Logo Evolution

The champions league starts soon and so I was interested to see who had who in the group stages. While I was looking I noticed that Italian giants Juventus has changed their team crest. It doesn’t look like any football crest I had seen before. It was sleek, minimal, and most of all refreshing. While most football team crests are busy and tend to adhere to their historical backgrounds with objects and icons, the Juventus logo seems to of stripped everything back to the use of two simple lines and the use of negative space. This use of negative space relates to the black and white stripes on their kit and follows the same shape as the shield on their previous crest to form the letterform of a J. Although football team crests do get amended very subtly over the years, this change from Juventus is quite radical. Its a brave move as I assume the traditionalists may not agree with it, but the notion of turning a crest into a fresh icon does echo the modern game, where everything is more clean cut and modern from the stadiums, the pitches, the kits and even the boots they wear. Football clubs are businesses and global brands at the end of the day so why shouldn’t they rebrand and evolve like any other business when they are expanding globally?  

This evolution of company logos can be subtle, drastic, simplifying an existing logo, or upgrading an outdated one. The purpose of a logo is to be the face of the company and for the public to identify with its brand, products and services. In some cases it can be the difference in making a choice purchase just through view of the logo alone, using it as a unique selling point. If you need any examples of logo evolution from original start up logo to present day logo take a look at Apple, Starbucks, Shell, BP, Pepsi, and Xerox just to name a few. In most of these examples, the evolution reflects the styles in that particular time period they were amended, in fact you could even probably guess which time period the amendments are from. Overall, proactive rebranding of a logo can happen if a company is expecting or planning international growth, moving with changing markets, upgrading an outdated image or simply a decision of a new forward thinking CEO. Whatever the reason, the logo should adhere to some basic principles of being simple, memorable, versatile and appropriate.