Logos and lawsuits - The Long Push 2012 T-shirts!

The more observant among you may have noticed that The Long Push logo changed from its original design a few weeks ago, and you would be right. When I started this project I knew immediately where to go to get ideas for a logo. That was the forum at www.middle-age-shred.com (MAS). THE forum to be on if you are a skateboarder of a er...'certain age', or if you've just re-discovered your old board in the loft and wonder if you should give it a go again. For the record, there is no argument over that last question. Of course you should try skating again. Just get some decent pads first!

So I posted detail of the The Long Push on MAS and asked for any graphics dudes to come up with possible logos. Within a day I had three or four to look at and chose one done by a guy named Sean. I was happy with it, but it was derived from the North Face logo, so I wondered whether we should run it by them or not, but then didn't worry about it for a few weeks.

Within those weeks, another MAS member, with experience of autism in his family, came up with another logo and offered to supply some T-shirts and high viz vests as his donation to the project.

This is the sort of community at www.middle-age-shred.com You would be very hard pushed to find a more friendly, supportive and downright hilarious bunch of contributors on any internet forum on any subject across the net. I would recommend anyone taking up skating to register on the MAS forum, young or old it's a very healthy mix of skaters of all styles and disciplines. 

The run of T-shirts was only going to be small. Just for my personal use to promote the ride really. We wern't intending to run a load off to sell, so we didn't 'think' the logo would cause any issues, but...there had been a previous lawsuit where a lad had used a similar logo and made some money out of selling shirts to friends in Canada. But, The Long Push isn't like that. This is a charity event. No commercial gain here. And no intent to satirise The North Face. Nothing like that. So out of courtesy, to avoid any more lawsuits, and kinda with an attempt to try and get North Face behind the project, I wrote to them to see if A) they would sponsor The Long Push or B) allow me to carry on using the logo that Sean created as their contribution. Sadly, The North Face didn't see it like that. I received an e mail from them saying that they were unable to make any donation to the project and that the logo was a copyrite infringement and should be changed immediately. Bugger! But good job I hadn't ordered 200 posters with the logo on! Phew!

Sometime over the next few days, Woody (of 'Big Woodys' fame) made a simple tweak to the logo that eradicated the problem and actually, made the logo more relevant to the ride, so we ended up with the current logo with it's 'there' and 'back' theme, which is ideal. This week, I collected the final T-shirts at Ramp City in Blackpool, when I went for the weekly 'Tuesday Tossers' meet-up. (Presumably a reference to the pancake tossing of Shrove Tuesday...or not!) 

T-shirts, funded by Mark Robinson

Thank you's then to Sean Tilbury and Woody for their photoshop skills, and to Mark Robinson, for funding the T-shirts and high viz vests for The Long Push 2012. It's my intention to wear one of the pictured items on each training ride between now and the full 2 day ride, to raise more awareness and generate some donations while out on the road. (Remember those photos of the 'kidnapped' garden gnomes, photographed in front of famous national landmarks? Kinda like that...but between Southport and Fleetwood!)  So if I pass through your town, you haven't donated and you want to, just stop me and I'll have a sponsor form to write down any donations accepted.

Right, that's me done again for now. If all goes to plan for these next two days off then I'll have my motorbike back on the road again by this evening, and I'll be able to get out to do a few miles on the board tomorrow. Let's see if life throws any spanners in the works. A longer blog summing up the work done in the first the months of The Long Push is on the way, and hopefully some video to make this thing come alive a bit more.

Until then, have a great week.

Chris