Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz is an Austrian football club based in Bregenz, Vorarlberg, currently competing in the Admiral 2. Liga. The club’s visual identity is built around a two-part crest that combines the club’s name with a shield inspired by the city of Bregenz’s coat of arms, rendered entirely in the club’s traditional black and white colors.
Design and History
The club traces its origins to June 1919, when FC Bregenz was founded with black and white as its club colors. In 1946, following a renaming, the club adopted a new logo designed by Hans Kolb, an honorary member from Bregenz. This emblem remains in use today. [1]
The original club went bankrupt and was dissolved in 2005. A successor club, SC Bregenz, was founded in June 2005 by Wolfgang Glatz and Hans Begle to provide a home for the youth teams of the bankrupt traditional club. [2] On July 8, 2013, the club was renamed Schwarz-Weiss Bregenz and, alongside the name, adopted the traditional club colors and the logo of the former Bundesliga club. [2] [3]
The current crest is a composite mark. A round badge carries the text “Schwarz Weiß” and a football rendered in black and white, while a second shield-shaped element with the word “Bregenz” overlaps it. [4]
Meaning and Symbolism
The shield element of the Bregenz crest is modeled on the coat of arms of the city of Bregenz. [4] The city’s arms, granted in 1529, feature a white central stripe (a heraldic pale) on a fur-covered field, with three black ermine tails arranged vertically on the stripe. The city’s black and white colors derive directly from this heraldic design. [5] The three black marks on the white central band of the club’s shield are ermine tails, not fish or other figures, as they might appear at a glance. [4]
The club’s name itself, Schwarz-Weiß (Black-White), directly reflects its two-color palette, which is used exclusively throughout the crest without additional colors. [4]
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