CGM blog: Has the Premier League taken its eye off the ball?

03 Mar CGM blog: Has the Premier League taken its eye off the ball?

Amid much fanfare, the Premier League has unveiled its new logo. CGM creative partner Brendan McMahon, pictured left, casts an expert eye over its lines and curves…        

The most obvious factor in the Premier League’s (PL) new logo is the desire to follow the current deconstruction process favoured by other world leading brands.

Vectorising brands is very much on trend to offer greater impact and visibility across all levels from small online icons to large 48 sheet advertising.

The font has been simplified and the font family is now more contemporary. Its clean Pop art colour palettes provide a nod and a wink to the likes of Andy Warhol and Banksy – maybe something football, with its usual focus on tradition, has been slow to appreciate.

Making the brand stand alone and leaving out its sponsor’s brand, e.g. Barclays, provides a prestigious, stronger and more confident brand identity.

It is also a big signifier that the Premier League no longer feels the need to rely on corporate partners for credibility. That’s a huge statement given football’s global business politics.

However, there’s one glaring omission. No ball. There’s no visible identity or association with the game itself. That could be a big mistake as it may confuse a less informed audience.

The hint of a pentagon in either the lion’s mane or face would have visually underpinned the football link. I’m sure this is an informed choice though – the designers will surely have tried this during the rebranding process.

That said, there are no balls in football’s other lion logos either.

The Football Association (the only national governing body that is so cocksure of its branding that it doesn’t even bother with attaching its national name to the front of its moniker) infamously has three lions (but currently no balls). Nor does Aston Villa’s latest logo – which looks more like a solo dancing lion with the crest ‘Prepared’ beneath – and a single star floating nearby.

So the Premier League rebrand logo is a demarcation from the past – and, to me, a design winner.

The new logo is strong, on trend and will be able to work well across all marketing platforms in a wide range of sizes. It is a classic rebrand example of the deconstruction process.

CGM creative partner Brendan McMahon leads and advises on all CGM creative projects and supply of design services including brand development, corporate identity, website design, marketing, adverting, reports and signage materials. Brendan has managed his own award-winning creative design agency, Classic Lines Design (CLD), since 1996.