SK Sturm Graz, officially Sportklub Puntigamer Sturm Graz, is an Austrian football club based in Graz, founded on 1 May 1909 in the Augarten district. The club’s visual identity is built around a circular black-and-white crest featuring a distinctive striped flag motif, a design rooted in the club’s early history.
Design and History
The club’s official history records that shortly after its founding, the still distinctive Sturm flag with the “St” curved into it became the companion of the young club, with black and white established as the club colors from the outset.[1] The club’s mission statement, developed with more than 1,000 people and published in 2019, identifies black and white as the colors of its coat of arms, flag and uniforms, describing them together with the name Sturm and the home city Graz as the foundation of its identity.[2]
The current crest is a circular badge featuring the club name “SK Sturm Graz” around the top and “Seit 1909” (Since 1909) at the bottom. In the center, a waving black-and-white striped flag carries a small white panel with the stylized “St” monogram.[3] The club’s statutes, as amended by the members’ assembly on 28 February 2024, state that the club logo contains no sponsor name.[4]
This was not always the case. Under a previous sponsorship agreement, the Puntigamer brewery’s logo was integrated into the club crest. In February 2013, upon renewing the title sponsorship deal with Puntigamer through 2016, the club announced that the brewery’s signet would be removed from the club logo, although the name “SK Puntigamer Sturm Graz” would remain.[5][6] The removal was confirmed by club management at a press conference announcing the contract extension.[7]
In 2016, club members voted on whether the sponsor logo should be removed from the club crest. The motion to remove it failed narrowly, missing the required two-thirds majority by only 15 votes, and the logo remained in the crest.[8]
Meaning and Symbolism
The club’s mission statement explicitly states that black and white are the colors of its coat of arms, the flag and its uniforms, and that together with the name Sturm and the home city Graz, they form the foundation of its identity.[2] The club does not assign separate abstract meanings to each color in its official communications.
The striped flag motif has been central to Sturm’s identity since the club’s earliest days. The official club history describes the Sturm flag with the curved “St” as a companion of the young club shortly after its founding in 1909.[1] The flag motif remains the core of the current circular crest.[3]
Typography and Design
The crest incorporates the club name “SK Sturm Graz” and the inscription “Seit 1909” as part of the circular badge structure.[3] In a rebranding project centered on the club’s website, the agency Fredmansky states that the club crest was kept unchanged as the centerpiece of the identity, with the black and white colors playing a central role. The agency notes that in the form of 11 stripes, the colors represent both the players of the team and the traditionally vertically striped shirts.[9] Official club sources reviewed do not identify a specific commercial typeface used within the crest, so no font attribution is made here.
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