In late 2024 my local running club, Manchester Road Runners, were looking for a new shirt design to celebrate 12 years of being a lovely active community. What they didn't ask for is a rebrand on the logo, but I'm always looking for opportunities and took the liberty of suggesting a very, very small refresh on their very established logo.
I think 'rebrand' gets overused in design and not always for the right reasons. There's no need to change something if it works, and with over 100 runners every week and growing, Manchester Road Runners don't really need an image change.
I was reminded of the 'design trauma' stories of large brands going around the houses on wild varieties of different ideas to refresh a logo, then settling on something resembling what they already had.
With the 'MRR' logo, this is all I suggested. Remove the seriphs. Those are the little cross bars on the ends of letters that define a serif font, often used to define the difference between classical or contemporary style.
I rounded corners a little here, and added a bit more leading (space between rows) so the whole thing fits into a square easier for social media. Other than that this is still the original logo as designed by Chris ryder one of the founding members of my Manchester orderers and a good pal.
Just like the community at Manchester Road Runners who offer support new the runners who rock up every week, this logo refresh is just a gentle nudge of positive progress.
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