Five Nations Roller Derby

Five Nations Roller Derby

British Championships is rebranding! The competition is now known as the Five Nations Roller Derby Championships.

When the competition was established the Union Flag was used in the logo as what felt to be an obvious choice for the British Championships. However, we received feedback that the flag was undesirable as a colonial symbol. This, coupled with the use of the name British proved a barrier to entry for leagues from the island of Ireland, who have always been welcome in the tournament.

We conducted a survey which confirmed this assumption, and highlighted other issues with our Union Flag based logo. Five Nations was one of the shortlisted names, alongside a number of plays on “UK & Ireland Roller Derby Championships.” We then conducted focus groups among leagues from all nations, and there was consensus that Five Nations was the best option.

There were very strong feelings in the survey about removing all national symbols from the logo, as well as many positive comments about the strong brand our five pointed star shape had.  Following this we workshopped different star-based options with a final short list of concentric stars or each point featuring a different colour. Using national flags or even their colours are politically loaded, and also may change in the future. We settled on concentric stars as being an eye-catching and playful logo using the seven colour rainbow. We want the tournament to be for everyone and we hope this new logo reflects this. Special versions of the logo will be made for Pride, Trans Pride and other key dates over the year.

The logo update was devised by members of our 5NRD leadership committee with inspiration from artist Dan Eatock and layouts made by Shutter (Belfast Roller Derby) and Hurt Nouveau (Milton Keynes Roller Derby).

The logo has been designed to work in both full colour and black and white, which will support branding, merchandise, and ensure that it can easily be used alongside league communications. 

Watch this space for further updates from the Five Nations Roller Derby Championships as we make a slow, safe return to the sport we all love.