For the first time since 2006, Tottenham Hotspur are updating the club’s branding. Spurs announced on their website and social media channels that the club is updating and refreshing the official club font, tweaking the cockerel-on-ball club crest, and reintroducing the THFC historic monogram as it attempts to freshen up its overall marketing look and feel after nearly 20 years.
Streamlined Club Crest
Tottenham was one of the first clubs in the early 2000s to make a radical and modern adjustment to its team branding, resulting in the modern-looking and revamped cockerel-on-ball club crest. To its credit, the crest looks as fresh and modern today as it did back in 2006. The tweaks to the crest itself are minimal and unlikely to be noticed by many fans if attention was not called to it — the club is removing the “Tottenham Hotspur” wordmark below the crest, making it just the cock-on-ball, which will, as the release says, “increase its scale across different environments and stand proud as a true icon for the Club.”
In addition, the club also released a silhouette version of the crest as a “supporting design” that is even more minimalist, and which will no doubt see ubiquitous use on various branding platforms and merchandise. This also includes a new palate of colorways, as seen in the image below.
Welcome back, club monogram
As depicted in the header photo of this article, the club is also revitalizing and bringing back the old THFC monogram which hasn’t been in use since the last branding refresh in 2006. You can see the old monogram, which featured in previous versions of the club crest, in old promotional photos. To my designer’s eye, the new version on the monogram has kept the basic shape of past versions, but has also been streamlined, reducing the intensity of the old font’s serifs and making it look cleaner and more modern. It’s a nice nod to the club’s past.
New graphical “Hallmarks”
In addition to the streamlined club crest, Spurs have also released a new set of graphics, titled “Hallmarks,” which were designed to “celebrate key heritage features, including the Seven Sisters Trees, Bruce Castle and 1882 – the Club’s founding year - to support our brand storytelling.” I expect we’ll see these Hallmarks used in various locations when the club wants to reference certain parts of the club heritage or defining features of the Tottenham area. The “H” Hallmark I think will probably see ubiquitous use in future club training gear and merchandise geared towards supporters.
Updated font
Tottenham have their own font, titled “Spurs,” created by Dalton Maag in 2006. The refresh seems to lean into widening the font and using more emphatic tilts and italics, though it appears there are again some minor tweaks to the ligatures and serifs in the new version as well, making it a bit rounder in some applications. Can’t say I’m a huge fan of just “fattening up” the old font a little, but to each their own, I guess.
None of the changes in this brand refresh are dramatic. In fact, if the club had decided to just quietly roll this out instead of making a big production of it, I suspect only the keen-eyed would notice, at least at first. If you want to be cynical, you can make an argument that the timing of this branding release is made today to offset the news of Rodrigo Bentancur’s seven match ban and fine for racial comments made in a June YouTube video. The club would probably dispute that; I will absolutely not.
As someone who does typesetting and design in my day job, I have to say that I have some quibbles with some of the decisions made here, but none of them are egregious or even mildly upsetting. The return of the monogram is a welcome addition to the club branding, the silhouetted crest is kind of whatever, and I can’t really do more than shrug at the new Hallmarks. They’re fine. They’re all fine to good. I am curious as to how the club will use some of the new dayglo colorways in its marketing materials and merchandise; blue and white will always be the club’s colors, but you do wonder if these new swatches will start to appear in future training gear or even away/third kits.
What do you think of the new branding? Have your say in the comments.