MLS Gold Cup Posters | Crush Creative : Art and Illustration : Soccer Bible

Celebrating the positive connection between players of the MLS and some of the countries they are representing in the Gold Cup, Crush Creative were enlisted to help develop a series of posters. Develop they did, in some style.

Brighton based creative studio Crush Creative have dipped their experienced toes into the world of football designs for this campaign inspired by the good folks over at the MLS. Getting a closer look at the project, we spoke to founder and Creative Director of Crush, Carl Rush to find out a little more.

Can you tell us a little about Crush Creative (We are Crush) - are you football fans as well as creatives?

Crush is a team of 7 creatives and one dog (Pepper). I started the company 15 years ago on the back of a career designing for the music industry. My interest in football has been rekindled since my boy started playing & I’ve been following Brighton & Hove Albion FC (and Hull). The other guys in the studio & Brett in particular are pretty obsessed!

You’ve built up a relationship with the MLS having produced a series of 'World Cup Stars' - how did you begin working together?

I met the MLS guys a couple of years ago when I visited New York and clicked with them right away. They give us great briefs and allow us to explore some very creative approaches without too many restrictions. Once we get going on a look and feel they are super supportive.

What was the inspiration and brief for the Gold Cup posters?

MLS wanted to take advantage of the tournament and transfer positive equity between countries and star players competing in Gold Cup to MLS and their clubs.

Essentially we wanted to convey the energy of the players and the game in the posters and we decided that we would keep a photographic image of the player in their club kit, but their lower half (shorts and socks) would be illustrated in the country colours. There are then nods to the city they play for and country colours.

Have you got a personal favourite poster from the collection?

I think it might be the Giovani Dos Santos poster. That was actually the last poster we made. We had 6 designers working on these because the turn around was quite tight. Some doing the initial sketches and roughs, someone creating the type lock ups, other folk bulking out the main illustrations and then someone else adding detail at the end.

Football and it's creative influence is flourishing and work like this is testament to this. Have you noticed a shift in this cultural side of the game?

We have only worked on a few football related projects and have been lucky enough to be given very creative briefs, but while researching the project we did stumble upon some great new football related creative.



Big thanks to Carl and the team at Crush, a mighty impressive collection of work. You can see more from them here.