Columbus United — Tifo Branding

Case Study TB07

COLUMBUS UNITED FC

League
National Premier Soccer League (NPSL)

Service
Full Branding Launch - Community Choice Campaign

Location
Columbus, GA

Year
2024

The Ask

The ownership of Columbus requested a number of engaging brands the community and surrounding areas could vote upon based on their preferences. They wanted each to faithfully represent the spirit of the city, region and beyond. The client also requested an additional “temp” brand to use for the campaign itself.

The Voting Brands

Voting campaigns are fun. It gives us a chance to provide our clients with a wide range of brands to choose from. Before beginning any work, ownership brought up some preliminary challenges: they wanted to ensure the brands were not

Through weekly phone calls and Zoom brainstorming sessions, ownership settled on five brand choices for the vote launch. With Columbus having a significant military presence, they requested one or two of the potential brands to reflect this. They also requested looks to reflect their Columbus youth soccer years. The last request was to create a Chattahoochee-themed brand.

Cavalry

Fort Moore (previously known as Fort Benning) is a critical part of what makes Columbus the great city that it is. It is also where the United States Cavalry, the legendary mounted force of the U.S. Army, calls home. This club name and crest pay homage to these courageous soldiers.

The main feature in this crest is a vintage-style soccer ball resting atop two crossed sabers, the weapons used by Cavalry leaders since the 1800s.

Classics

Every person from here knows that Dr. Pemberton invented his world famous beverage at his pharmacy on the banks of the Chattahoochee in Columbus. The Columbus Classics logo is meant to pay tribute to this by utilizing a classic scripting.

The classic water tower and mill silhouette are the view from the Chattahoochee River and recognizable to all that been on the Chattahoochee Riverwalk.

Chattahoochee

The Chattahoochee has been at the heart of Columbus and Phenix City since they were founded. Historically, the river powered the textile mills that fueled the main industry of Columbus for years. The river still provides power to this day, but it also boasts world class rapids and the longest urban white water course in the world. The logo of the crossed oars across the raft-inspired C symbolizes the evolution of the river’s importance to the people of this area.

Rangers

The iconic Ranger beret is well known around Columbus. The design of this logo pays homage to all of the rangers who have played a critical part in the history of Columbus, as well as the sacrifices they have made for our great country.

One of those rangers was Colonel Jim Hithchock, owner Michael Hitchcock’s father who held various positions at Fort Benning from 1986 through 1991. It was his father’s military service and ranger position that brought Hitch to the Columbus area where he and JD Hester began their friendship and soccer connection in the eight grade. We are proud to honor the Army’s 75th Ranger Battalion.

United

When Michael Hitchcock and JD Hester began playing soccer together in the eight grade, the team they played for was Columbus United. This team would win numerous state and tournament titles while calling the dirt field in Bibb City home. Six players from this team would go on to play collegiate soccer. This logo has a retro vibe with the vintage soccer ball riding on the river into the middle of the C. The outside shape showing the ball’s motion also forms a subtle G to represent Georgia.

The Campaign

To prep for the announcement of the voting campaign, we created a general word mark to use. We created the graphic shown here, where we placed the Columbus skyline within the C.

We created the following video to launch the vote process, which you can see below.