KSS on target with new Brighton & Hove Albion identity

Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club has unveiled a new club crest designed by KSS, which also designed the team’s new American Express Community Stadium, currently under construction.

The consultancy became involved in stadium proposals in 1998 and, following the concept design for internal spaces in 2008, started designing the club identity at the beginning of 2010, according to KSS director Sara Wilkins.

The new club crest will be applied to next season’s shirts and to the stadium, which is due to open at the end of July.

Designed as a roundel, the form is a return to the shape used by the club from the 1970s to the 1990s and replaces the shield marque.

The seagull now possesses a yellow beak and flies from left to right in a ‘progressive’ motion, says Wilkins, who adds that the incumbent seagull pointing left ‘is more heraldic, which is not always relevant’.

Fans and board members chose the final design from eight options.

 The club has also commissioned a series of art works with KSS, which will be designed into concourse areas of the new stadium. Schoolchildren and unnamed, high-profile artists have been selected to create the works.