Pro Logo Designer Rebrands FC Barcelona

This is a logo for FC Barcelona.

It's one of the most iconic sports brands in the world.

Today, we're gonna analyze the logo,

review the logo history,

and give it a rebrand for the future.

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So this logo was adopted in 2002.

Before we dive into the exact history of the logo

and all the different narratives

that are being brought together,

I think it's worth kind of, you know, dissecting

from a purely aesthetic standpoint

what the challenges might be.

On first glance, you have this shade of red,

which is different from the deeper shade of red,

which has been present in the uniforms

of Barcelona since the team's inception.

There's also two different shades of yellow.

You know, you got white and black.

So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

colors happening in one logo.

That gets really complicated really fast.

The different elements of the logo, as I see them,

are obviously the shield, which pulls everything together.

The second thing is the lettering

in the middle for the team,

which has changed over time,

but for the most part has really stayed

with this idea of FCB.

But when we get into the logo history,

you'll see how that has kind of like evolved and changed.

Then you have St. George's cross,

the Patron Saint of Catalonia,

the red and yellow stripes of the Catalan flag,

and then you have the bottom,

which does represent the team itself.

You have the stripes of the uniform

and then the ball,

which again has been largely the same over time,

but has had some subtle changes.

The main organizing concept

behind the logo on a whole is obviously referencing,

you know, vintage heraldry.

So as opposed to being more of a modern sports brand

where it's around a simple, iconic, singular visual

that gets applied to the uniforms, the logo, the stadium,

whatever it's going to be, this is based in the history,

not just of the team,

but of the city and the richness of that history

that goes back, you know, even before the creation of Spain.

If I was given the brief to rebrand Barcelona,

my first point of inspiration would be looking at a team

like Inter Miami that really built their visual identity

around a singular visual signifier

and a story that made things very clear

and understandable to the people who were fans of the team.

All right, so that's the current logo.

Let's take a look at some past versions.

Outside of the first logo,

obviously FC Barcelona has been pretty consistent over time.

Subtle changes with the shield,

subtle changes with the lettering,

but for the most part, it's remained largely the same.

We're gonna look at a few key moments over time

and talk about how those have informed

where they've ended up today.

Obviously where they started,

the transition into the shield,

and then you have your current logo.

Let's take a closer look at these three.

Okay, so this logo was established in 1899

at the founding of the club.

For the most part is based entirely

in the city crest of Barcelona.

There's a few key elements in here.

You have St. George's cross present,

the stripes of the Catalan flag,

but then you have some other elements

that didn't transition.

You have the bat,

which is present in heraldry elsewhere in the region,

something that you see in other team logos such as Valencia.

You have the crown and the laurels.

So in 1910, the team hosted a competition for a new logo,

and they ended up with this,

which was actually designed by one of the players

at the time who won the logo design competition.

As I said earlier, there's different elements

that were carried over from that original logo.

St. George's cross.

You have the Catalan stripes

and you have, which still persists to this day as well,

the team stripes

and ball.

The original lettering had periods in between FCB.

A subtle distinction,

but just something that got simplified over time.

The shield is obviously a little more ornate,

which is something that has evolved over time as well

through subtle changes as time went on.

This logo was designed in 2002.

Despite there being almost a hundred years

between these two logos,

there's really been no modernization

that has been taken into account

for the way modern media works,

for the application to the uniforms,

for modern storytelling needs,

and the way that these brands and teams

need to be representing themselves to the public in 2025.

It's just ostensibly the same logo that has its own charm.

But I think if you were to look at this with fresh eyes,

there's definitely some pretty substantial changes

that you would make.

So when I was doing research for this project,

I picked up some merch just within the last week

directly from Barcelona.

So they're still producing merch

with the vintage logos on it.

Obviously you have the iconic stripe,

which is how it appeared in this original form,

and then you have the 1899 seal.

So then here we have the current jerseys

that were just released.

They moved the crest, used to be in the upper left chest.

They moved it here, centered it above the sponsor logo.

So there's a lot of different ways

that we really need to be thinking about

how does this logo live in a truly modern context,

when realistically you need to be figuring out

how to telegraph that history

and talk about what's important to the team,

but used in this very modern way.

So here, I also picked up a vintage ticket from 1974

for this special 75th anniversary logo.

They pulled out the stripes from the uniform,

which is obviously the iconic stripes

in the bottom of the logos.

You know, it does live to my mind still in competition

with so many other things that are going on in the shield,

which gets reduced down to the smaller size.

You know, they brought the laurels back.

So there's these kind of like nods

that they keep making to the logo history

that I think, you know, is indicative

of how much pride they have and where the team came from.

So we've looked at past logos, the new logo, some merch.

Let's make a new logo.

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Part of what I'm trying to do to think about modernizing

and simplifying things a little bit,

the FCB is going to be moving away

from the middle of the logo.

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Not totally sure what style of lettering

I want to go with here,

but I think right now

what I wanna do is use the letters more as like anchors

to the shield so that they can set up a frame.

Looking at the history of the logo

and thinking about something that could operate more

as a specific visual anchor point

to a more modern interpretation

of the way the brand can work.

I decided to focus my efforts around the bat,

which I think could work nicely as kind of like a mascot

as opposed to the way that it worked in the original logo.

I just think from a visual standpoint,

it gives something to kind of like hold on to,

something that can also break out from the logo

and stand alone on its own

as a visual that can be used elsewhere.

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Dealing with an animal,

it's difficult because there's a lot of like energy

and spirit in the specific ways that that animal is drawn.

The facial expression, the placement of the eyes,

all of that plays into it.

So gonna have to do a lot of finessing on the computer.

The hard part is gonna be figuring out.

Okay, we have our key visual,

but then there's a couple other elements

that I know I want to bring into here.

One, the stripe, which I think would be a good backdrop

to bring in the deep red and the deep blue,

and I'll keep that to the shield.

Something that we explored in the first episode

with the clippers was some sort of container

on the outside to hold the lettering.

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One thing I do wanna bring in

is the ball in the background as well,

but in a more textural way.

The goal too is to try to simplify the shapes

and think about how to make this

so that the logo can hopefully,

you know, reduce down to, let's say four colors total.

Okay, so I think this is close enough

to bring it onto the computer and start drawing.

Something that was recently released

that I think would work really well

for this project is this typeface called Contro,

which was drawn by Michael Cina and Harsh Patel,

sold through Public Type

based on Italian modernist typography.

This is specifically a style called Open Type.

Each letter can have a bunch of different options within it.

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There's like a propensity in a lot of modern branding

to kind of reduce things down to a really simple way

when it comes to the type, that to my mind,

it tends to be influenced by almost like tech branding,

where things are just kind of like

a simple zero personality, lowercase typeface.

It's not really saying anything,

and it's not trying to communicate an attitude.

And I think with this part of my,

you know, challenge to myself

was how does the type also bring its own distinct attitude

to the equation?

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This is a good use example of how, you know,

you can have the letter A rendered twice in the same word.

It just adds like a little bit of personality

and it's challenging in the right way.

I feel like I'm in a good place with the logo now.

I wanna show how I can work, you know, on a kit, on a scarf,

on the field, in the stadium.

You know, like all the different use cases

that you could imagine the logo coming to life.

There's just like a lot of different ways

this thing needs to live,

and I think that's the real test of whether or not it works.

Let's see how the logo looks printed out.

I feel good about it.

You know, it accomplishes my initial task,

which was to simplify, reduce the elements,

reduce the colors, and you know, bring it into the future

and really root an identity in the team itself

while still being mindful of the history.

This I think is just kind of like a cool secondary piece

and something that they don't really have right now,

which is more of like a fan and merchandising based mark,

something that people can rally around.

You know, I think you could imagine this

being on like a long flag, hanging off of someone's balcony

or large across the front of a t-shirt, on a scarf.

However this is going to live.

I think there's a lot of different places

that this could come to life,

and it's not just on the field, it's not just on the jersey,

but it's a part of a larger thought

around how the brand can come together.

It really isn't about the team on its own

and a team identity.

It's more of an identity of place.

It's more like a crest.

Thanks for watching.

Had a lot of fun working on this one.

Let us know what team you want us to take a look at next.