Something is in the football branding air at the moment – just as Newcastle United F.C unveils its brand new crest, its first since 1988, and Arsenal debuts a bespoke blackletter typeface, Fulham Football Club has also followed suit with an evolved identity built around one of Craven Cottage’s most distinctive pieces of architecture. Moulded by the club’s long-term creative agency Music, who have collaborated with the Brit Awards, Manchester City and London Fashion Week, the agency strives to help brands evolve. Just as footy teams change leadership, switch up strategy and gain new players, its identities as a team also need to change.
Fulham’s football club has a history of more than 145 years, so there’s a rich heritage to pull from to create a more distinctive and flexible expression. Kicking off the identity is the development of a bespoke typeface in collaboration with F37 Foundry called FFC Original, which borrows from a piece of hand-rendered lettering found within Craven Cottage, the oldest football stadium in London, where Music carried out extensive research looking into the stadium as the basis of the identity. Its simplicity, strength and character bridges heritage and the contemporary, positioning Fulham F.C as a club that recognises and honours history whilst having the flair to move seamlessly into the future, as well as digital commercial platforms.
“Craven Cottage gave us the answer. The lettering within the stadium had all the character we were looking for – it was genuinely Fulham, rather than something applied to Fulham. Building the creative direction around that allowed us to connect the history of the Club with a much more contemporary and expressive visual language,” says Dave Simpsons, CEO and executive creative director at Music. “For me, that’s the most interesting part of the project. The idea and the expression are the same thing. It isn’t heritage sitting alongside a modern identity; the heritage is what creates the modern identity.”
As a football club and as a wider destination (with redevelopments of the Riverside Stand and the arrival of Fulham pier broadening the club’s relationship with audiences alongside football entertainment), the refresh seemed essential to cosmeticise the exciting future of new cultural experiences. “Our club has grown significantly in recent years and so have the number of ways in which people experience us. We’re speaking to lifelong supporters, new fans, local and international audiences as well as hospitality guests, each through very different channels and touchpoints,” says Jack Burrows, marketing director at Fulham Football Club. “Some of these groups may attend matches regularly, others may never set foot inside Craven Cottage. That creates enormous opportunity, but it also makes having a clear and recognisable identity that feels culturally relevant and adaptable for a digital world increasingly important.”
Now appearing across Fulham’s communications and assets from matchday graphics to campaigns, retail and moving image, another element of the refresh is the club’s 2026/27 away kit campaign, which is inspired by the language of the 90s with a film that combines new typography with an irreverent approach. Alongside the bespoke typography, the evolved identity builds upon not just the club’s status in London, but its own heritage as it moves towards turning 150. And at that age, you may as well start acting at maximum confidence and let your colours fly. As it says on Fulham’s website: ‘football culture doesn’t stand still, neither should a football brand’.