The Hull City Logo History, Colors, Font, And Meaning

The Hull City logo is one of those football badges that tells you exactly where it comes from the moment you see it. A snarling tiger’s head set inside an amber shield, with “HULL CITY” in a black band across the top and “1904” stamped below. It’s bold. It’s aggressive. And it carries well over a century of East Yorkshire football history.

Hull City Association Football Club, founded in Kingston upon Hull on 28 June 1904, has been tied to black and amber for almost all of its existence. The colours gave the club its nickname, “The Tigers,” within a year of its founding. The tiger itself didn’t reach the badge until 1947, but once it showed up, it stuck. Across more than a dozen badge variations, it has been missing only once, during the “HCAFC” initials era of the late 1970s.

Within the broader picture of English football branding, the Hull City crest sits in a unique space. Few clubs commit so fully to animal imagery as their primary identifier. Amber and black is also a rare combination in the top tiers of English football, which makes the badge easy to recognize on a matchday programme, a scarf or a shirt. And since May 2026, when Hull won the Championship play-off final against Middlesbrough, that badge is back in the Premier League.

What Is the Hull City Logo?

The Hull City logo is an amber shield carrying a growling tiger’s head, with “HULL CITY” in a black band on top and “1904” underneath. It was unveiled on 5 February 2019 and used from the 2019-20 season. No individual designer has been credited; the club says supporters shaped it through a supporter-led consultation.

The crest represents the club’s nickname, “The Tigers,” and the black and amber colours behind it. The current owner, Acun Ilıcalı, who took control in January 2022, kept the 2019 design unchanged.

How Has the Hull City Logo Evolved Over Time?

The Hull City badge history runs through civic crowns, tiger heads, initials, roundels, a Humber Bridge design and several shields. Sources disagree on the exact start and end years of some 1980s and 1990s variations, so treat those dates as approximate. The big turning points are well documented, though: 1935, 1947, 1975, 1979, 1999, 2001, 2014 and 2019.

The most controversial change came in 2014, when the club stripped the name off the badge entirely. That one didn’t last.

The Early Years: No Crest (1904-1935)

• Years Active: 1904-1935
• Design Description: No crest worn on shirts
• Color Scheme: Mostly black and amber
• Context: The club was founded on 28 June 1904 and played its first match, a 2-2 friendly draw with Notts County, on 1 September 1904. Home games were played at the Boulevard, then briefly at the Circle, before Hull moved to Anlaby Road in 1906. Plenty of clubs of this era simply didn’t use shirt badges. The black and amber kits earned the “Tigers” nickname from the Hull Daily Mail in March 1905.
• Cultural Significance: The club built its identity through kit colours alone, and that was enough to create a nickname that has lasted more than 120 years.

The Three Crowns Badge (1935-1947)

• Years Active: 1935-1947
• Design Description: The three crowns of Kingston upon Hull, embroidered on the shirts
• Color Scheme: First worn on a blue and white kit in 1935-36
• Context: For 1935-36 the club switched to blue shirts and white shorts, most likely to match the civic colours of Kingston upon Hull. The three crowns came from the city’s coat of arms. The blue kit was dropped after one season and the club went back to black and amber.
• Cultural Significance: This was the first badge Hull City wore. It tied the club to the city’s civic identity rather than its “Tigers” persona.

First Tiger’s Head Badge (1947-1957)

• Years Active: 1947-1957
• Design Description: A tiger’s head placed inside an amber shield
• Color Scheme: Amber and black
• Context: Introduced for 1947-48, the same season the club returned to black and amber kits after the war. Hull had also just moved to Boothferry Park. The tiger’s head on a shield gave the “Tigers” nickname its first graphic form, and Hull won the Third Division North in 1948-49.
• Key Changes from Previous: A complete move from civic symbolism to animal imagery
• Cultural Significance: Established the tiger as the core visual identity of almost every badge that followed.

Standalone Tiger’s Head (1957-1975)

• Years Active: 1957-1975
• Design Description: The roaring tiger’s head without a background shield
• Color Scheme: Amber and black
• Context: A simplified version that let the tiger stand alone. Kit historians note that the shield came back around 1971, so several variations of the tiger’s head were in use over these years.
• Key Changes from Previous: The shield container was removed, at least for part of this period

The HCAFC Initials (1975-1979)

• Years Active: 1975-1979
• Design Description: The club’s initials “HCAFC” used as the crest
• Color Scheme: Black and white or black and amber, depending on the kit
• Context: A text-only badge with no tiger. Several English clubs moved to monogram-style badges in the 1970s. Hull’s “AFC” also mattered locally, since it separated the football club from the city’s two rugby league clubs.
• Key Changes from Previous: All graphic elements removed
• Cultural Significance: The only stretch since 1947 with no tiger on the badge. The tiger came back in 1979.

Return of the Tiger (1979-1999)

• Years Active: 1979-1999 (several variations)
• Design Description: The tiger’s head returned, first with “HULL CITY” underneath, then with “Hull City A.F.C.” and “The Tigers” around it, then inside a circular roundel, and in the mid-1990s on a shield
• Color Scheme: Amber and black, sometimes with white
• Context: The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the tiger’s head framed by text in a roundel, sometimes placed in the middle of the shirt rather than on the left breast. A version printed on a shield appeared around 1995, and a new roundel came with the 1998-99 kit.

The Humber Bridge Crest (1999-2001)

• Years Active: 1999-2001
• Design Description: A shield in club colours with a front-facing tiger, the Humber Bridge and three crowns at the top, and a scroll reading “Hull City A.F.C.” with “Est. 1904”
• Designer: Reportedly drawn by the son of Stephen Hinchcliffe, a graphic design student at the time, whose father was part of the consortium that bought the club from David Lloyd
• Context: It was disliked by many supporters, who found the tiger comical, and it lasted only about two seasons.

The “Tigers” Scroll Crest (2001-2014)

• Years Active: 2001-2014
• Design Description: An amber shield with a snarling tiger’s head, “HULL CITY A.F.C.” across the top and a “THE TIGERS” scroll banner underneath
• Origin: The design came out of a competition run in the matchday programme and on the club website in spring 2001. The winning entrant’s name was not widely published.
• Color Scheme: Amber, black and white
• Context: A more traditional look after the Humber Bridge experiment. A centenary version was used in 2004. This was the badge of Hull’s first promotion to the Premier League in 2008 and the 2014 FA Cup Final.
• Cultural Significance: The badge of the club’s best years on the pitch, and still a favourite with many fans.

The Nameless Crest (2014-2019)

• Years Active: 2014-2019
• Design Description: Just the tiger’s head with “1904” beneath it, inside an amber shield with a black outline. No club name.
• Color Scheme: Amber and black
• Context: Launched in June 2014 for the 2014-15 season, two months after the FA rejected owner Assem Allam’s application to rename the club “Hull Tigers” in April 2014. Fans said they had not been consulted.
• Key Changes from Previous: Club name and scroll banner removed
• Cultural Significance: A flashpoint for fan opposition. It led to the supporter-led redesign that began after the 2017-18 season.

The Current Crest (2019-Present)

• Years Active: 2019-present
• Design Description: A reshaped shield with a redrawn tiger’s head, “HULL CITY” restored in a black band across the top, and “1904” below
• Designer: No individual designer credited. The club ran the process, and supporters voted on key points such as the shield shape and which elements to include. Vicky Beercock, then the club’s Head of Marketing and Communications, said it was important that the update was supporter led.
• Color Scheme: Amber, black and white
• Context: Unveiled on 5 February 2019 and worn from the 2019-20 season, first on Umbro kits.
• Key Changes from Previous: Club name restored, a more detailed tiger illustration, a slightly different shield shape
• Cultural Significance: Showed that supporter voice matters in football branding. The club described the result as evolution rather than revolution.

What Do the Design Elements of the Hull City Logo Mean?

Every piece of the Hull City crest connects to the club’s history. The tiger represents the nickname and playing identity. The shield provides structure and a sense of tradition. The founding year anchors everything to 1904.

These aren’t decorative choices. They’re identity markers that fans have fought to protect, as the 2014-2019 badge controversy showed pretty clearly.

The Tiger’s Head

The growling tiger is the focal point of the entire badge. It has been there in some form since 1947, apart from the 1975-1979 initials, which makes it the longest-running visual element in the club’s branding.

The tiger connects directly to the nickname, which itself comes from the black and amber kits. There’s a directness to the link between kit colours, nickname and badge that you don’t always see in football. The psychology of shapes plays a role here too. The tiger’s open jaw and sharp angles signal aggression and competitiveness.

Earlier versions showed the tiger differently, sometimes as a rough sketch, sometimes front-facing and cartoonish, as in the 1999 Humber Bridge crest. The 2019 version is more detailed, with the stripes drawn as dense black marks on amber.

The Shield

Shields are common in English football badges. They suggest heritage and tradition. For Hull City, the shield also nods to heraldry and the city’s own coat of arms, which is where the three crowns of 1935 came from.

The three crowns returned briefly in the 1999 crest but are not part of the current badge, which keeps the shield outline as a simple container. It’s a layout built on solid graphic design principles, where every element sits in a clear, readable arrangement: name, tiger, date.

What Are the Hull City Logo Colors?

Hull City’s colours are amber and black, with white as an accent. The Hull Daily Mail coined the “Tigers” nickname in 1905 because the striped kits looked like tiger markings.

Hull City has not published official brand colour specifications. The values most often quoted come from Team Color Codes, a widely used reference site:

• Amber: Hex #F18A01 | RGB (241, 138, 1) | CMYK (3, 55, 100, 0) | Pantone 144 C
• Black: Hex #000000 | RGB (0, 0, 0)
• White: Hex #FFFFFF | RGB (255, 255, 255)

Treat these as reference values rather than club guidelines. Logo files in the wild vary, and some show a slightly lighter amber.

The amber brings energy. In color psychology, orange tones are linked with enthusiasm and warmth. Black adds weight and seriousness. Together they create high contrast, which makes the badge pop whether you’re looking at it from the stands or on a phone screen.

The pairing also makes Hull one of the most visually distinct clubs in English football. Plenty of brands have been drawn to orange in their logos, but few football clubs commit to it as completely as Hull does.

What Font Is Used in the Hull City Logo?

The “HULL CITY” lettering on the badge is a bold, condensed, uppercase sans-serif font. The club has not named the typeface, and it looks like custom lettering drawn for the crest. Claims that it is Impact are not backed by any club source, and the letter shapes don’t match Impact closely.

It’s a heavy, narrow style that stays readable at small sizes. That matters for football badges, which have to work on everything from broadcast graphics to lapel pins. The typographic hierarchy is straightforward: the club name sits in the black band at the top, the tiger dominates the middle, and “1904” anchors the bottom.

Earlier versions used different type treatments. The 2001-2014 badge set “HULL CITY A.F.C.” above the shield and “THE TIGERS” on a curling scroll, which had a more traditional feel. The 1970s badge was nothing but tall serif initials.

What Are the Hidden Meanings in the Hull City Logo?

There isn’t much hidden symbolism in the current crest, which is part of its appeal. The deeper layers sit in the older versions.

The three crowns, used in 1935 and again in 1999, come from the Kingston upon Hull coat of arms. Hull City Council still treats them as an iconic city symbol. In September 2026 the council’s civic committee gave the club permission to use the three crowns on its 2026-27 third kit, so the civic link is very much alive.

The 1999 crest also included the Humber Bridge, which opened in 1981, as a local landmark.

The founding year “1904” is always present on the current and previous badges. It was a sticking point during the Allam era, because some fans felt that keeping only a date and a tiger, without the club name, erased too much identity.

How Does the Hull City Logo Compare to Competitor Logos?

Hull City’s badge stands out among English football clubs for its commitment to animal imagery as the main design element. Many clubs use heraldic shields or civic symbols. Hull leans harder into the mascot than most.

Compare it to other northern clubs. The Leeds United logo is built around the white rose of Yorkshire. Sheffield Wednesday’s badge features an owl. Burnley’s crest borrows from the town’s coat of arms.

Hull’s tiger-forward approach gives it stronger immediate recognition, at least in my opinion. You see that amber and black badge and you know who it is. That’s something a lot of clubs struggle with when their badges rely on generic shield layouts.

The closest parallel is Wolverhampton Wanderers, who wear old gold and black. The tone difference is noticeable, though. The Wolverhampton Wanderers badge uses a wolf’s head, so both clubs build their identity around an animal, but the execution is quite different.

Among other clubs with animal imagery, Crystal Palace’s eagle and Sunderland, the Black Cats, come to mind. But Hull’s tiger remains one of the most striking.

Hull City Logo Files and Formats

The crest is built on a vertical shield format, taller than it is wide. The tiger’s head fills the centre, with “HULL CITY” in the band at the top and “1904” near the point of the shield.

For design work, vector graphics (SVG, EPS, AI) scale cleanly from a pin badge to a stadium banner. At very small sizes, such as a favicon a few dozen pixels wide, the detailed tiger loses definition, which is why sports crests and tech company logos alike often need simplified icon versions. The club has not published an official logo usage guide.

What Cultural Impact Has the Hull City Logo Had?

The Hull City badge punches above its weight culturally, mostly because of what happened between 2013 and 2019. When owner Assem Allam tried to rebrand the team as “Hull Tigers,” the backlash was enormous.

Fans organized. Supporter groups campaigned against the name change, and the FA rejected it in April 2014. But the badge launched that summer had no name on it, and it stayed that way until 2019. The whole saga became a case study in how football clubs belong to their communities, not just their owners.

Beyond the controversy, the tiger badge is a point of pride in Kingston upon Hull. It shows up on scarves, murals and tattoos. The 2008 promotion to the Premier League and the 2014 FA Cup Final put the badge on a national stage, and the dramatic 2026 play-off win at Wembley did it again.

The supporter-led 2019 process is often cited as a sensible way to handle a badge change. It showed that storytelling in design works best when the people who care most about the story actually get a say.

How Does the Hull City Logo Fit Into the Overall Brand Identity?

The Hull City badge doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s the anchor for a wider brand system that includes the amber and black colour scheme, the “Tigers” nickname, matchday graphics, the MKM Stadium and all merchandise.

Everything flows from that tiger. The club’s social media uses it as a profile image. Matchday graphics build layouts around it. Merchandise puts it front and center. A consistent set of brand guidelines is what ties this together for any club, even when those guidelines aren’t public.

When Acun Ilıcalı took over in 2022, the 2019 crest stayed. Smart move. Changing it again so soon after a supporter-led process would have been asking for trouble. Instead, the club has added civic touches elsewhere, like the three crowns on the 2026-27 third kit.

How Should the Hull City Logo Be Used?

This is general advice, not a set of rules published by the club. The Hull City crest is a trademark of the club, so the basics of trademark law apply:

• Editorial use (news, reviews, commentary) is normally fine when the crest identifies the club
• Commercial use, such as products for sale or advertising, needs permission or a licence from the club
• Don’t alter the crest in a way that suggests an official endorsement
• For print, work from a vector file and check the output DPI of any raster version
• Avoid adding gradients, drop shadows or outlines that change how the crest reads

Fan art and personal use generally fall into a gray area that most clubs tolerate, but commercial reproduction requires a licence.

If you’re a designer working with the badge, pull a vector file rather than a bitmap screenshot. That way you preserve quality and avoid JPEG compression artifacts. And double-check the amber. It’s easy to drift toward a generic orange if you’re colour-matching by eye.

FAQ on the Hull City Logo

What does the Hull City logo look like?

The Hull City badge shows a growling tiger’s head inside an amber shield. “HULL CITY” sits in a black band across the top, with “1904” at the base. The colours are amber, black and white.

When was the current Hull City crest introduced?

The current Hull City crest was unveiled on 5 February 2019 and worn from the 2019-20 season. It replaced the 2014 badge after a supporter-led redesign in which fans voted on key elements such as the shape.

Who designed the Hull City badge?

No individual designer has been credited for the 2019 crest. The club ran the process with supporter input. The 1999 Humber Bridge crest is reportedly the work of Stephen Hinchcliffe’s son, and the 2001 crest came from a supporters’ competition.

Why is there a tiger on the Hull City badge?

Hull City’s nickname is “The Tigers,” which the Hull Daily Mail coined in March 1905 because of the club’s black and amber kits. The tiger’s head first appeared on the badge in 1947-48 and has been there ever since, apart from 1975-1979.

What are the Hull City colours?

Hull City’s colours are amber and black, with white as an accent. The club has no public colour guide. Team Color Codes lists the amber as #F18A01 (Pantone 144 C) with black #000000 and white #FFFFFF.

What was the old Hull City badge?

The previous badge, used from 2014 to 2019, was a tiger’s head and “1904” in an amber shield with no club name. Before that, from 2001 to 2014, the badge showed the tiger with “HULL CITY A.F.C.” on top and a “THE TIGERS” scroll below.

What is the history of the Hull City badge?

No crest until 1935, then the three civic crowns. A tiger’s head arrived in 1947, the “HCAFC” initials in 1975, and the tiger returned in 1979. Later came roundels, the 1999 Humber Bridge crest, the 2001 scroll crest, the 2014 nameless crest and the 2019 badge.

What font is used in the Hull City logo?

The badge uses bold, condensed, uppercase sans-serif lettering. The club has never named the typeface, and it appears to be custom-drawn for the crest.

Why was the 2014 Hull City badge so controversial?

It removed the club’s name entirely. It arrived in June 2014, two months after the FA rejected owner Assem Allam’s bid to rename the club “Hull Tigers,” and fans said they had not been consulted. It lasted until 2019.

What does “1904” mean on the Hull City crest?

1904 is the year Hull City was founded, on 28 June 1904. The club played its first match, a 2-2 friendly draw with Notts County, on 1 September that year.

What do the three crowns in older Hull City badges mean?

The three crowns come from the coat of arms of Kingston upon Hull. They were the club’s first badge in 1935 and returned in the 1999 crest. In 2026 the city council allowed the club to use them on its 2026-27 third kit.

Where do Hull City play?

Hull City play at the MKM Stadium, which opened as the KC Stadium in December 2002. Before that, the club played at Boothferry Park from 1946 and at Anlaby Road from 1906. Hull returned to the Premier League for 2026-27.

Conclusion

The Hull City logo carries more than 120 years of football identity in a single amber shield. From the crestless kits at Anlaby Road to the 2019 badge worn at the MKM Stadium, every version has reflected the club’s relationship with Kingston upon Hull.

The tiger remains the constant. It survived an initials-only badge, a cartoonish bridge crest, ownership controversies and the Allam-era rename attempt.

What makes this crest work is its clarity. Hull City, back in the Premier League for 2026-27, has a badge that reads well on a matchday scarf, a digital screen or a tattoo. Amber and black do the heavy lifting.

Few football club emblems have been shaped so directly by supporter input. That 2019 process set a useful standard for how clubs should handle visual identity changes.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Hull City A.F.C. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_City_A.F.C.
• Historical Football Kits, Hull City – https://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Hull_City/Hull_City.htm
• What’s Behind The Badge, Hull City – https://whatsbehindthebadge.com/?p=415
• Footy Headlines, New Hull City Crest Revealed (February 2019) – https://footyheadlines.com/2019/02/new-hull-city-crest-2019.html
• SportsLogos.net, Hull City AFC Cannot Change Name, So They Change Crest Instead (June 2014) – https://news.sportslogos.net/2014/06/23/hull-city-afc-cannot-change-name-so-they-change-crest-instead/soccer/
• Hull City Council, Council grants three crowns use for new Hull City kit (September 2026) – https://news.hull.gov.uk/?p=23748
• Team Color Codes, Hull City A.F.C. Color Codes – https://teamcolorcodes.com/hull-city-a-f-c-color-codes

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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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