The Bundesliga played its first season in 1963 and received its first official logo only in 2003 (bundesliga.com, 2023). The league mark is a white player silhouette on a red square. Bundesliga 2 has a mark of its own, and every club brings a crest.
Since 2003 the league mark has been redrawn in 2006 and 2010, flattened in 2017, and a 2025 refresh added 3D versions (Mutabor, 2025).
Ownership splits the same way. Crests belong to the clubs, while the league marks are protected trademarks of the league operator (Bundesliga legal notices, 2026). Having a logo file tells you nothing about whether you're allowed to use it.
What Does the Current Bundesliga Logo Look Like?
A white player silhouette caught mid-leap, one leg stretched toward the ball and the other bent beneath, on a red square. That's the current mark. The ball sits inside the frame, and a custom typeface called DFL Sans underlies the league's logos.
The figure is a symbol, not a portrait. The league says it is based on no player in particular (bundesliga.com, 2023).
The square has sharp corners now (the pre-2017 version had rounded ones), and the ball was moved inside the frame (bundesliga.com, 2023; Horizont, 2016). The mark itself only uses red and white. The wider palette picked up silver in 2010, taken from the championship trophy (Creative Bloq, 2026).
Clubs get a little room with the player icon. It can take on a club's color or stay Bundesliga red (Red Dot, 2018).
DFL Sans was drawn as a custom typeface for screens first. Slightly rounded square forms, wide counters and open apertures keep it readable at small sizes (Rosetta Type, 2017).
It has carried the on-air graphics, website, social channels and merchandising since the 2017/18 season.
As of the 2025/26 season, the flat mark has company: 3D renderings styled after stadium stands, showing club colors and the ball as the centerpiece. The system slides between an Official and a Dynamic look (Mutabor, 2025).
How Has the Bundesliga Logo Changed Since 2003?
The first official logo arrived in 2003. A facelift followed in 2006 and a landscape relaunch in 2010, then one season in an anniversary variant (2012/13) before the flat redesign of 2017. The 3D versions came with the 2025 refresh.
| Year | Version | What changed | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | First official logo | White leaping player on red, portrait format, league name in black below | bundesliga.com |
| 2006 | First facelift | Tone and shading of the red, giving a near-3D effect | bundesliga.com |
| 2010 | Landscape relaunch | Landscape format, upgraded player replacing the sticker look | bundesliga.com, Creative Bloq |
| 2017 | Flat redesign | Sharp-cornered square, ball inside the frame, more athletic figure | bundesliga.com, Horizont |
| 2025 | 3D refresh | 3D logo versions with club colors and stadium-stand shapes | Mutabor |
The 2012/13 anniversary logo shrank the figure and set it inside the zero of "50", with the years of the league printed beside it. The 2010 logo returned from 2013/14 onward (bundesliga.com, 2023).
Recognition set the limits for each change. By the 2010 relaunch, 92 percent of German football fans already knew the logo (DFL figures quoted by bundesliga.com), so DFL managing director Tom Bender said the basic shapes and colors of the 2003 original would stay.
The 2017 change went further than a logo update. DFL presented a full rebrand in December 2016, with new Bundesliga 2 and DFL logos, a design kit and a proprietary typeface (Horizont, 2016; Red Dot, 2018).
The 2025/26 Derbystar match ball showed the player logo on both sides for the first time (bundesliga.com, 2025).
Where the sources disagree
Start with the start year. The league's own history and the DFL's 2016 announcement say 2003, while some logo archives date the artwork to 2002. A 2019 turi2 piece on the logo's origin describes the DFL's professional brand work starting in 2001, so design work predates the launch.
Before 2003 it gets murkier. The league counts 2003 as its first official logo, though 1990s designs existed, and the German version of the league's history piece nicknames one of them "Buntesliga".
A few outlets call 2021/22 a logo relaunch. The DFL's own account and Promax describe a refresh of the on-air design, with the 2017 digital look left intact.
Then there's 2025. bundesliga.com's 2023 history calls the logo unchanged since 2017, but that account predates the 2025 refresh, which adds the 3D versions (Creative Bloq, February 2026).
Who Designed the Bundesliga Logo and Who Maintains It?
The 2003 original came out of an agency pitch, not a single named in-house designer. Since 2010, an in-house DFL brand team and the Hamburg agency Mutabor have maintained it.
Copywriter Andree Bock helped Constantin Weimar, then head of the agency WM Team, win the DFL's pitch, according to a 2019 turi2 reading tip on Bock's account of the logo's origin. The team also kept gold out of the palette, because a special print color would have pushed up printing costs.
Mutabor won the league's corporate design pitch in 2010, and Thomas Markert has led the DFL's brand design team since 2014. Together they have refreshed the league's visual identity five times in 15 years, according to Markert and Mutabor's Heinrich Paravicini (Creative Bloq, February 2026).
The work is spread across several shops. DFL Digital Sports in Cologne handles brand supervision and creative direction under Markert (the DFL Group has since bundled its digital business into the new Bundesliga Media sales and digital unit). Mutabor in Hamburg stays lead agency for brand architecture and each refresh.
Live on-air graphics come from Reality Check Systems, and NXTID in Buenos Aires does motion design and on-air packaging. William Montrose worked with Rosetta Type on the DFL Sans typeface.
Motion drives the system. The 2021 refresh introduced a segmented tile look set in motion by rotation, and NXTID came on board for motion graphics.
The 2017 work won a Red Dot for brand design in 2018, and the German Design Council named the Bundesliga Digital Brand of the Year the same year (Red Dot; Creative Bloq, 2026).
The Virtual Bundesliga design took its idea of a triangle that follows the player with the ball from EA Sports' FIFA, and Markert and Paravicini say EA FC later adopted the idea for its own branding.
What Are the Bundesliga 2 and DFL Logos, and What Changes With the 2026/27 Rename?
Bundesliga 2 and the DFL each received their first own logo for the 2017/18 season. From 2026/27 the league association and organisation drop the DFL name and become Bundesliga e.V. and Bundesliga GmbH.
The Bundesliga 2 logo
The second division is a bigger business than most people assume. In 2014/15 it passed half a billion euros in total revenue for the first time, at 504.611 million euros, and 151.5 million euros of that came from advertising, roughly 30 percent (Horizont, 2016).
The DFL said an own logo would sharpen the division's profile with fans, media and sponsors. The mark reuses the first-division design with the number 2, and both logos appear on all TV-relevant surfaces.
The DFL logo
The Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 logos are used mainly in a sports context. The DFL logo has a different job. It marks the league organisation as a core pillar of German professional football in political, social and business settings (DFL statement, 2016).
It was the organisation's first logo ever.
The rename from DFL to Bundesliga
The DFL's Members Assembly agreed in March 2026 to align the organisation's name with the competition brand. DFL e.V. and DFL GmbH become Bundesliga e.V. and Bundesliga GmbH from 2026/27, and the sales and digital subsidiary already operates as Bundesliga Media.
The stated aims are a unified identity and easier international recognition, plus less name confusion with the DFB (Inside World Football; bundesliga.com, 2026).
As of November 2026, the DFL's announcement says the Bundesliga word and picture mark returns as the umbrella brand for the league association and the league organisation, as it was from 2000 to 2017, while the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 competition logos stay as they are (DFL statement, March 2026). It does not say in so many words what happens to the standalone DFL logo of 2017, but the umbrella-brand wording points to the league mark taking its place. Check the league's brand portal before using the DFL logo in a new project.
How Do Club Logos Fit With the League Logo?
Club crests and the league logo have different owners and different rules. Clubs hold their crests, though the league can force a redraw through its licensing rules. The league logo itself changes color only in narrow, club-specific cases.
The color switch has a boundary. TV-relevant surfaces carry the standard league logos, and only away from the cameras may clubs show them in their own colors (Horizont, 2016).
| Club | Change | Date | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| RB Leipzig | Crest redrawn | 2014 | DFL licensing: two bulls too close to Red Bull |
| RB Leipzig | Compact relaunch | July 2020 | More compact look, stronger size perception |
| VfL Wolfsburg | Battlement crest returns | 9 May 2026 | Tradition, long fan campaign |
| SV Werder Bremen | New design system, crest kept | 2026/27 | One system across all touchpoints |
RB Leipzig: a crest changed by licensing rules
In April 2014 the DFL tied RB Leipzig's second-division licence to 3 conditions. One was a new logo. The others were a lower membership fee and a different make-up of the governing bodies (Legal Tribune Online, 2014).
The logo problem was the two bulls, which came too close to the Red Bull brand emblem and risked counting as advertising. The case shows the league's rules reach club emblems, not only its own marks.
In July 2020 the club relaunched the crest for a more compact look and a stronger sense of size, announced quietly on its own website and on YouTube (Goal, 2020).
VfL Wolfsburg: the battlement crest returns
Wolfsburg announced the change on 9 May 2026, before the home match against Bayern Munich. The battlement crest replaces a modern round one without battlements, which had been in use for 24 years (the battlement crest was last the main emblem in 2001/02).
Don't expect it on this season's shirts. Kit production needs lead times of nearly two years, so regular 2026/27 kits keep the old emblem and special-edition shirts carry the battlements, with regular use from 2027/28.
Fans had campaigned for more than 20 years, and the club says it took its time and reached the decision jointly (Sport1, 2026).
SV Werder Bremen: new design system, same crest
Bremen rebuilt everything around the diamond and left the diamond alone.
The 2026/27 system, built with the Munich agency Societas, centers on a custom serif font named Bruckmeyer Neue, after the graphic artist who drew the first Werder W in 1924 (brand.werder.de, 2026).
The main green is now fixed as an RGB value of 0/89/60, which the club describes as deep and calm rather than bright.
A new SVW monogram, derived from the 1899 founding crest, serves as a secondary mark for merchandise and special collections, and the historic founding mark stays unchanged. The rollout runs over two to three years (Footy Headlines, July 2026).
How to Download Bundesliga Logos as SVG or PNG
Use the SVG for anything that gets resized, edited or printed, and a PNG exported at final size for software that cannot read SVG. Take the file from the league's own materials where you can, and check any library copy against the current marks.
SVG stores the logo as vector graphics, paths instead of pixels, so edges stay sharp at any size.
| Format | Type | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| SVG | Vector | Web, apps, print, editing |
| PNG | Raster, fixed pixels | Slides, software without SVG support |
| AI or EPS | Vector source files | Print workflows, paid packs |
This is the order I'd work in:
- Name the use first: editorial, partner work, merchandise or an internal slide.
- Pick the format from the table, SVG unless the software cannot read it.
- Choose the source: league materials first, a public library second, a paid pack last.
- Compare the file with the league's current marks, the flat 2017 version and the 2025 3D versions.
- Open it in Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape or a browser and check the colors and corners.
- Export PNGs from the SVG at the final size.
For print, choosing vector over raster decides the result. A PNG enlarged past its pixel size softens, an SVG does not.
The trap is the last step. Enlarging a small PNG later costs more time than exporting a fresh one.
When Can You Not Use Bundesliga Logos Freely?
Beyond personal, private and non-commercial use, you cannot. The league's legal notices grant no license to its intellectual property and protect its logos and emblems as trademarks (Bundesliga legal notices, 2026).
Merchandise, advertising, sponsored posts and apps all need the rights holder's written consent. Club crests fall outside the league's notices because they belong to the clubs, so each holder decides for its own. Recoloring the player icon was a privilege the league gave its clubs in 2016, not a general permission (Horizont, 2016).
Library files drift out of date too. They are labeled by the 2017 redesign, while the league's brand team reports a 2025 refresh with 3D versions (Creative Bloq, 2026).
Libraries also contradict each other on commercial use. Free sites limit files to personal and educational use (logotyp.us), while a Fizzia bundle on Gumroad covering Bundesliga and four other leagues, priced from $19, is sold as commercial-use ready.
logotyp.us says a download there grants no usage rights, which matches the league's own notices.
Library descriptions fail on facts too. logotyp.us describes a typography-only rectangular mark with angular letterforms and a black, red and white palette, while the league's own history describes a white player silhouette on a red square.
The rights holder's name matters when you ask for permission. The 2026 legal notices name Bundesliga-Gruppe GmbH of Frankfurt, while March 2026 reports on the DFL rename spoke of Bundesliga GmbH, so use the entity on the current legal notices.
For anything beyond editorial use, request the rights holder's brand guidelines and written consent. The league has run a digital brand portal for asset rollout since the 2021 refresh (Creative Bloq, 2026).
Bundesliga Logos FAQ
What symbols do Bundesliga club crests usually carry?
Mostly local and club-history symbols. RB Leipzig's crest carries two bulls, VfL Wolfsburg's returning crest is a castle-style W with battlements, and the Werder Bremen diamond grew out of a W drawn in 1924 (club sources, 2026).
Does the Frauen-Bundesliga use the same logo as the Bundesliga?
No. The Frauen-Bundesliga is organised by the DFB, not the DFL, and has carried a title sponsor's name since 2023/24 (Google Pixel).
The DFB runs it through 2026/27. From 1 July 2027, responsibility for staging and marketing passes to the clubs' own association, Frauen-Bundesliga FBL e.V., after an extraordinary DFB congress approved the transfer unanimously in September 2026 (DFB, 2026). Treat it as a separate brand with separate rights holders.
Is the Austrian Bundesliga logo the same as the German one?
No. Austria's Bundesliga is a separate league with its own logo rules, set out in marketing guidelines valid from 1 July 2026.
Both the 2024 edition and the 2026/27 edition reserve the right to change the logo at any time, in particular depending on competition sponsorship contracts.
Can I get the Bundesliga logo as a PNG with a transparent background?
Yes. Public libraries such as logotyp.us offer the league mark as a PNG with a transparent background, and you can export one from an SVG yourself.
Transparency changes nothing about rights. The file remains a protected trademark under the league's 2026 legal notices.
Matching Bundesliga Logos to the Right Use
Bundesliga logos fit a project only when the use comes first and the file second. A page that depicts the league needs different material than a shirt, an advert or a broadcast graphic.
The order of decisions matters, because each step limits the next. Permission comes first, since it decides which files you may take at all. After that comes the version, checked against the league's current marks. Format goes last because it changes without rework.
Following that order costs time, since written consent takes longer to obtain than a free library download. Skipping the first step saves that time and builds the whole project on a file nobody has cleared.
Position verified on 6 November 2026. Recheck the rights holder's name and the logo files whenever the league publishes new brand materials under its renamed organisation.