Just curious, which German club emblems do you consider make for the best graphic design? My favourites (from a design perspective): 1. Dortmund 2. Sankt Pauli 3. Frankfurt I find bloody awful: 1. Hoffenheim 2. Nürnberg 3. Fürth On the whole, I rather like the rather simple style to many such emblems. Elaborate coasts of arms strike me as rather less iconic.
Great thread! Football Club Crests are a bit of a hobby of mine. In no particular order: Like: Hamburger SV (absolutely iconic, no typography at all, just perfect) Alemannia Aachen (the classic one, not the new or the updated classic one) Stuttgarter Kickers TSV 1860 München Eintracht Frankfurt Borussia M'gladbach Werder Bremen Eintracht Braunschweig (dont like the old crest they wear on their kits, though) VfB Lübeck Hannover 96 FC St. Pauli SC Preußen Münster Dislike: VfL Wolfsburg (this just screams Corporate) 1. FC Union Berlin (that's a wordmark, not a crest) 1. FC Kaiserslautern (just bland, reads like the german word for "F**K") 1. FC Nürnberg (extra bland) TSG 1899 Hoffenheim (super bland) 1. FC Heidenheim (hideous) RW Ahlen (makes me puke) FC Augsburg (just doesn't work) SpVgg Greuther Fürth (everyone hates this, luckily they wear the traditional crest on their shirts) VfB Stuttgart (the old crest was a lot better, the new one lacks any tension whatsoever) Bayer 04 Leverkusen (don't hate it but these english-style crests with supporters and mottos just don't fit to the german football tradition, also the f***ing logo of the company... this isn't austria) SC Paderborn 07 (the other club I support... just downright horrible... what were they thinking? I actually worked as an intern for the graphics studio that made this monster... Luckily I didn't learn a thing from these monkeys. The old crest was at least unique.)
There's almost nobody who wouldn't replace the current logo with the old one, except for the club for some weird reason. At least they finally got it and put the real logo on kits and merchandise again. Other favorite logos: FSV Frankfurt Wormatia Worms FK Pirmasens
Great thread!!! This is my favourite: HSV and Dortmund are notable mentions. The ones I dislike the most are & What is that on the yellow shield anyways? Looks like the side view of a guy with spiked hair.
Leverkusen's crest is a modern marketing invention without any tradition besides the Bayer cross. http://www.hc-leipzig.de/userfiles/TSV_Bayer_04_Leverkusen_(Handball)_Logo.gif This is Leverkusens original crest. Its still the one for the old multi-sport club. Though I do get the appeal of the new emblem. The black thingies on the yellow crest on Stuttgarts emblem are stylized deer antlers. Its a common motif in European heraldy. In this case they are from the crest of Württemberg which was originally the family who owned most of the territory around Stuttgart for much of the last millenium. It also became the name of the state with Stuttgart as its capital. Even today the Bundesland is named Baden-Württemberg because its a fusion of the former duchy of Baden and kingdom of Württemberg. (Well, duchy and kingdom were long replaced by republics when they joined together). So all in all the deer antlers on "golden" background are a symbol for Württemberg. Red squishy things are VfB in an old German font, in the case of someone not recognizeing it.
Leverkusen's logo is horrible. It's what you get if you let a marketing firm create a "traditional" football logo from scratch. A much better old logo: http://www.bundesliga.de/media/images/07_historie/00_wappen/104x104/his_leverkusen_104x104_plain.png Antlers.
Not the original - that one is from the 1970s or so. I think it's Schwabacher typeface. The antlers are also on Porsche's logo:
I checked, and it's from the 1980s. Here's an overview of old logos by season, btw - it's not always accurate, I think, but it gives you a general idea. Well worth to clik through various seasons, as some of the logos are widely different (the site covers the top 2 levels mostly): http://www.emblemwelt.de/history.htm
Baden and Würthemberg weren't exactly republics when they joined. They were Länder (something similair to American states or provinces in other countries), both during the Weimar republic, and, when they joined, under the Feder Republic of Germany, under the supervision of the US respectively France. The only Republics on German ground that I know about were The Weimar Republic, the FRG, the GDR, and two short-lived marxist republics in Bavaria and the Rhineland after WW1. VFB's crest still is not exactly pretty, imo. But also not terribad.
The federal states of the Weimar Republic were republics. Baden was officially the Republic of Baden between 1918 and 1945, for example. And he used republic in the sense "as opposed to monarchies" anyway. Anyway, other, although short lived, republics in Germany: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Mainz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisrhenian_Republic
Black-Red are the traditional colours of Württemberg. Hence their use in the Porsche Coat of Arms. Frankly, I wished Stuttgart played in those colours. Would be a nice regional touch. Also, their old crest had a lot more character and style than the newer watered-down version.
I guess I'm supposed to like it. It's certainly iconic. But can't quite warm to it. Yeah. What where they thinking?!? Beautiful. Old-school, but also timeless in its way. Luv it. Too bad they're not Stuttgart's first team!
A poor man's FCK logo. They deserve to be relegated for this!!! They should do a competition with locals, fans, schoolchildren etc submitting their ideas. Like Alaska did with its flag. That's really the way you want to do these things. Get the local community involved. And then have an agency polish it. What they have is just awful in its blandness. Screams village club. Very provincial. Could be worse. A different typeface would help.
I think it has a nice enough retro touch to it. Somehow comes across as "red devilish". So quite fitting.
Too bad this traditional club is so far down the league pyramid! I've seen nicer heraldic eagles, but I like it well enough.
Of course their logo predates Kaiserslautern's by over 30 years. And no, you do not change a logo after 111 years. Especially not as a marketing gimmick.
Since it's basically the town's Coat of Arms, I won't be too hard on it. Centuries of tradition enoble graphic design.
Then why don't they get rid of this abomination?!? Is there some law that forces Franconian clubs to have horrid emblems? If they had any sense, they'd go back to the green diamond.
It's ain't Austria. But Leipzig also has its Red Bull club. Frankly, if that's what it takes to get Leipzig a first-league club in a couple of years, I won't particularly object to some sort of Red Bull-inspired logo. The East needs some top-tier clubs. Ack! Another club that deserves to be relegated for crimes against good design. They should go back to their roots. Something!
HSV vs. Braunschweig. The diamond-derby. I think Braunschweig wins this one hands down!!! Splendid! Hm... Though apparently it's one of the most well-known club emblems in the world! So it's got that going for it.
Must be something about the Ruhrgebiet that leads to crappy Wappen. Schwarz-Weiss Essen: Eintract Gelsenkirchen: