Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli, the Italian football club founded in Naples in 1926, has carried a visual identity built around a circular badge and the letter “N” for most of its history. The club’s crest has undergone roughly a dozen documented changes over nearly a century, with the “N” monogram remaining the consistent core element since its introduction in the late 1920s.
Design and History
The first official Napoli crest, used during the 1926-27 season, featured a prancing horse known as the “Corsiero del Sole” suspended over a football, framed by a blue oval with gold detailing. The symbol was dropped after just one season, partly because the team’s disastrous debut campaign led fans to mock the noble steed as a poor donkey. In 1928, the club adopted a simpler design: a blue circle with a gold border and a large central “N,” a reference to the city’s Bourbon heritage and artistic traditions such as Capodimonte porcelain. Gold remained part of the mark for about a decade. [1] [2]
In the early 1940s, the circle gave way to a shield shape featuring a white “N” on a blue background with a bold yellow outline. Gold disappeared from some versions in the post-war years of 1945-46, with the logo adapted to match the team’s kits: sky blue for home matches and white for away. During the 1960s and 1970s, the club experimented with several transformations, including the first circular version used on home match shirts, featuring sky blue and white. In 1973, under young president Corrado Ferlaino, the club adopted a crest recalling the heraldic arms of the House of Bourbon, reintroducing gold alongside sky blue. [3] [4]
During the 1980s, the era associated with Diego Maradona, the logo returned to a circular format with the two base colors. A notable one-off experiment appeared on the 1982-83 shirts, when a donkey motif, a reference to the mocking nickname from the club’s early years, entered the crest for the first and only time. In the years before the club’s 2004 bankruptcy, Napoli adopted one of its most iconic and long-lasting logos: a circular badge alternating sky blue and dark blue, hosting a white “N” and the club’s full name in text. [5] [6]
After film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis took over the club in 2004, first under the name Napoli Soccer and later with the return to SSC Napoli, the crest was consistently adapted to match the playing kits, always retaining sky blue as a dominant color, alternated with dark blue or white. [7]
In July 2024, the club officially unveiled a revised identity. The new logo presents the traditional “N” in a more minimal and contemporary version, stripped of accessory elements for a cleaner, more elegant look in monochromatic variants. For the first time in nearly a century of history, sky blue disappeared from the club’s base logo, replaced by white with a navy blue outline for versatility across different backgrounds. The redesign was announced alongside the launch of the 2024-25 kits and a new brand campaign under the slogan “Proud to be Napoli.” [8] [9] [10]
Typography and Design
The 2024 brand refresh introduced a proprietary typeface called BE NAPOLI, described by the club as the first custom font in its history and “the perfect synthesis of the intrinsic characteristics of the Brand and the city it represents.” Club Chief Revenue Officer Tommaso Bianchini said the goal was to innovate the brand identity while maintaining respect for and connection to the club’s history, keeping the essential elements of its identity with a view toward the future. [8] [11]
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