Rangers FC rebrand by See Saw features new crest and custom typeface by lifelong fan Craig Black

Scottish creative agency See Saw and type designer Craig Black have collaborated on the rebrand of Rangers Football Club, featuring the design of a new crest, a refreshed colour palette and a custom typeface, Rangers Display. Being cautious to maintain strong ties to the club’s heritage while futureproofing the brand – ever a delicate balance, particularly under the watchful eyes of fans – the team used its personal affiliations with the club (Black being a lifelong fan, calling this his “dream project”) to ensure design details were deeply authentic.

Rangers Display, therefore, aims to capture the club’s personality, taking visual prompts from elements of Rangers’ history found at its home of Ibrox Stadium. Black says there are “serif kicks that echo those of the bluebells at Ibrox’s iconic gates,” and other cues from the stadium’s entrance floor mosaic. During their research, the team sifted through archives at the club, and Black found more typographic inspiration in old letterheads used over the years.

The typeface will be used on kits for the players’ names and numbers, and across all branding including marketing, social media and signage. It forms a key facet of the rebrand, which itself is a big part of Rangers’ digital transformation strategy that hopes to modernise and grow the club internationally, and build its commercial revenues.

See Saw has added a new crest, called the Ready crest, to the identity as part of its redesign for digital formats. This way the original “scroll” crest that is seen on the team kit could remain unchanged (avoiding inevitable blowback from fans) while the new crest for branding and comms could be more digital-friendly, with a redrawn and streamlined lion and ball icon appearing larger and clearer on the crest, giving the brand a “stronger presence” says Maurice Hynds, See Saw’s creative director. “It brings renewed vigour and precision to the logo, while staying true to the courage and history conveyed by the original club emblem.”

With colours so imbued in any football club’s history, the colour palette redesign must have also been a sensitive process. See Saw says it has “revitalised” the identity’s colours to make a stronger visual impact in busy digital environments, replacing the Rangers’ blue with a “more vibrant ‘True Rangers Blue’ and red tones,” alongside a new complementary secondary colour palette to help it stand out.

The rebrand launches alongside the club’s new digital strategy, which includes a new website and app.