Hasta La Creative!

The National Lacrosse League’s Rochester Knighthawks will move to Halifax in time to play their next season, which begins in December 2019. They’ll be rebranded, under their new name: the Halifax Thunderbirds.

In creating the new name and brand elements, all aspects of the team’s visual identity were covered. This includes everything in all channels, from logos and uniforms to merchandise and social media.

Starting with the name, the Thunderbirds brand taps into lacrosse’s First-Nations heritage. The team’s owner, whose background is aboriginal, made that a priority.

The design adopts Atlantic Canadian Mi’kmaq art style, relying on heavy line illustrations and bright fill colours.

The primary logo’s thunderbird imagery is based on an osprey, a bird common to the region and known in the Mi’kmaq language as a “golden eagle.”

The secondary logo focuses on a single feather, derived from the primary logo, but incorporating the full colour palette. Its colours represent unity of spirit among the spectrum of fan constituencies throughout Halifax and surrounding areas. It appears as a shoulder patch on team uniforms, and it’s a graphic element on Thunderbirds merchandise.

The uniform’s design is unique in the National Lacrosse League. It deliberately takes cues from hockey uniforms. This was done to modernize the team’s look, and to help market the game in an area where hockey enjoys massive fan support, while lacrosse’s popularity is still developing.

A special third jersey was designed as well, for Military Appreciation Night. The Canadian Forces have a strong presence in Halifax, and are an important market segment. The city is home to Canada’s Atlantic Fleet, and the jersey identifies the team as “Thunderbirds Fleet,” in a nod to Halifax’s rich naval history. Its shoulder patch features a battleship motif, while its central emblem is a chevron crest incorporating a graphic thunderbird. Its purple and yellow colour scheme is derived from the Royal Canadian Navy crest.

The team’s ownership and league insiders have enthusiastically embraced this rebranding. It will be introduced to fans later in 2019.

Despite the fact that nowadays family compositions and the roles within are changing, many women continue to be responsible for all logistics and decision-making in the home. This is why 71% of them suffer from mental load compared to only 12% of men. This is reflected in the study carried out on P&G’s Próxima a ti website.

As its name suggests, mental load is an invisible burden created by the constant mental effort, assumed by those responsible for what happens in the home. The person who carries this load is generally the one who ensures that everything is working correctly within a family. This doesn’t mean that tasks are not being shared between the couple, but the responsibility tends to fall to the woman to coordinate and ensure that the day to day needs are met.

Confronting this situation, P&G working with Proximity Madrid has developed the #descargamental (#MentalDownload) project. It has involved carrying out a study, interviewing over 2,400 people, men and women, between the ages of 25 and 49, living as a couple, with or without children, across Spain, and covering the issue of daily responsibilities in the home. You can see the results via this link www.descargamental.es

As well as the study, P&G carried out an experiment to demonstrate the problem. They asked 5 couples with different profiles to make lists of their mental tasks in the notes app on their mobile phones. The couples then swapped phones and read each other’s lists aloud. The result was striking.

The men’s notes related to their work and focused on personal matters, while the women not only had more items on their lists, but the majority of these were closely linked to the household, showing the inequality in responsibilities between them. You can watch the full experiment here:

The idea is for the #MentalDownload project to be the first step towards changing this imbalance. The aim is to contribute to the recognition of this reality and create spaces for fraternity and empathy between couples. Thus, through the website Próxima a ti, a platform for helping families in the 21st Century, P&G provides a guide for identifying the division of responsibilities in the home as well as advice from experts to make their daily tasks more manageable.

In short, the website www.descargamental.es seeks to address the issue of mental load, to raise awareness in society, to promote #mentaldownload, and help families at every stage of their lives.

When the stakes are high. When something simply has to succeed. When the message has to be clear – you care. Bring a box of Kalev chocolates.