Women's Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association reached out to us to revamp The Women’s Scottish Cup's brand identity. They were keen on giving it a modern twist, something that felt forward-thinking and optimistic, that integrated with the rest of the SFA's suite. Our goal was to offer up a fresh, contemporary look that fit the bill perfectly.
Scottish FA
From the kick-off, we faced some challenges during our development phase:
The SFA family brand suite is steeped in heritage. How do we produce something modern and forward looking to sit alongside these?
How do we find an ownable visual asset with as much strength and conceptual grounding as the lion rampant and the cup?
How will this brand marque start to roll out into an overall visual style, campaign assets and finished brand guidelines?
Our solution
Well, everyone knows Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but how many of us know the part his wife played alongside him? Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh was somewhat marginalised in comparison, but she was celebrated in her time by her peers, including her husband who once stated:
"Margaret has genius, I have only talent."
So, the prominent and pioneering female Scottish figure was the perfect back story for the brand marque.
Our logo inspiration was taken from a rose in one of Margaret’s stained-glass pieces. We re-drew and slightly modernised the rose, while retaining the feel of the original stained glass. This provided us with a spherical, football like structure which became the main visual asset within our brand marque and overall visual style.
Making our mark
The Scottish Cup trophy is the oldest national trophy, and also the oldest association football trophy in the world – forged in 1874. We're extremely proud to have taken the marque of a female Scottish icon, and applied our own modern and contemporary twist to create the marque for the Women's Scottish Cup that we hope will be a new icon now forged for life in the trophy itself.
Once we had the main focus for our branding, we then outlined all of this within a full set of brand guidelines. On completion of the visual brand, we were tasked with producing a launch campaign with which we wanted to create an exciting, motivational rallying cry.
We feel The Women’s Scottish Cup is the embodiment of positivity in sport. There's an audience focused on the future, that embrace change and are energised by it. After years of hard work and determination, everyone in the sport is looking forward to a future that proudly welcomes everyone, a future that is being made today.
It was a privilege to work on such a project.
Reflecting the strong nature of the project it has also been nominated for a Brand Identity Award at the Scottish Design Awards 2024.