Note: The story below appears as it originally did upon the unveiling of the new logo, the team has since announced it will seek a new logo — that update has been appended to the end of this post. Thanks.
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The name’s Louisville City but its best friends call it Lou.
For the 2020 season, the two-time champions of the USL Championship league will have a new logo, new colours, and yes, even a new name… well, informally anyway, as the club explained:
“While the club’s official name will continue to be Louisville City Football Club, the crest will reflect the LouCity name local supporters and soccer fans around the country have embraced.”
The new badge features a five-sided shield for the five bridges that cross the Ohio River around the city, three fleur-de-lis and a circle of stars are on the shield referencing Louisville’s previous municipal flag. Between those two symbols is a diagonal white line, that’s the Ohio River and the city symbols on either side of it show unity across the region. The purple triangle pointing up? Louisville’s stock rising as a major league market. That black arrow pointing down? Well, it means nothing… they couldn’t think of anything to go along with that one.
“We are excited for our fans to see our new look,” Louisville City FC President Brad Estes said in the official press release. “We focused our efforts on paying homage to the city we love while working to make a new mark that is bold and clean. Our new crest is a sign of continued progress for us. Our new crest is distinctly Louisville and will be a uniting brand as we move into a new era for our club.”
The new mark was designed by Louisville-based marketing firm Doe-Anderson Advertising.
Purple remains for LouCity, the gold which was present in both the 2015-2019 and the originally unveiled but never used logo from 2014 has been replaced by both black and silver.
The two new colours are officially called Oak Char Black and Kentucky Limestone Grey, they join LouCity Purple.
“Our grey and black kit this past season was one of the more popular kits we’ve ever had,” Estes explained in the release. “We know how much our fans loved the purple and black kits in years’ past. We wanted to make sure we kept our Signature Purple from our original affiliation from [Major League Soccer’s] Orlando City while also creating a new look that is distinctly LouCity.”
The new Louisville City FC logo will make its on-pitch debut in the Spring of 2020 as the club also opens their new home, Lynn Family Stadium.
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UPDATE Dec 19/19: Welp. So much for that…
LouCity FC President Brad Estes today said the feedback on the new logo has been so negative that the team has halted the production of all merchandise featuring the new look and will reach out with fan groups to try and fix the problems with it.
The full statement from Estes here:
“You are the lifeblood of our organization, and we greatly appreciate each of you. We have worked hard over the years to develop and maintain strong bonds together without regard for group affiliation.
To be blunt, our recent brand rollout has failed you. We had the best intentions, but we lost sight of our responsibility to engage you in the process. We make no excuses; we simply commit to making it right.
We have stopped production on merchandise with the new crest and have opened dialogue with supporter group leadership about how to improve our club’s branding and crest. This will be an inclusive process, and we will update you as more information is available.”
This exact same thing happened to this exact same franchise when they unveiled their original team logo in June 2014. That logo was immediately panned, turfed, and replaced with an entirely new logo just eighteen days later.
Pro: They genuinely take fan feedback seriously and actually do something about it when they speak up. Kudos.
Con: Maybe do some consultation before making changes next time? Having to scrap and re-design every logo you’ve ever released isn’t a good look.