Representing itself

To represent its own city, for the sports clubs, it’s often a priority, both to keep and preserve its own identity and for a traditional matter, often dictated by the supporters. We’ve already talked about logos’ evolution and also in that case we underlined the importance of preserve they origins and always symbolize themselves coherently, following a design which could satisfy both marketing’s graphical requirements and people’s consent.

In Italy, for example, people didn’t like the latest Roma’s logo rebranding, especially before what’ve been defined “the bravest rebranding of all time”, Juventus’ one, which abandoned the classical crest in order to get a minimal one.

A factor that’s not being considered but that’s slowly becoming popular it the representation of the city with more or less explicit tributes on team’s kits. The home jersey used by Roma this year is a reference to the Coliseum. In fact, Nike designed a jersey with horizontal stripes which became thicker and thicker with a single diagonal stripe from the left shoulder to the right bottom. This design is a very clever tribute to Anfiteatro Flavio, Roma’s most symbolic monument.

To be fair, this kind of initiative had a great example a few years ago. At the beginning of 2014/2015 season, the rugby team of L’Aquila committed to promoting a campaign to raise awareness about city historical monuments’ restoration. The project considered on two specific jerseys for specific games which represented the city’s monuments.

Coming back to football, Bari is another club that this year changed its logo, with the return of the beloved cockerel. The home jersey, branded by Umbro, also was restyled with a graphic of Bari’s promenade.

Even more radical was Bordeaux’s choice: for the French team’s third kit Puma designed a jersey with all the monuments of the city, with a tribute collage of one of the most important cities in France. On the shirt, with the characteristic deep blue, are represented the Place de la Bourse, designed in 1700 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel and the Dijeaux Portal, also built in XVIII century. 

So, the trend to represent the city it taking place within the sports world and it’s usually appreciated as it takes glory and publicity to the cities themselves.