Image and Branding for FIRST Teams

Some helpful recommendations from team 1902.
Download a PDF version of this handout provided at our workshops

Imagery is not a logo or color.
It is everything you do as a team.
It is the culture of your team.

Whether your team is all about the Pink suits, furry hats, khaki’s and polos or jeans and a baseball tee with a snazzy pair of pig ears, your image and culture is yours and needs to be protected and nurtured.

Know Who You Are as a team and that will be your image.  Meet as a team and form a mission statement, create goals, identify what is important to your team, and establish guidelines of how your team presents itself.  Elements of Strategic Planning can be helpful in defining who you are and what you aim to be.

In FIRST, the primary marketing tool of your team is usually the team shirt.  It identifies you and can be of value when traded at competitions.  Some teams also have buttons, cheese wedge hats, bright blue pants, bee antennae, tiger ears or other team related accessories.

Also decide on your additional marketing tools: business cards, pit design elements, tri-folds, flyers, marketing packets, inflatable aliens… things you might need to present yourself to the FIRST community and to your local community.

Visit the Big Bacon Theory of Image and Marketing page for more info

Use your logo and colors in everything you do:
shirts | buttons | print | signage | website | social media | videos

Branding

Create a branding document to clarify proper use of your logo, team name and additional elements.

Some items of interest to address in your branding guidelines include:

  • Your team fonts
  • Your team colors in CMYK, PMS, RGB and Hexadecimal
  • Complimentary colors and fonts
  • Grayscale regulations
  • Proper use on dark backgrounds
  • Minimum sizing (should always be readable)
  • Any acceptable variations of your logo
  • Spacing regulations around your logo in relation to other content
  • Logo on promotional materials
  • Proper use of your clever tagline/motto
  • How to incorporate you Team number
  • Examples of “Do Not’s” for example changing color, borders, distortions, additional elements to logo, distracting backgrounds, using wrong fonts, and stretching size beyond acceptable resolution.

Identify Your Colors

Visit/ask your shirt or printing company for the specific Pantone colors your team uses. You can then use those Pantone colors with an online converter to find the equivalent RGB for use online and in Microsoft programs, CMYK for use in graphics programs for print, and Hexadecimal values for web use. – Converting Colors Tool

Logo Files

Provide your team members with multiple types of easy to access logo files like jpgs, pngs, and vector files.

  • pngs and gifs can be created as transparent images for use on multiple color backgrounds.
  • vector graphics can be increased to any size as needed and are usually converted to an eps, pdf, or svg file, but not all eps, pdf and svg files are vector files.
  • jpgs, gifs, pngs are raster graphics, meaning there are limits to size use.

– vector graphics such as eps, pdf and svg can be increased to any size as needed

Maintain control of your image by being clear about the proper use
of logo, colors, team name and tagline elements.

FIRST Branding Guidelines

You should be familiar with the FIRST Branding Guidelines to make sure you use the FIRST logo properly as well.

FIRST Branding can also be a helpful guideline to creating your own guidelines.

Other great examples of FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team branding resources

About 1902

Since our beginning in 2006, when Exploding Bacon was founded with the unique name, iconic logo, and bright orange and green colors… our pig on the rocket and consistent branding has gained us recognition throughout the FIRST community and local communities.

Exploding Bacon 1902 won 4 Regional Imagery awards, the 2013 World Championship Kamen Family Imagery Award and placed in the top 4 for the World Championship Digital Media Award in 2014.

Our Big Bacon Theory of Image and Marketing has been presented 29 times, 9 of those at FIRST World Championships. Our presentation was developed to provide helpful information to coordinate their marketing, imagery efforts and Chairman’s materials.  Our students present the material and regularly review recommendations to keep it current and helpful for FIRST Teams.

Powerpoints, Videos and additional resources

Oink Oink, Boom!