Baller League UK Team Logos
Year: 2024/25
Service: Logo Design
The Brief
Baller League is a competitive six-a-side football league that combines the traditional game with a “back to the roots” style of play with new rules to excite fans. In its first two seasons in Germany it has attracted a massive following and is being supported in the UK by a host of major football legends and social media stars.
I was asked to create 5 of the new team logos, each managed by a football legend and/or an influencer: Trebol FC (Luis Figo), SDS FC (Sharky), 26ers (John Terry), MVPs United (Maya Jama & Alisha Lehmann and Wembley Rangers (Ian Wright & Chloe Kelly). They wanted modern, minimalist styling and for each logo to represent the manager/story behind the team.
The Solution(s)
Trebol FC - Managed by Portuguese footballing legend Luis Figo, we wanted his team’s logo to have links to Portugal and to have a Trebol (Clover) as the key icon. We took inspiration from Portuguese tiles for the design of the clover and included the Cruz de Cristo Cross from the coat of arms behind the main badge. We went through many iterations of clover design and cross placement, but finally settled on a Portuguese cross placed on a simple circular badge with a clover design that still paid homage to symmetrical Portuguese tiling patterns. The typeface we chose had serifs similar to the points on the cross, so they worked together well. The purple colours were chosen as they are similar to Portuguese team Fiorentina.
SDS FC - Managed by YouTuber Sharky, and at the moment of writing seem to be favourites to win the league. We wanted to incorporate the slanted SDS logo already used by Sharky on his podcast, and maybe include a shark. After a few iterations and versions we decided the shark design was too much and settled on a striped badge with a football at the bottom and five stars at the top, showing that SDS FC is a ‘Five star’ team. We slanted the whole badge at the same angle as the SDS logo to maintain consistency with his already existing brand, the colours also are the taken from his original logo. Then chose a typeface that matched the SDS logo for the ‘FC’ and ‘2022’.
26ERS - Managed by English footballing legend John Terry. We decided a strong, simple shield design with sharp angles would work best as John Terry is famous for his strong defence and ‘no nonsense’ style of play. Also as he played for England, the incorporation of a lion was also an option. We tried out a few designs involving a lion and a shield with a ‘26’ monogram but decided the simple shield with just the 26 monogram on it worked best. Blue and white for colours to link to Chelsea, where Terry spent most of his career.
Wembley Rangers AFC - Managed by another two English footballing legends Ian Wright and Chloe Kelly. As both managers are English internationals, we felt a lion badge with traditional English football logo inspiration was definitely the best route to take. We also tried out a monogram design, but felt the lion design showed the team’s story better. Also included a diamond pattern inspired by the lattice structure seen on the supports of Wembley stadium. Red, white and blue colours chosen as another link to the UK.
MVPs United - Managed by presenter Maya Jama and Swiss footballer Alisha Lehmann. We felt a design involving a crown would work best here as the most valued player is ‘crowned’ at the end of a match. We tried out a few different crown designs and layouts for the badge, finally deciding on a Real Madrid style monogram with a crown and ‘United’ placed above and below in the empty space created by the letters. The managers chose a pink/purple colours scheme to show off that it was the only all female managing team.
