Micro Music Genre: Developments/ further research

In order to further develop this brief I've conducted further research into fan chants and the football community in order to help generate ideas for my flag design. This lead me to look at fans when they are performing certain chants (see figures 1-2) in particular chants aimed at the players such as 60 grand Seamus Coleman and Mirallas's chant (see figures 1-2). This observation was interesting as it raised the importance of hand movements and clapping which is something I've explored within flag design as inspired by my experiments with enamel pins (see figure 3). These chants where identified via a video (see figure 4-6) in which past and present Everton players discuss their favourite football chants. Furthermore the importance of hand gestures was also highlighted in this video with Ross Barkely reminiscing on his favourite chant the Yak (see figure 4). I found this video very interesting as the players are a very important part of fan culture and also often tend to be the subject of most chants. Furthermore this video introduced z-cars Everton's walk out song and its importance as a match day tradition, as its as ingrained in Everton fan culture as the chants they've created themselves. This lead me to research the origin of z-cars which was originally the theme tune to a police TV show set on Merseyside in the mid 60s, which was played at the beginning of a match to honour members of the cast who where at the match that day. This sense of tradition and community is something I want to convey within the flag design as its not limited to Evertonians but football fans as a collective community. However Evertonians, in my experience have one of the strongest fan cultures based on unity and respect, this understanding lead me to look at Everton fan culture further. This lead me to discover the origin of the nickname for Everton FC, the toffies which originated in Mother Noblett's, a sweet shop near Goodison Park (home of Everton FC) which sold Everton mints, which have toffee inside. This is interesting to me as the name The Toffies doesn't just represent the team but the whole community, leading me to experiment with ways to incorporate it into the flag design (see figure 7). However upon initial reflection I feel they need more development as the this idea isn't visually strong enough.  

Furthermore when researching fan culture I discovered "Dirty Northern Bastards!" And Other Tales from the Terraces: The Story of Britain's Football Chants Paperback Tim Marshall, of which I read the introduction. In the the introduction he says 'I support a football club. That's not five words, it's a life sentence', which I felt summarises the strength of the support and community felt within fan culture of football. This lead to some experiments using this phrase, however I need to experiment further with the layout of the type, as I feel initial experiments are quite primitive (see figure 8). In addition this statement also reminded me of the statement made by Everton FC and their fans 'we're born not manufacture'. Both of these phrases capture the passion of fans as its often said your born into the team you support, therefor your born a fan of certain team. This lead to experiments featuring this phrase as I had featured it on earlier ideas (see figure 7) however feel its more impactful on it own (see figure 9). 

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 9