Mäd was assigned the enviable task of redesigning the Phnom Penh Crown Football Club logo, brand manual, photograph library, and football jerseys for the 2018 Cambodian Football League season. The Phnom Penh based club is the most successful football club (soccer for our American and Australian friends) in the Kingdom of Cambodia with a vision of actively competing at the highest levels of Asian football.

Read more about brand guidelines in our insight, linked below.

The Challenge.

The club already had a loyal fanbase who are very vocal and opinionated through social media. We couldn't ignore passionate fans who would react emotionally to a change in the brand. We also had to tackle the unpractical logo to satisfy retail manufacturing demands. This would also breathe new life into a club who has endured a couple of tough seasons. Overall, we re-worked their logo, corporate identity (CI) and jerseys.

The Logo.

The existing Phnom Penh Crown Football Club logo had highly detailed line drawings incorporated. Especially detailed was Singha - the powerful mythological lion, and the varied use of classic club colors, red and gold. The crest also used stars to signify the number of national League titles Phnom Penh Crown had won (6).

The main brief was to offer a simpler cleaner cut design of the logo which would still hold true for the branding and history of Phnom Penh Crown. There were some changes to be made:

• We offered to remove the stars, as this complicated branding by changing the logo every year the team won a National League. Time for a timeless design.
• A simpler design of the Singha would be more easily produced in merchandising and printing of club paraphernalia.
• Red, gold and white should remain the core colors of Phnom Penh Crown insignia, logo and branding. At the same time, we wanted it to be cleaner and more functional.

Corporate Identity Manual.

Here's the new Phnom Penh Crown branding manual. It provides simple, usable guidelines for the use of the club branding. These could be used by all in-house and 3rd parties (sponsors, media etc) to adhere to. It includes:

• Detailed Club Logo Used and Misuses
• Correct Color Permutations
• Primary Colours
• Spacing of Logo
• Typeface

Download the Corporate Identity Manual here.

New Player Jersey.

Metfone Cambodian League Clubs are required to supply Home and Away jerseys, certified and approved by the Cambodian Football Federation.

Home Kit

A homage to retro kits from the 1990’s, our Home Kit design features a red jersey, shorts and socks. The back of the collar features the Cambodian national flag. The new club logo replaces the old logo and there are no stars reflecting national League titles appearing on this new crest. Instead, we suggested replacing it with a silver trophy badge and the number of titles (6).

Away Kit

This kit is a testament to the strong relationship with the club's key sponsor for 3 seasons.  Smart's green corporate color is the highlight in the Away Kit. The jersey's green mimics the Smart logo. We kept the design principles of the Home Jersey: the logo, lettering & numbers, Cambodian Flag etc. The shorts and socks are in white.

Conclusion.

The new PPCFC brand ensured that the new jersey became the best-selling in the club's history, and the fans appreciated that the new brand paid homage to the history of the club while modernizing the image, and this also enabled PPCFC to close the largest advertising deal in the history of the Cambodian league.