The Burnley Logo History, Colors, Font, And Meaning

The Burnley logo is one of English football’s most layered and symbol-heavy club badges. Based directly on the town of Burnley’s coat of arms, this crest packs in references to local families, Lancashire’s cotton industry and the town’s river. The club itself was founded in 1882, making it one of the oldest professional football clubs in England and one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888.

Burnley FC, known as “the Clarets,” have worn some version of a badge since the late 1880s, from royal arms to monograms to the current heraldic crest. The current iteration, updated in 2023, renders the crest in white on a claret shield while keeping every symbolic element intact. It is a combination mark that blends heraldic imagery with the club’s name on a scroll beneath the shield.

Few football badges carry this much local meaning in a single composition. And that is exactly the point. This is not a logo designed for simplicity or global appeal. It is a badge built for Burnley.

What Is the Burnley Logo?

The Burnley logo is a heraldic crest based on the town’s coat of arms: a stork with a Lacy knot, two bees, a raised hand, a lion and a wavy chevron for the River Brun. The layout comes from a 1972 fan competition won by Mr Jolleys, and the white-on-claret version arrived in June 2023 with no designer credited.

How Has the Burnley Logo Evolved Over Time?

The Burnley badge has gone through more than ten versions since 1887. It started with the Prince of Wales’s coat of arms, used the town’s arms from 1935, shifted to simple monograms twice, then settled on a heraldic design rooted in the town’s municipal crest.

The biggest turning points were the BFC cypher in 1969, the heraldic crest that reached the home shirts in 1979, and the claret-and-white simplification in 2023.

The Royal Arms Era (1887-1895)

• Years Active: Worn from December 1887 and visible in team photographs until 1894-95, with a return for the 1914 FA Cup Final
• Design Description: White jerseys with a blue sash, emblazoned with the Prince of Wales’s coat of arms
• Color Scheme: White and blue
• Context: Prince Albert Victor watched Burnley play Bolton Wanderers at Turf Moor in October 1886, making it the first professional ground visited by a member of the royal family. The royal-crested jerseys commemorated the visit and were first worn on 17 December 1887.
• Cultural Significance: It gave Burnley a direct link to royalty that no other club could claim at the time, and one of the early nicknames was “the Royalites”

The Town Coat of Arms Badge (1935-1969)

• Years Active: First worn in 1935, used on and off until 1969
• Design Description: The town of Burnley’s coat of arms, with heraldic symbols from the municipal crest inside a shield
• Color Scheme: Varied with the period, with claret, blue and gold elements
• Context: Claret and blue shirts carrying the town arms were ordered for the FA Cup semi-final in March 1935, the first time the arms appeared. The crest returned for the 1947 FA Cup Final and became a near-permanent feature after the 1959-60 league title
• Key Changes from Previous: Moved from royal arms to the town’s own coat of arms
• Cultural Significance: Grounded the club’s identity in the Burnley community rather than a royal connection

The 1960s Town Crest and Latin Motto

• Years Active: From the 1959-60 title season through the 1960s
• Design Description: The town crest of the period, with the Latin motto “Pretiumque et Causa Laboris” on the scroll
• Context: Burnley won the First Division title in 1959-60 and played in the European Cup in 1960-61. After the title, the club was allowed to wear the town’s crest on its shirts
• Cultural Significance: Represented the club at its peak, during an era when Burnley was one of the smallest towns to produce a league champion

The First BFC Cypher (1969-1979)

• Years Active: 1969 to 1979 on home kits (away shirts dropped it in 1976)
• Design Description: A stylised “BFC” script badge. This is the Burnley old logo many fans picture when they think of the early 1970s
• Context: A complete departure from heraldry
• Key Changes from Previous: Dropped every heraldic element. A pure typographic approach in a script typeface
• Cultural Significance: Shows how clubs in the late 1960s and early 1970s experimented with simpler branding

The Competition Crest (1972 design, home shirts from 1979)

• Years Active: Adopted officially in 1973, first worn on away kits in 1976-77 and on the home shirt in 1979
• Design Description: A traditionally designed crest with two lions, two red roses, a shuttle, a knight’s helmet and a hand, based on the town’s coat of arms
• Designer: The winning design in a 1972-73 competition came from Mr Jolleys of Ashton-on-Ribble
• Key Changes from Previous: A big shift from a simple monogram back to full heraldic imagery
• Cultural Significance: This version became the structural template for the heraldic badges that followed, and the club itself counts it among its most beloved crests

The Second BFC Cypher (1983-1987)

• Years Active: 1983 to 1987
• Design Description: A plain, horizontal “B.F.C.” cypher in white
• Context: Arrived during the club’s slide down the divisions. The crest came back after Burnley avoided relegation to the Conference on the last day of 1986-87
• Key Changes from Previous: Stripped away the entire heraldic structure again. Back to a text-only mark

The Heraldic Crest Returns (1987-2009)

• Years Active: 1987 to 2009
• Design Description: The old heraldic crest was reintroduced, with the club’s name on a scroll beneath
• Context: Reinstated the season after the club’s great escape from relegation to non-league football
• Cultural Significance: This is the version many current fans grew up with. It lasted over two decades

The Latin Motto Revival (2009-2010)

• Years Active: 2009 to 2010
• Design Description: The 1960s town arms returned, with the Latin motto “Pretiumque et Causa Laboris” on the scroll
• Context: Worn with a retro 1959-60 style kit for the club’s first Premier League season, half a century after the title win

The Modern Heraldic Badge (2010-2023)

• Years Active: 2010 to 2023
• Design Description: The same town-arms crest, with the Latin motto replaced by “Burnley Football Club” on the scroll. The shield featured the stork, bees, hand, lion, chevron and cotton plants in full colour
• Color Scheme: Claret, light blue, yellow, gold and black
• Key Changes from Previous: Replaced the Latin motto with the English club name
• Cultural Significance: Carried the club through several Premier League promotions and the Sean Dyche era

The Claret and White Update (2023-Present)

• Years Active: 2023 to present
• Design Description: Same structural layout, rendered in white on a claret shield. Black, yellow, gold and light blue were removed from inside the shield. The scroll still reads “Burnley Football Club”
• Color Scheme: Claret and white
• Context: Quietly rolled out in June 2023, ahead of the 2023-24 Premier League season, on the club website, the Premier League website and social media. The club had already used one-colour versions on training wear and a claret-and-blue version on the 2022-23 away kit, but this was the first time a one-colour crest became the primary badge. It reached the home shirt in 2024-25
• Key Changes from Previous: Eliminated the multicolour interior. All elements are now white on claret
• Cultural Significance: Part of a broader trend in football where clubs simplify crests for digital use, though Burnley kept every element rather than removing icons. The 2026-27 away kit, led by co-owner J.J. Watt, went the other way and revived the 1979-83 and 1987-2009 crest in a tonal palette

What Do the Design Elements of the Burnley Logo Mean?

Every element in the Burnley crest comes from the town’s coat of arms. Nothing is decorative filler.

The stork at the top refers to the Starkie family, who were prominent in the Burnley area. The Lacy knot in the stork’s beak references the de Lacy family, who held Burnley in the Middle Ages.

The two bees stand for the town’s hard-working character. The raised hand represents the town motto, “Hold to the Truth,” which comes from the Towneley family. The lion is usually read as a symbol of royalty (some coverage says loyalty). The wavy chevron running through the shield represents the River Brun.

The hill with cotton plants that the stork stands on references Lancashire’s cotton industry, which built the town’s economy.

What Are the Burnley Logo Colors?

Burnley’s kit colours, claret and blue, were adopted in 1910, replacing green shirts the club had worn since 1900. Club legend says the committee dropped the supposedly unlucky green for the claret and blue associated with Aston Villa. That switch gave the club its lasting nickname, “the Clarets.” Earlier kits included blue and white, amber and black, and pink and white stripes, among others.

Those colours carry directly into the badge. According to color psychology, deep claret tones suggest tradition, depth and loyalty. The light blue brings a sense of calm and openness, though since 2023 it lives on the shirts rather than inside the crest.

The club does not publish official colour codes for the crest. The values below were sampled from the current logo file, so treat them as approximate:

• Claret: approx. #5F0041, the shield colour of the 2023 crest
• White: #FFFFFF, used for every element inside the shield and for the scroll lettering

No official Pantone, CMYK or RGB values have been published. Older multicolour versions added light blue, yellow and gold to the color palette, which is why figures you see online for those shades vary so much.

What Typography Is Used in the Burnley Logo?

The club name “Burnley Football Club” appears in uppercase on a scroll beneath the shield. The club has not named the font, and no typeface has been publicly identified for it, so treat any “Burnley font” download as an approximation. A plain, uppercase sans-serif or a restrained serif gets close, depending on which version you are matching.

Earlier versions used everything from a script cypher (the 1969 BFC badge) to plain “B.F.C.” lettering (1983). The 2023 version keeps the lettering clean, readable and well spaced inside the scroll.

The typographic hierarchy is straightforward: the visual crest dominates, and the text serves as a grounding label beneath it.

What Are the Hidden Meanings in the Burnley Logo?

The “hidden” meanings are really just layered ones. The Lacy knot links the medieval de Lacy lords to the Starkie stork in a single image. The hand carries the Towneley motto without spelling it out.

Even the name “Burnley” is embedded in the design through the River Brun chevron, since the town’s name is usually explained as the meadow, or “lea,” by the River Brun.

The earlier 1970s competition crest went further, with red roses for Lancashire, a shuttle from the weaving trade and a knight’s helmet. It is the kind of badge where you keep finding connections the more you look.

How Does the Burnley Logo Compare to Competitor Logos?

Many English football clubs have moved toward simplified, clean crests in recent years. Burnley went a different way. They kept every heraldic element while simplifying the colour execution.

Compare it to Manchester City’s badge, which features a ship and the red rose in flat, modern lines inside a roundel. Or look at the Leeds United logo, which centres on the Yorkshire rose. Burnley’s badge is denser than almost any other crest in the top two divisions.

Local rivals Blackburn Rovers use a shield with a red rose and the Latin motto “Arte et Labore.” The Aston Villa badge, another claret-and-blue club, features a single lion in a more streamlined layout.

Among NFL logos or NBA logos, this level of heraldic detail would be unusual. But in English football, where crests carry civic and historical weight, Burnley’s approach makes sense. It just happens to carry more of that weight than most.

On a practical level, the one-colour version solves a real problem. The old multicolour crest lost its small details on a phone screen. White on claret keeps the stork, bees and chevron readable at small sizes and on dark backgrounds, in print and in web applications. If you need a Burnley logo PNG or a vector file for editorial work, use the current version from the club’s own channels.

What Cultural Impact Has the Burnley Logo Had?

Burnley’s badge is a community symbol more than a commercial one. Turf Moor, the club’s home since 1883, holds just under 22,000 people in a town of well under 100,000. That is one of the strongest supporter-to-population ratios in English football.

The crest shows up everywhere in Burnley. Pub signs, school bags, car decals, tattoos. It is woven into the identity of the town itself, partly because it shares the town’s coat of arms.

The 2023 update was rolled out quietly and kept every symbol, changing only the rendering. Unlike some controversial rebrandings in football (look at what happened with Leeds in 2018, when a new crest was dropped after fan backlash), that matters to supporters who see the badge as theirs. Fan opinion on the change has still been mixed, and some supporters keep asking for the older multicolour crest to come back.

How Does the Burnley Logo Fit Into the Overall Brand Identity?

The badge sits at the center of everything Burnley FC does. The claret-and-blue kits, the Turf Moor stadium branding, the club website, the matchday programmes. All of it pulls from the same colours and the same heraldic style, which is what any good brand style guide aims for.

What makes Burnley’s branding unusual is how tightly the club badge is linked to the town itself. The coat of arms shared between the club and the borough creates a kind of dual identity that you don’t see with most football clubs. The stork, the bees, the cotton plants, the River Brun. These are Burnley-the-town symbols first, football symbols second.

Since ALK Capital, led by chairman Alan Pace, bought a majority stake in December 2020, the club has leaned into special editions, including a 2026-27 away kit led by co-owner J.J. Watt that brought back the older heraldic shield in tonal form. The 2023 crest remains the primary badge. Any internal brand guidelines the club uses are not public.

That deep local rooting is probably why the heraldic badge has stayed structurally consistent since 1987. The framework works. The details carry meaning. And the fans recognize it instantly.

How Should the Burnley Logo Be Used?

This is general advice rather than the club’s own rules. Club crests are protected trademarks, and unauthorized reproduction for commercial purposes is not allowed without the club’s permission.

• Use the badge as it is. Don’t stretch, recolour or partially crop it
• For merchandise and packaging, only licensed manufacturers should use the crest
• Editorial use, such as news, match coverage or design analysis, is the most common legitimate use
• Given the badge’s detail, use a high-resolution file rather than a low-resolution screenshot

Licensing inquiries go through Burnley Football Club directly at burnleyfootballclub.com. Fan-made content that uses the badge non-commercially, like supporter blogs or social media graphics, generally falls into a gray area that is up to the club.

FAQ on The Burnley Logo

What does the Burnley FC badge represent?

The Burnley FC crest is based on the town of Burnley’s coat of arms. A stork with a Lacy knot stands for the Starkie and de Lacy families, cotton plants for the cotton trade, bees for hard work, a hand for the motto “Hold to the Truth,” a lion for royalty and a chevron for the River Brun.

When was the current Burnley logo introduced?

The current claret-and-white version was rolled out in June 2023 ahead of the club’s Premier League return, and it appeared on the home kit from 2024-25. It renders every element in white on a claret shield.

What did the old Burnley logo look like?

From 2010 to 2023 the crest showed the same symbols in full colour, with light blue, yellow, gold and black inside the shield. Earlier old logos included the “BFC” script cypher (1969-79), the plain “B.F.C.” lettering (1983-87) and the royal arms on 1880s shirts.

Who designed the Burnley crest?

No designer has been credited for the 2023 update. The heraldic layout traces back to a 1972-73 competition won by Mr Jolleys of Ashton-on-Ribble, whose design was adopted in 1973 and reached the home shirts in 1979.

What do the bees on the Burnley emblem mean?

The two bees represent the hard-working character of Burnley’s people. They come from the town’s coat of arms.

What are the Burnley colours?

The kit colours are claret and blue, worn since 1910. The current crest uses claret, approximately #5F0041 sampled from the logo, and white. The club does not publish official colour codes.

Why is there a stork on the Burnley crest?

The stork represents the Starkie family, who were prominent in the Burnley area. It holds a Lacy knot in its beak, the badge of the de Lacy family that held Burnley in the Middle Ages.

How many times has the Burnley logo changed?

More than ten times since 1887. The versions range from the Prince of Wales’s arms to the town arms, two BFC monograms and the heraldic crests used since 1979.

What is the lion on the Burnley badge?

The lion is usually described as a symbol of royalty. The club’s royal link goes back to 1886, when Prince Albert Victor visited Turf Moor, the first professional ground visited by a member of the royal family.

What does the wavy line on the Burnley shield mean?

The wavy chevron represents the River Brun, which runs through the town. Burnley’s name is usually explained as the meadow by the River Brun, so the river is built into the town’s identity.

Conclusion

The Burnley logo is one of those football club emblems that refuses to simplify for the sake of trends. And honestly, that is what makes it work.

Every symbol on that claret shield, from the stork to the bees to the River Brun chevron, connects back to something real about the town and its people.

The 2023 claret-and-white update proved you can modernize a badge without gutting its meaning. The Clarets kept the full heraldic structure while making it cleaner for digital platforms and club merchandise.

For a founder member of the Football League with more than 140 years of history, most of it at Turf Moor, that kind of respect for heritage matters. The badge is not just branding. It is Burnley.

See how it stacks up against other Premier League logos in our full guide.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Burnley F.C. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnley_F.C.
• Historical Football Kits, Burnley – https://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Burnley/Burnley.htm
• SportsLogos.Net, Burnley FC update crest ahead of Premier League return – https://news.sportslogos.net/2023/06/15/burnley-fc-update-crest-ahead-of-premier-league-return/soccer/
• Burnley FC, The cream rises: Burnley FC and JJ Watt unveil the new 2026/27 away kit – https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/media-article/the-cream-rises-burnley-fc-and-jj-watt-unveil-the-new-2026-27-away-kit
• Wikimedia, Burnley FC logo file – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burnley_FC_Logo.svg

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Bogdan Sandu

Bogdan Sandu is a seasoned designer who has been designing websites since 2008.

Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients.

His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8.

He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.

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