Nottingham Forest Football Club’s crest is one of the most distinctive in English football: a stylised red tree rising above three wavy lines, with the word “Forest” set in a custom script below and two stars floating above. The design has remained essentially unchanged since it was introduced in the 1970s, a rarity among professional clubs.
Design and History
The current Nottingham Forest crest was born from a public competition. In February 1973, the Nottingham Post launched a contest asking fans to design a new badge for the club [1]. The club had been unable to copyright the city coat of arms it had used as its primary logo since 1946, prompting the search for a new identity [2][3].
David Lewis, a graphic artist and designer/lecturer at what was then Trent Polytechnic, won the competition from more than 800 entries [1][3]. He then worked with the club’s secretary, Ken Smales, to refine the final design, which was officially adopted in 1974 [1]. Lewis’s “Tricky Tree” crest replaced the club’s previous primary logo, which had depicted the city council’s coat of arms featuring two stags beside a shield with the addition of “NFFC” [1].
The crest has been modified only slightly over the decades. The shade of red used was tweaked in 2000 [1]. Two stars were added in 2008 to commemorate the club’s back-to-back European Cup victories in 1979 and 1980 [1][4]. Between 2008 and 2010, the badge also featured the stadiums and years of those European Cup wins, but the crest in use since 2010 shows only the two stars above the tree and word “Forest” [1].
Meaning and Symbolism
The tree in the crest represents Sherwood Forest, from which the club takes its name [2][4]. The wavy lines underneath represent the River Trent, beside which the City Ground sits [2][3]. The two stars above the crest honour the club’s consecutive European Cup triumphs in 1979 and 1980 [4].
Typography and Design
The word “Forest” is rendered in an artistic upper and lower case script, a distinctive feature of the badge [5]. The lower case “e” in particular gives the badge a unique quality that makes it recognisable even when separated from the tree [3]. The crest is rendered in red on a white background [5].
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