The Good, The Bad, The WTF

While searching out this week's shirt (a process that takes minutes a week to complete), I was struck by the badge for TSV 1860 Munich, especially for its similarity to the logo of a certain beer. Löwenbräu, to be exact. Not that I've ever tasted the stuff, though I do seem to remember certain members of my extended family drinking the stuff back when I was but a young'un.

Anyway, you can imagine my delight when I then discovered that Löwenbräu was a long-term shirt sponsor for the not-as-decorated-as-Bayern squad from Munich. I literally lifted an eyebrow in joy.







This shirt comes from the 1992-93 season when 1860 Munich promoted from the third division to the Second Bundesliga. Considering the club was a charter member of the Bundesliga in 1963, such a jump can hardly be considered a triumph. Still, promotions make people happy, as long as they forget what happened to get them so far down in the first place.

As to the shirt itself, it's a failure, but not by much. One tiny difference (well, maybe two), and this shirt would have been a winner.

The lesser of the two tiny changes mentined above would be to script the shirt sponsor a little better. That font, in black, fades into the stripes of the shirt. I realize that it's probably a corporate copyright, but maybe something different should have been tried. Oh well.

The greater change would have been to fire whoever went to some trendy friend's house, looked at the recently redecorated bathroom and thought to himself "That's it! I'll use a sponge effect on my shirt designs for Lotto." Asshole. Strong stripes make this shirt a winner. Sponge-painted stripes make baby ü75 cry.

Yes, I like the big round team logo on there. In truth, I would make one more change and center it to enhance those Löwenbräu beer bellies that it would cover, but as a design, I think it works. It's different enough from the badge that the club can get away with it.

It really is just too bad about the sponging effect. Otherwise, this shirt could have joined the slim "WANT" pile. Instead it goes with the "WTF were they thinking?" group.