GAA unveil new logo

THE first result of a root and branch review within and outside the Association and across different age groups, is to be seen in the new logo. Unashamedly, the message is conveys is, ‘this is the GAA.’

Dermot Power, Commercial & Marketing director in Croke Park, pointed out yesterday that there has been a lot of different GAA brands in use, ‘of all shapes, sizes and colours.

“We are trying to do is take control of our brand in the market place.’’

Formulated by a design team in the ‘The Brand Union,’ which has offices worldwide, it’s the result of a massive consultative process carried out over the last year.

The review canvassed the views of over 8,000 people and, according to GAA director-general Paraic Duffy, offered ‘a fascinating insight’ into how the GAA is perceived — not only by their own members and supporters — but others in Irish society.

The new logo differs significantly from the old one in the sense that the central theme is ‘GAA,’ although the Irish spelling — Cumann Luth Cleas Gael — is retained in its original format.

“It’s very strongly branded ‘GAA’. The first thing we had to decide was what is our name and it is the GAA,’’ added Power. “We want to put GAA (back) out there. People say to us it was something they had almost forgotten about, and if you look, quite often the word GAA had dropped out of a lot of what we were doing.

“It’s still very much based on our heritage and out of that comes a modern identity. The crest is very much the heritage of the Association, whereas the GAA name is used for the games and other activities. There’s a direct relationship between the two. In the old one we had the Celtic cross and the logo, with no connection with each other.”