The best Norton T-shirt ever
As an amusing diversion in these current grim times, the Norton Owners Club recently ran a competition for its worldwide members and friends to find the best-ever Norton-themed T-shirt. After assessing almost 200 entries from all around the globe, the NOC has now announced the winners, as judged by Marcello Oljemark Minale. As well as being a lifelong motorcycle rider and a big fan of the Norton marque, Marcello is managing director of the worldwide design agency Minale Tattersfield in London, so was very well qualified to make the decision. When Marcello carried out the judging, he had no idea from whom or where the T-shirts came, and he made his judgements on the design criteria of: 1. Relevance to Norton 2. Uniqueness 3. Longevity 4. Creativity 5. “What I would wear to a gig?”. The entries were varied – in one case Marcello was heard to comment, “So bad it’s good!” – but he finally made his choices, with the winning T-shirt having a pedigree which stretches back over two decades. It’s the work of NCOA (Norton Clubs Of America) vice-president Marc Bouchard in Washington DC. He created it for the “Nation’s Capital Norton Owners Annual Rally XVIII” in 2000. The featured bike, by the way, is a 1972 750 Roadster Combat Commando, which is still owned by NCOA member Christian Kelleher. However, this particular shirt was entered for the competition not by Mr Bouchard but by Suzi Greenway. She was given the shirt while recovering in hospital after being hit by a deer in a motorcycling accient. “Almost lost my right leg,” she commented pithily while wearing her T-shirt and cradling her prize, a bottle of fine craft gin. Second place went to Steve Edwards for his simple, classic Manx engine design. Steve is a T-shirt aficionado from Middlesex and said: “I’ve enjoyed wearing various Norton T-shirts over the years and they have lasted well – none have been ragged or binned”. And in third place was Chuck Collins, also from the US. As Chuck tells it, his shirt features “Dave Bradford racing his 750cc Commando in the early 1990s with Preston’s Law race team – he did mighty well against the foreign competition”. Marcello’s summary of the winning design was: “A brilliant graphic treatment to say ‘Norton’ without saying it. White on black - simplicity with clarity of mind. No need to add anything else. It communicates the essence of the brand with a single gesture. Perfect solution to the problem.” Congratulations to Marc for a design that has stood the test of time. The NOC intends to make reprints of the T-shirt from March at www.nortonownersclub.org