Founded in 1897, Juventus Football Club S.p.A., colloquially known as Juve, is a professional Italian football club in Italy. Nicknamed Vecchia Signora ("the Old Lady"), the club on the international stage occupies the 4th position in Europe and the eight in the world for most confederation titles won with eleven trophies. Earlier in 2017, the football club unveiled a new look, designed by design agency Interbrand.
The football giant is bidding to become a globally recognized club with a brand that reaches beyond football, and to that end, a completely new logo has been designed. A new club crest has been created, and with it, a new suite of visual expressions and a new way of communicating as Juventus seeks to “sustain its own growth both economic and sports-wise and extend its influence over international markets, beyond football,” according to Interbrand chief strategy officer Manfredi Ricca.
The new crest eschews most of the core graphic elements of the old crest including a bull – the symbol of Turin, where the club plays – a crown and the oval badge that held the final lock-up. It has been replaced by a stylised J symbol referencing the black and white stripes that Juventus play in, and a Juventus wordmark set in a new bespoke typeface.
A quality that describes the new logo is fearlessness, and the logo plays on that by representing black and white -- as well as winning and losing -- while always striving for excellence. This visual and verbal tone of voice will imbue the character of the brand at Juventus’ academies, its community projects and other business ventures, according to Ricca.
The new Juventus logo is among many to join the flat logo trend, but in the case of the football giant it is a drastic change from it’s previous oval crest. While the club’s name was printed in a curved line using a bold black text, the name “Juventus” is now placed right above the stylized ‘J’ logo, in plain white lettering. The contrast it creates along with the white ‘J’ design is stunning, and the color scheme complements the design well.
The move is also very bold, because it required the club to tread the line between appealing to a local fan base and the expanding external global market. While Juventus has diverged from its crest, it still maintains its heritage by sticking to its black and white colors, assuming a classic and modern identity that is contemporarily relevant.
With exceptional use of design elements like color and contrast, the Juventus logo rebrand is a bold step forward, and presents us a glimpse into what a truly global football club can look like. By recording its history into a primary signifier it has carved out a space for itself in the marketing world where black and white stripes and the letter ‘J’ are specific to the Juventus brand. With their new logo, the football club hopes to transform the letter ‘J’ into a visual icon that they will hope to associate with their brand.
Juventus is a modern logo design in the Sports & Leisure industry.
