The soccer club West Bromwich Albion is based in West Bromwich in the West Midlands, the UK. Its history dates back to 1878.
Meaning and history
1969 — 1970s
The West Bromwich Albion logo, created in 1969, featured an image of a throstle in a brown color palette, sitting on a brown branch with green leaves and red berries. There was no lettering or football symbolism on this version of the badge, although the bird, which will later be called Baggie Bird or Albi, will stay with the football club for all the following years, as its mascot and signifier.
1970s — 1972
With the next redesign, the bird got contoured in brown and got its body-colored white. The whole composition with a branch, leaves, and berries, was now placed on a crease with a vertical blue and white stripes pattern. Still, no text was added to the badge, but this new color palette and composition already looked like something more or less related to sports. The new logo was EUR-catching and memorable.
1972 — 1973
For just a few months in 1972, the West Bromwich Albion Football Club has been using a very laconic and minimalist logo with the yellow bird contour set on a solid green background. The tiny Baggie Bird was set on the bottom line of the badge, almost invisible. The shape of the logo was resembling a rounded leaf. This experiment didn’t last long, and already in 1973, the new badge was introduced.
1973 — 1975
The concept of the logo from the beginning of the 1970s was brought back by the designers in 193. The stripes got wider, so fewer of them were now placed on the crest. Also, the upper part of the logo now featured a wide solid blue banner, where the white “W. B. Albion” inscription in the uppercase of a thin rounded sans-serif typeface was written. The bird on the branch was kept in its original style, from the very first logo, and accompanied by the white “FC” lettering set under it, on a solid blue background.
1975 — 1986
For almost a decade, starting in 1975, the football club has been using a very simple yet elegant logo, composed of just three letters “WBA”, written in a fancy cursive and placed vertically with a slight shift to the right (from top to bottom). The letters had sophisticated contours with elongated lines and playfully curved tails. The monogram was usually executed in medium-blue color, which sometimes was accompanied by a thin black outline.
1986 — 1994
The redesign of 1985 introduced another long-lasting version of the WB Albion FC logo. The darkened and refined bird on a branch image from the first badge was now placed above the bold rounded “W. B. A.” Lettering in black, executed in a smooth extended serif typeface. As the inscription was the only element of the badge, drawn in black, it was the first thing to be noticed, and the main reason for the lack of balance in the emblem.
1994 — 2000
An absolutely surprising version of the WBA FC logo was adopted by the club in 1994. It featured a bright blue crest in a very ornate framing with leaves and ribbons, boasting an image of the goat’s head in the center. The animal portrait was accompanied by three symbols in brown, placed around it on the blue background. The elegant traditional ribbon in white and red was set under the crest and contained the uppercase “Labor Omnia Vincit” Latin motto, which can be translated into English as “Labor Conquers All”.
2000 — 2001
The blue and white striped crest comes back to the team’s primary logo in 2000. This is when the Baggie Bird is being redrawn in black and white, and the branch with the leaves gets more modern and stylized contours. No additional lettering, thin black framing, and traditional for the club elements and colors — that’s the recipe of a successful badge.
2001 — 2006
The redesign of 2001 lightened up the color palette of the WBA badge and replaced the black details with the blue ones. The contours of the bird and the leaves were redrawn more elegantly and ornately, and the vertical striped on the background got their shades pale and tender. In this new execution, the badge of the football club looked a bit nostalgic and timeless. A very elegant and touching image, which stayed with West Bromwich Albion for another five years.
2006 — 2011
In 2006 the WBA badge was modernized and refined. Although all elements were kept, as well as the color palette, the contours were softened and emboldened. The logo is now drawn in a sleek modern way, showing the progressiveness and strength of the club and its ability to change. The “West Bromwich Albion” inscription was set in blue capitals of a medium-weight sans-serif typeface on a white background, on the top part of the crest, with above the vertical striped in blue and white.
2011 — Today
The only change, made to the West Bromwich Albion visual identity in 2011, was in darkening and intensifying its color palette. The blue, used for the logo got its deep navy shade, while the pale red from the previous version became maroon, and the light green turned in a shade close to emerald. As for the typeface and contours of the drawing, they remained untouched, but due to the new deeper shades, the whole badge started looking bolder and brighter.
West Bromwich Albion
BLUE
PANTONE: PMS 534 C
HEX COLOR: #122F67
RGB: (18, 47, 103)
HSL: (218, 82, 40)
CMYK: (100, 91, 31, 20)
WHITE
HEX COLOR: #FFFFFF
RGB: (255, 255, 255)
HSL: (196, 0, 100)
CMYK: (0, 0, 0, 0)
BROWN
HEX COLOR: #755031;
RGB: (117, 80, 49)
HSL: (26, 58, 45)
CMYK: (41, 62, 83, 34)
GREEN
HEX COLOR: #149557;
RGB: (20, 149, 87)
HSL: (151, 86, 56)
CMYK: (84, 17, 87, 3)
RED
HEX COLOR: #A41B22;
RGB: (164, 27, 34)
HSL: (355, 83, 64)
CMYK: (24, 100, 98, 18)