dynamic visual language has been introduced in 2019.
Highly flexible and scalable formats were devised so that the uniqueness of each stadium, team and environment could be showcased while being cohesive at the same time
Website and TV graphic templates have also been part of the mandate in accordance with the on-field brand communications
The Story
Football has had a rich and varied history in the country. Indian Super League promoted by Reliance Foundation is perhaps the most extensive attempt toward promoting this sport in India. Founded in 2013 as a partnership between Reliance, IMG and Star Sports, the Indian Super League had the objective of giving football a wider exposure, while encouraging promising young athletes to turn toward this increasingly coveted sport.
With 10 teams and 5 successful seasons behind, the Indian Super League has been synonymous with international standards of quality. Additionally, several local and global celebrities have managed to reach out to the masses and garner popularity and attention for the sport through their team ownerships.
Elephant was approached by ISL to design the livery for stadiums, along with guidelines for website and broadcast graphics since the launch of the league.
“The Indian Super League had the objective of giving football a wider exposure, while encouraging promising young athletes to turn toward this increasingly coveted sport.”
A Cut Above
Elephant worked closely with ISL to ensure requisite tonality of the livery, settling on three specific values: Premium, Passionate and Dynamic.
ISL is the most premium, large-scale football undertaking in India to date. The design language is strong & dynamic. It mirrors that feeling of pride and oneness for fans and players alike when it comes to the spirit of the game.
“The design language is strong & dynamic. It mirrors that feeling of pride and oneness for fans and players alike when it comes to the spirit of the game.”
Blending Scalability and Flexibility
Stadium livery and all related graphics normally involve a lot of last-minute decisions as nobody can predict which teams will play the semi-finals & finals and the livery for those matches needs to be put up in a span of just one day. The visual language also has to stand the test of wide variety of applications in substrates & size – from the micro to the macro, from stadium perimeters to VIP boxes and from gigantic LED screens to tiny mobile screens.
Design team always ensures that the visual language is flexible and adaptive enough to stay vibrant & impactful across every format. Guidelines and discipline are as important as creativity here. This becomes a real balancing act as a small mistake can be glaringly large when implemented to scale.
“Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.
— Ellen Lupton”
Unity in Diversity
The flexibility aspect not only has to take care of scale & media, but also that of all the participating teams and their visual identities.
Individually distinctive character of each team needs to be highlighted and differentiated for the fans, while also unifying all the teams under the banner of the ISL. For home and away teams, the graphics needs to change. The size and scope of the livery at hand would also change from stadium to stadium.
These are just some of the considerations that go into deciding the source code, so to speak, for the entirety of the livery.
Elephant has successfully managed to build a robust design language that would grow with the Indian Super League and will continue to grow the spirit of Indian football at large.
“Elephant has built a robust visual language that will grow with the Indian Super League, and by extension, the spirit of Indian football at large.”