Club Atlético River Plate, the Argentine football club based in Buenos Aires, unveiled its current crest on February 22, 2022, under the slogan “Una nueva identidad. Nuestra esencia de siempre” (A new identity. Our essence as always).[1] The redesign was led by Grupo Berro, working with the club’s marketing team and various internal departments.[2]
Design and History
The current crest retains the club’s traditional shield shape with a white background, a diagonal red band, and the letters “CARP” (Club Atlético River Plate) at its center. The most significant change was the removal of the internal black outlines that previously framed the red band and the lettering, giving the red band greater visual prominence.[3] The redesign also made minimal adjustments to the four letters of the CARP monogram and performed a subtle cleanup of the fine lines of the previous shield to improve legibility across all communication platforms.[4]
Club president Jorge Brito explained the motivation behind the change: “The idea is to give it a bit more modernity and make a cleaner shield, in which more relevance is given to the red band. And also to set standards, because we saw in different places logos that did not have exactitudes.”[5]
River Plate’s visual identity has a long evolution. Its first official insignia in the early 20th century was a flag. By the early 1920s, the initials “RP” and “CARP” appeared in official documents, followed by the development of its first shield featuring the initials within a white standard bearing the diagonal red band.[2] The first monogram appeared in a 1918 Memoria y Balance document, and the 1928 shield, published in the club’s official social magazine, was the first to officially feature the white and red combination.[6] In 1949, River adopted the insignia with the diagonal red band, black outline, and central initials that became the basis for all subsequent versions.[7]
Prior to the 2022 update, the club had modified the thickness and width of the initials in 2006, and in 2014 adjusted the distance between the external black line and the white area.[4] Research conducted for the 2022 project identified 25 changes to the shield and 15 changes to the CARP symbol throughout the club’s 120-year history.[8]
Meaning and Symbolism
The club’s three fundamental elements, as described by Secretary General Stéfano Di Carlo, are “the white, the red band and the CARP.”[8] The 2022 project worked from both a technical perspective, seeking uniformity so the shield always appears identical, and a symbolic perspective, aiming to let these three elements “find their best expression.”[8]
Typography and Design
As part of the 2022 identity project, Grupo Berro developed exclusive typographic alphabets for River Plate, used to construct the logo typography and all brands within the club’s ecosystem. The CARP monogram was adjusted with reinforced geometries aimed at achieving greater impact and synthesis. The typography was designed following the formal characteristics of the distinctive traits of the CARP monogram, and the RIVER PLATE BOLD typeface was used as the basis for developing the entire family of sub-brands.[2]
The new shield was implemented on the club’s jersey in August 2022, when Adidas launched the new season’s edition.[3]
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