Club Estudiantes de La Plata, the Argentine football club based in the city of La Plata, unveiled a comprehensive new visual identity in September 2025, timed to its 120th anniversary. The redesign, led by the agency TombrasNiña through its sports marketing unit Athletic, introduced a new crest, a custom typeface, an updated lion figure and a reinterpreted pennant, all built around a geometric concept inspired by the diagonal avenues that characterize La Plata’s urban layout [1].
Design and History
The new crest was presented on September 13, 2025, before a match against River Plate, in an event led by club president Juan Sebastián Verón and director Adrián D’Amario [2]. The redesign features a stylized “E” with a typography inspired by the city’s diagonals, which will be replicated across the institution’s entire image, and brings back the lion figure [2]. All initials now appear in uppercase, and the pennant was modernized: the “E” disappeared from its far left, and it now adopts a triangular shape with three red and white stripes [3].
D’Amario explained the conceptual basis of the new identity: “We arrived at this morphological synthesis that composes the design of all the elements through the City of La Plata. The identity that the City of La Plata gives us, and the diagonals that form the triangles, and those triangles that lead us toward the stadium” [2]. The project began with an analysis of sports club identities at national and international level, from which the diagonals emerged as the guiding concept for the club’s new aesthetic [1].
The implementation was planned as gradual. The traditional crest remained on the kit during the 2025 season, with full adoption of the new design scheduled for the 2026 collection [3]. The launch generated significant debate among supporters, with some fans petitioning for the restoration of the traditional emblem featuring the two oak leaves [4].
Earlier in the club’s history, a commemorative crest was designed for the 110th anniversary. That insignia was created by DCV Martín Carbonari, the club’s institutional image officer, who said: “From the design I sought to reflect the fighting spirit of a club that never knew easy paths, where every triumph is achieved with dedication, fortitude and battling through each of the challenges” [5].
Meaning and Symbolism
The traditional Estudiantes emblem, which preceded the 2025 redesign, was built around a red and white pennant with the letter “E” on its left side, backed by two oak leaves and an acorn, symbols of strength and knowledge tied to the club’s academic founding roots [4]. The removal of the oak leaf in the 2025 redesign became a focal point of supporter criticism, with fans noting it also represents strength and knowledge at the National University of La Plata [4].
Verón defended the redesign as a reinforcement rather than a replacement of identity: “With this, history was not discarded; we leaned on history and it evolved to project it. Changing a visual identity is not changing the identity of the club; it is reinforcing it” [3].
Typography and Design
A central component of the 2025 identity is a custom typeface developed specifically for Estudiantes de La Plata, designed letter by letter to serve as a graphic complement across the club’s communications [3]. The typography features uppercase initials with strokes that reference the diagonals of La Plata [6]. The club also published a full brand manual with color palettes, grids, versions of the crest for different uses and an isotipo with the EDLP acronym [6].
Martín Bernasconi, head of art at Pink by TombrasNiña, described the goal: “The objective was to organize and strengthen an identity that already existed, adapting it to new forms of communication without giving up history or symbolism. The result is a modern brand system that respects the traditional crest and expands it through a new visual grammar” [1].
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