Borussia Dortmund, often called just BVB, is a sports club headquartered in Dortmund (Germany). The distinctive logo has boosted the club’s popularity throughout more than 100 years of its history.
At the end of the 19th century, the Borussia name was very common in German football clubs. As it was a modified name for Prussia, and at that time there were various Alemannia, Britannia, Teutonia, and Arminia names in vogue. There were a lot of Borussia formed – about sixty of them at the moment. And in the Bundesliga over the entire history of its existence, there were four of them: Dortmund, Mönchengladbach, Berlin, and Neunkirchen. The most famous are the first two – they are the glory of German soccer. Between them, they have 11 championships, five German Cups, and European trophies. Dortmund has the Champions Cup and the Cup Winners’ Cup, while the team from Gladbach has two UEFA Cups.
The Borussia Dortmund football club plays in the Signal Iduna Ork Stadium, Stadium, which is one of the largest and most comfortable arenas in Europe, according to the FIFA classification – five stars. It was built in 1971-1974 for the World Cup and had a capacity of 54 thousand spectators.
What is BVB?
BVB is the shortened name of the Borussia-Brauerei Dortmund football club, which was established in 1909, and by today has grown into one of the serious German football teams, taking confident positions in the championships’ line-ups.
The very first logo of the Borussia Dortmund football club was designed in 1913 and stayed active for six years despite its super simple concept. The badge featured just one element — a bold uppercase letter “B” written in a modern geometric sans-serif typeface, in black, against a transparent background without any graphical or colorful additions. Today, this design would have been considered a genius one, but back then, it was clearly not enough.
The following logo depicted a yellow circle with a thick black frame. In it, there were the ‘BVB’ letters, arranged in an arch. They were all black with some brown outlining. Below the ‘V’, they’ve also put the number ‘09’ in a similar style.
Although the club’s history dates back to 1909, we will start from its 1946 logotype. It looks strikingly similar to the current BVB logo: the same three letters “BVB” and the number “09” below, the same color scheme, the same circle shape with a black outline. Unlike the modern version of the logo, the original one included the word “Dortmund”.
In 1964, the centerpiece of the logo became more simplistic than before. They removed the outlines and changed the letters to a more mundane font. The yellow core was surrounded with a thick black frame, which was then outlined with a thin yellow layer. Lastly, a big black ring bearing the words ‘Borussia Dortmund’ in yellow outlined it all.
In 1974, the extra-wide black outline was removed from the rounded medallion of Borussia Dortmund club, and the yellow circle grew larger. There was still a framing — with a thick black central part and thin yellow and black outlines, but now it looked not brutal but elegant. The “BVB” abbreviation was kept in its place without any changes, as well as the small “09” at the bottom of the logo.
Over the following years, the Borussia Dortmund logo has been revolving around the same visual core. The only notable exception has been the 1976-1978 version, where a lion’s muzzle was placed in the center of the badge. It was a bright yellow image on a solid black background, enclosed into a wide black frame with a massive yellow lettering written around its perimeter in a modern geometric sans-serif typeface.
The logo, adopted by the football club in 1978, featured exactly the same design as the badge introduced in 1974. The elegant triple frame and the simple and brutal style of the abbreviation made up a perfect combination, which reflected the stability in quality and progress in results. The shade of yellow got slightly more intense. However, it was almost unnoticeable.
The logo Borussa Dortmund has been using since 1993 looks very much like the previous version except for a couple of minor changes. The first thing, the club got rid of two of the black rings, leaving only one and making it bolder. Also, the font itself became bolder.
The club is known for its charity initiatives. In the fall of 2012, they created a charitable trust named Leuchte Auf. It’s aimed at providing financial support for social projects.
If you compare the Borussia Dortmund logo 512×512 and the logo of the trust, you may notice that they are absolutely different, yet share the same stylistic approach. The logo of the trust features a star. Each of the rays is a street. The rays meet at Dortmund’s Borsigplatz, where Borussia Dortmund was founded.
The minimalistic sans serif typeface of the current wordmark is bolder than most of its predecessors.
Since 1945, the BVB logo has been using the combination of black and yellow. Whatever changes the logotype went through the club has never refused of this scheme.