San Diego’s MLS expansion team, which is set to take the field in 2025, has officially selected a brand identity in addition to its name: San Diego Football Club, or San Diego FC for short. The club is set to announce its name, crest and colors at an event in San Diego on Friday night.
The Athletic has acquired a copy of the club’s crest and logo explainer. Multiple sources have confirmed that the logo acquired is indeed the finalized logo. By adopting the “Football Club” moniker, the organization will become the 11th MLS team to be an “FC.”
The brand, according to San Diego’s explainer, was crafted by Costa Rican design firm Pupila, which also crafted the latest brand identity for the Costa Rican football federation. However, the bulk of the firm’s work has centered around non-sporting ventures. Pupila, San Diego says, performed “months of research … through focus groups, member surveys and countless meetings and listening sessions with the San Diego community.”
The club’s official colors were labeled in the explainer as “chrome and azul,” while the crest is said to center around four “principal virtues” that define San Diego: “Gratitude, proud, not loud, diversity and a state of flow.” That flow motif is evident in the central portion of the crest, which the club points out consists of “18 lines representing the 18 communities of San Diego County.”
“The flow,” the club says, “symbolizes how we perform at a peak level while embracing San Diego’s unique rhythm of life.”
The curvature of the “San Diego” at the top of the crest is said to be a nod to the the arches woven into the city’s architecture.
(Top photo: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)