Saint-Étienne has changed its logo

Last September, Saint-Étienne, a French club founded in 1933 and nicknamed 'Les Verts', announced a very special rebranding, giving their fans the chance to vote for their favourite out of three different ones. Voting was very simple, just log on to the club's website and choose from the proposed alternatives, all very similar, the main difference being in the shape and some of the elements adopted.      

After months of waiting, Saint-Étienne unveiled the winning logo a few days ago. With 61% of the votes, or 12,000 votes, the winner is proposal number 1, which will appear on the shirts from next season. The fans chose a dynamic and futuristic logo, which, however, remains anchored in tradition, without forgetting the history of the city from which it takes the two palms, the crown and the three crosses. In each proposal, the club added the classic blue-white-red star, symbolising the 10 titles of the French ASSE championship, to the upper part of the logo, which is better integrated with much more pronounced borders than the previous logo. 

A restyling that demonstrates how the club logo is now a functional aesthetic object and no longer just a means of identification. Over time, updating one's visual identity has become fundamental; the logo is one of the most important and expendable assets of clubs. The various rebrandings of recent years, from Paris Saint Germain to the latest Inter Milan, have demonstrated this. It is now necessary to keep up with the times, to be increasingly attractive on the market, both in one's own city and worldwide. After all, it couldn't be any other way: the logo is the first point of contact that every customer or fan has with the brand, it is what makes us 'friends' in a certain sense, and encourages us to support the company in question. In this case, however, the initiative of Saint-Étienne should be rewarded: before completely changing its logo, it asked the opinion of its fans, making them an active part of the change, in order to avoid possible discontent and complaints from one of the hottest fans in France.