Opinion BY Armin

The French get their B-Ball On

Established in 1932, the Fédération Française de Basket-Ball (FFBB for short, and French Basketball Federation in English) is the governing body of basketball in France, overseeing more than 4,000 clubs across the country as well as managing the French national team. With a 16-year-old logo in use, the FFBB unveiled a new identity last week designed by Lille- and Paris-based agency Graphèmes who, as I understand, beat out another six agencies through a competition, although there are no details about what said competition entailed — hopefully it was a free throw competition that didn’t involve free logos.

Epically soundtracked logo presentation. [Update, July 14] The source of the previously bad video has been replaced for the one above.

As the graphic above shows, the icon is pure basketball geometry, and while this specific meaning may be hard to solve without the graphic above, there is really no question that this is a logo about basketball. In its simplicity and chunkiness, I very much like it. It’s simple and bold. It probably doesn’t scream “FRENCH” and even with the blue-to-red gradient (from the French flag, of course) the national identity is subtle, perhaps because purple becomes the main color in the identity. So, technically, yes, this icon could be applied to any basketball federation in the world.

The gradient is defined by placing the different lock-ups within a square.

Custom typeface, FFBB.

While I really enjoy the logo, the FFBB typography is extremely annoying. The “B”s look like they were over-inflated and are about to burst, and the flaring of the upper bar of the “F” clashes too much with the mono-weight of the icon. Why they didn’t use the nice custom typography, above, I don’t understand. The overall identity though feels contemporary and official, like a federation should.

Thanks to Valentin D. for first tip.

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Established in 1932, the Fédération Française de Basket-Ball (FFBB for short, and French Basketball Federation in English) is the governing body of basketball in France, overseeing more than 4,000 clubs across the country as well as managing the French national team. With a 16-year-old logo in use, the FFBB unveiled a new identity last week designed by Lille- and Paris-based agency Graphèmes who, as I understand, beat out another six agencies through a competition, although there are no details about what said competition entailed — hopefully it was a free throw competition that didn't involve free logos.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners