The English Premier League kicked off last weekend and eagle-eyed fans might have noticed that the league has undergone a small but important rebranding.
London-based brand agency Nomad worked closely with the league to create a new visual identity that could “rip out of busy feeds and fan-filled bars across the globe.”
“From the outset, the strategic ambition was to build a more coherent and potent Premier League, reimagining the match day experience in stadiums, on screens, and in broadcast. Radical simplification has been applied to every element of the brand, to create sharper cut-through and maximum impact,” the agency said.
The Premier League underwent a very significant rebrand for the 2016-17 season, which saw its rather archaic logo featuring a lion with a ball under one foot replaced with a stylised lion’s head. That work was carried out by DesignStudio and Nomad saw fit to keep it.
Instead, this new logo “smashes together the previous two versions to create one master asset that is positioned centre stage and sized to feel heroic whenever it shows up,” according to Nomad.
“The two existing logo assets were originally created for standout on either light or dark backgrounds, but by bringing them together to create the unified asset, the Premier League lion can sit at the heart of the action.”
While it might sound incidental, a new white border around the logo is central to the consistency of the league’s rebrand. The team at Nomad also saw fit to circumscribe the club crests in the same white border in all official Premier League assets, it makes them all leap off the page despite the wide variety of their designs.
Nomad also said that the new colour scheme for the league was “stripped back” compared to what came before but still packed a punch with vibrant, kaleidoscopic gradients.
The League’s typography has also been updated.
“To create a more singular voice for the Premier League on match day, we refined the usage of the core brand typeface to two key weights balancing impact with information,” the agency explained.
The different scales were designed to flex for different expressions, whether that’s celebrating “on-pitch action” or displaying “information-heavy fixtures and results.”
