The logo of the Mexican football club Chivas emphasizes its long and illustrious history. Here, a sports emblem merges seamlessly with a medieval coat-of-arms.
Meaning and history
Club Deportivo Guadalajara (which is actually the full name of the franchise) was established in 1906. In 2016, it was named Mexico’s most popular team supported by 44% of football fans in Mexico.
2005
The Chivas badge, used by the club for just one season in 2005, featured a bright and ornate composition with the circular blue medallion in a thick outline, with the white and red vertically-striped otters in the center, and a traditional crest with the gray knight helmet, placed on top of the badge. The lettering was written along the bottom part of the outline.
2006 – 2014
The redesign of 2006 has strengthened the color palette of the Chivas visual identity, using a deeper shade of red, which got closer to burgundy, and a darker tone of blue. These small modifications have created a stronger and a more professional look of the badge, showing the stability and confidence of the club.
Symbol
The Chivas logo is basically a thick blue ring with red and white stripes inside. Over it, there’s a shield shape with a knight’s helmet. Each of the stars below the emblem stands for one of the championships the team has won. The emblem was developed in 1923 with reference to the coat-of-arms of the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco.
There’s more than one explanation as to why the Chivas uniforms (and, therefore, logo) feature stripes and the combination of red, white, and blue. According to the official history of the team, the color scheme has been influenced by the Flag of France.
There’s also an opinion that, in fact, the original kits of the Chivas were inspired by the uniforms of the Belgian Club Brugge K.V., which was the favorite club of the Chivas founder, Edgar Everaert. At least, the colors and the vertical stripes are supposed to have been borrowed from the logo the Brugge K.V. used at the era. The football club, in its turn, adopted the colors and stripes from the flag of its home city, Bruges.
Emblem
Club Deportivo Chivas USA was founded in 2004 and ceased to exist ten years later. Based in Carson, California, it competed in Major League Soccer and had the status a subsidiary of Mexican club C.D. Guadalajara. Although generally, it had the same branding as the parent club, you could also see a couple of distinctive features.
The 2005 Chivas logo showcased a shield topped with a knight’s helmet. The design was placed over a striped circle encircled by the lettering “Club Deportivo Chivas USA” in white. Just a year later, the color scheme was slightly modified. The most notable alteration was the introduction of a darker red and blue. Unlike the logo of the parent team, the Chivas USA emblem didn’t feature stars.
Font
The team chose a simple sans serif type. There’s a lot of breathing space, so the overall effect is very clear and transparent. And yet, the letters can be illegible at smaller sizes because of their thin lines.
Colors
While the palette of the Club Deportivo Guadalajara logo has been inspired by the kits, in fact, it’s much more diverse. In addition to the red, blue, and white used on the uniforms, the emblem also features gold, green, and grey. The shade of blue is dark and noble.