The story of how Swansea City got their club logo and the man who designed it

There were no focus groups or long, drawn out meetings to thrash out the now 20-year-old design - the decision was made on a car journey

In Swansea it is ubiquitous.

It can be seen almost everywhere; on cars, vans, clothing, buildings, businesses, birthday cakes, hair cuts and tattoos.

Most naturally, it is embossed on football kit.

At its spiritual home, the Liberty Stadium , a huge version overlooks the thousands of fans that flock to see Swansea City FC.

The Swans logo seems so embedded in the city’s make-up that it is hard to remember a time when it didn’t exist.

In fact, the three sweeping parallel lines of the wing with the fourth curving in front, to create the bird’s neck and head, is now twenty years old.

It’s introduction came after new owners, in the shape of Silver Shield, took over at the Vetch Field for the 1997-1998 season.

Their chairman was Steve Hamer, with Neil McClure as his deputy, and with the internet becoming increasingly part of modern life, the club board decided to move with the times and rebrand.

The decision taken, it was introduced in time for the beginning of the 1998-1999 season.

Before then, the club had been represented in pictorial form by a literal drawing of a Swan, its wings outspread, standing on top of a castle.

While distinctive, there was an element of the design which some noted was a little incongruous.

Steve Hamer, now at the helm at Bristol Rovers FC, said: “The club’s badge at the time featured a swan, although it looked more like a goose, but it had a blue background.

“It was remarkable that the club should have the colour of another club, one just forty miles up the road and subject to its most ferocious rivalry.

“I am at Bristol Rovers now, and our nearest neighbours play in red, and that is something that would never happen.

“We realised it was rather ridiculous, and similarly the way the club shop was run at the time was remarkable.

“It was effectively run as a shop for a Sunday morning team.

“It was run by a lovely lady [Myra Powell] on her own, but it had zilch commercial activity whatsoever, apart from match day programmes and the odd shirt.”

Things changed with the arrival in Swansea of Peter Barber.

A former managing director with sportswear manufacturers Mizuno, whose clients had included the All Blacks rugby team and athletes Carl Lewis and Flo-Jo, Peter was responsible for commercially overhauling the club.

His involvement with both the club and the city was so strong, that he continues to maintain a home in Swansea .

Peter struck a deal between the club and sports kit manufacturer New Balance, a company yet to grow into the global brand it is today, and it was decided that with the new kit, the time was right for a new logo.

Peter said: “I used to drive Steve to away games, and I told him that he needed to bring the club into the twentieth century.

“The old badge was so bad the swan looked like some sort of eagle, so Steve asked me to design a badge.

“I had been working with New Balance and I sat down with a designer, a girl there called Grace, who said she had seen a swan design in an American magazine, and we talked about doing something similar.

“Sometimes, the things that really work, you don’t have to think hard about them.

“We came up with about six designs, all slightly different. Some had two feathers, the head was different, or facing a different way.

“Then one day I was driving Steve to an away game, I think it was Mansfield, and I showed him the designs and he decided there and then.

“There were no focus groups, or spending of thousands of pounds coming up with a design, or anything like that.

“I think it worked out as a classic badge. It stands out as a modern design that will stand the test of time.

“It looks modern when you compare it to a club like Manchester United, although a club like that are not in position to change theirs being such a global brand, and back then Swansea weren’t what they are now.”

The first season the logo was introduced, the New Balance kit had maroon trim - which had been incorporated after Peter had seen the colour featured on a sign erected by Swansea Council, and assumed the livery was associated with the city.

Change, however, was not initially welcomed by everyone.

Nigel Davies, editor of online fanzine A Touch Far Vetched, said: “I loved the old one. I thought the new design was more of a corporate image, and that we aren’t a corporation, we are a football club, and it was about tradition.

“For me, the old one was synonymous with the John Toshack era, and I was sad to see it go.

“But in some ways, it has been part of the club through a very successful period, and so it is now nostalgic for a whole new generation, so I understand why it is popular.”

Such is its popularity, in fact, that it has been further adapted and adopted by others.

The logo of Newport Pagnall FC in Buckinghamshire, England, for a while bore a remarkable likeness to that of Swansea City FC.

Peter said: “A lot of organisations have witnessed their designs and works plagiarized.

“But unless it is a big organisation that would be up for the fight, it is almost better to ignore it, and let it go away.

“I still get a sneaking satisfaction when I see it and how much it has grown.

“I have no contact with the club now, but I feel it vindicates what we did at the time.”

Steve Hamer added: “I once spent a week in a little Spanish town called Sant Carles de la Ràpita, and I was amazed to see an elderly chap there, in his eighties, who was wearing a white shirt with the Swans logo on it, which also read ‘Once a Jack, always a Jack’.

“He was clearly Spanish, and my Spanish wasn’t good enough to ask him directly how he came to be wearing it, so I asked someone at the bar.

“It turned out this was the home town of Angel Rangel, and the old man was a relative of some sort.

“It was quite a surreal moment to be there and see that logo that Peter had come up with.

“He was a great enthusiast for the club, and for football, and he did an awful lot for Swansea.

“Many clubs would have spent thousands and thousands of pounds on a logo.

“But as [former England manager] Ron Greenwood said ‘simple is beautiful’ and that is exactly what it is.”