The Leicester City logo is one of the most recognized club badges in English football. It features a fox’s head set against a white cinquefoil flower, all wrapped inside a circular blue frame bearing the full club name. The club traces its roots to 1884, but the fox only arrived on the shirt in 1948, and it has been there ever since.
Leicester City Football Club, based in the East Midlands of England, plays its home matches at the King Power Stadium. The fox stands for the county of Leicestershire and its long fox-hunting history. That’s where the nickname “The Foxes” comes from, and the logo carries that identity through every version.
The current version was introduced in 2010. It’s a combination mark featuring both a mascot illustration and text. It was on the shirts for the 2015-16 Premier League title and the 2021 FA Cup, and it’s still there now, in a very different chapter: after relegation in April 2026, Leicester are playing the 2026-27 season in League One.
What Is the Leicester City Logo?
The Leicester City logo is a gold fox’s head on a white five-petalled cinquefoil, inside a blue ring reading “Leicester City Football Club”. The current version dates from 2010, when the fox gained white cheeks and the lettering changed. No designer has been publicly credited. The fox first appeared in 1948, the cinquefoil in 1992.
| Symbol | Fox’s head on a white cinquefoil, inside a blue ring |
| Designer/agency | Not publicly credited |
| Current version since | 2010 |
| Colors (hex) | Gold #FDBE11, blue approx. #0053A0 (reference sites disagree), white #FFFFFF |
| Typeface | Not officially named; font identification sites point to ITC Newtext (Ray Baker), unconfirmed by the club |
| Previous major version | 2002-2009 crest (thicker lettering and borders), preceded by the 1992 cinquefoil crest |
The club itself was formed in 1884 as Leicester Fosse by old boys of Wyggeston School and was reformed as Leicester City in 1919, the same year Leicester gained city status. It played at Filbert Street from 1891 to 2002 before moving to the stadium now called the King Power Stadium. The club is owned by King Power International Group.
How Has the Leicester City Logo Evolved Over Time?
The Leicester City badge has gone through around eight distinct versions since the fox first appeared in 1948. Early designs put the fox in a shield, the 1970s moved it into a roundel, the 1980s stripped it back to a running fox, and 1992 introduced the cinquefoil that remains central today.
One note on the chart above: dates on logo charts that circulate online, including this one, don’t always match the club’s own crest history. The years below follow the club’s official account.
Leicester Fosse Era (1884-1948)
- Years Active: 1884-1948
- Design Description: Some early Leicester Fosse teams wore the town’s coat of arms, a wyvern above a cinquefoil. From the 1890s until 1919 the shirts carried no crest.
- Color Scheme: Varied with the kit
- Designer: Not applicable
- Context: After the club was reformed as Leicester City in 1919, there was still no formal crest for almost three decades.
- Cultural Significance: The cinquefoil was there from the very beginning, in the town arms, long before it became part of the club badge.
The First Fox’s Head (1948-1949)
- Years Active: 1948-1949
- Design Description: A fox’s head crest
- Designer: Unknown artist. According to the club, the drawings were based on a fox mask from a 1922 kill by the Atherstone Hunt, and the design was approved by director Sid Needham.
- Context: The first written link between the club and foxes is a July 1948 directors’ minute approving a new jersey crest. It was worn in the 1949 FA Cup Final against Wolves.
- Key Changes from Previous: The first club badge to feature a fox
- Cultural Significance: It established the fox as the club’s permanent symbol, connecting the team to the county’s hunting tradition.
Fox and Crops Shield (1949-1973 and 1979-1983)
- Years Active: 1949-1973, then again 1979-1983
- Design Description: The fox’s head above crossed hunting crops, inside a shield with “L.C.F.C.” lettering
- Color Scheme: Blue, gold and white
- Designer: Unknown
- Context: Leicester wore this crest in the FA Cup Finals of 1961, 1963 and 1969 and the League Cup Finals of 1964 and 1965, winning the League Cup in 1964.
- Key Changes from Previous: Hunting crops added behind the fox, and a shield frame
- Cultural Significance: The badge of the club’s busiest era of cup finals, and a direct nod to the hunting tradition behind the nickname.
The Roundel (1973-1979)
- Years Active: 1973-1979
- Design Description: The fox and crops placed inside a roundel with “Leicester City Football Club” around the edge
- Color Scheme: The background colour changed to suit the shirt
- Designer: Unknown
- Context: Many English clubs simplified their badges in the 1970s. Leicester tried the circle, then went back to the shield in 1979.
- Key Changes from Previous: Shield replaced by a circular frame carrying the full club name
- Cultural Significance: The first appearance of the circular format that the club returned to in 1992.
The Running Fox (1983-1992)
- Years Active: 1983-1992
- Design Description: A simple line drawing of a leaping fox, its body stretching across and beyond a thin circle. No text.
- Color Scheme: Blue on white
- Designer: Not publicly credited
- Context: It arrived with the club’s first sponsored shirt in 1983, at a time when many clubs were experimenting with cleaner, more commercial badges. This version leaned hard into minimalist design principles. Its last appearance was the 1992 Second Division play-off final against Blackburn Rovers.
- Key Changes from Previous: All text removed. The fox shown in full body rather than just a head, in a single colour.
- Cultural Significance: Bold and different, and still loved by fans. It returned on the burgundy 2026-27 adidas away kit.
The Cinquefoil Crest (1992-2002)
- Years Active: 1992-2002
- Design Description: A return to the circular badge with a fox’s head, now set on a white cinquefoil. The full club name curved around a blue border.
- Color Scheme: Blue, gold and white
- Designer: Not publicly credited
- Context: The club says the aim was to add a city element alongside the fox, which represents the county and links to the earlier badges.
- Key Changes from Previous: Introduction of the cinquefoil from Leicester’s coat of arms. Return to the fox’s head. Text brought back around the frame.
- Cultural Significance: The foundation of the modern Leicester City identity, linking county and city in one badge.
The Stadium-Move Update (2002-2009)
- Years Active: 2002-2009
- Design Description: The same structure as the 1992 crest, with thicker lettering and border lines
- Color Scheme: Blue, gold and white
- Designer: Not publicly credited
- Context: Made for the move from Filbert Street to the new Walkers Stadium (renamed the King Power Stadium in 2011), where the crest was the main feature on the West Stand. Leicester played the 2003-04 Premier League season with this badge.
- Key Changes from Previous: Heavier typography and borders, with more saturated colour in most reproductions
- Cultural Significance: It bridged the original cinquefoil design and the current version.
125th Anniversary Crest (2009-2010)
- Years Active: 2009-2010
- Design Description: A one-season version marking 125 years, with “1884-2009” in the ring and a “125” ribbon underneath
- Color Scheme: Blue, a muted grey-gold fox and white
- Designer: Not publicly credited
- Context: Worn in the 2009-10 season, when the home shirt also carried no main sponsor
- Key Changes from Previous: Commemorative dates and a ribbon added
Current Leicester City Logo (2010-Present)
- Years Active: 2010-present
- Design Description: A gold fox’s head with white cheeks on a white cinquefoil, inside a blue circular frame. “Leicester City Football Club” wraps around in a flared, wedge-serif style of lettering.
- Color Scheme: Blue, gold and white
- Designer: Not publicly credited
- Context: This is the badge of the 2015-16 Premier League title, the 2021 FA Cup, the 2021 Community Shield and Leicester’s European campaigns.
- Key Changes from Previous: Anniversary text and ribbon removed, white cheeks added to the fox, new lettering for the club name
- Cultural Significance: Forever associated with the greatest underdog story in English football. This badge was on the shirts when Leicester won the league at odds of 5000-1.
What Do the Design Elements of the Leicester City Logo Mean?
Every piece of the Leicester City badge has a reason. The fox represents the county of Leicestershire and its long association with fox hunting; the club’s first fox drawing was even based on a real hunt trophy.
The cinquefoil comes from the arms of the City of Leicester, a red shield with an ermine cinquefoil. Heraldic sources link it to the Beaumont Earls of Leicester in the Middle Ages, and the city’s arms were recorded at the heraldic visitation of 1619.
The circular shape, the colour choices, the typography placement. None of it is random. Here’s what each piece means.
What Are the Leicester City Logo Colors?
Royal blue has been the club’s main hue for most of its history. The traditional home kit is blue shirts with white shorts, and since 2015-16 the club has mostly worn all blue.
Gold entered through the fox itself and has stayed ever since. After the 2015-16 title win, that gold feels more earned than ever.
Leicester City has not published official brand colour codes, and there are no public Leicester City brand guidelines. Reference sites give these values:
- Blue – approx. #0053A0, RGB (0, 83, 160). Team Color Codes lists the hex as #003090 but gives this RGB value, so its two numbers disagree; other reference sites use #0053A0.
- Gold – #FDBE11, RGB (253, 190, 17). This value is consistent across reference sites. It highlights the fox.
- White – #FFFFFF. Used for the cinquefoil and the ring background. It provides contrast and keeps the badge readable at small sizes.
Because the sources conflict, skip third-party CMYK or Pantone values for print and match against an official file instead. The overall color palette is simple enough that the badge reads instantly either way.
The blue-and-gold pairing gives the badge a sense of authority without being too stiff. I’ve always thought it reads well both on screen and on fabric, which isn’t something every club gets right.
What Font Is Used in the Leicester City Logo?
The club has never named the typeface used for “Leicester City Football Club” on the crest. Font identification sites match it to ITC Newtext, a serif font with small, sharp wedge serifs designed by Ray Baker, but that is an outside identification, not a club statement. ITC Newtext is a commercial font, so it needs a paid licence.
What the club does confirm is that the lettering changed in 2010, when the current crest arrived. The text curves along the inside of the circular frame. That’s a tricky thing to pull off without losing legibility, but the wide letters and generous spacing make it work.
Earlier versions used different typeface styles. The shield badge used simple “L.C.F.C.” capitals, the running fox had no text at all, and the 2002 update used thicker lettering. Each shift in typography elements reflected the design trends of its era.
What Are the Hidden Meanings in the Leicester City Logo?
The cinquefoil is the detail most people miss. It’s not just decoration. It’s the main charge of the City of Leicester’s coat of arms, and it even appeared on the town arms that some Leicester Fosse teams wore before 1900.
The fox faces forward in the modern badge, not in profile like the hunting-crops shield or the running fox. It’s direct, confident and a little confrontational.
The fox’s ears and chin also push past the edge of the cinquefoil’s petals. That sense of the animal breaking its boundaries fits a club that made its name by exceeding expectations. Whether the designers planned that reading or not, it stuck.
How Does the Leicester City Logo Compare to Competitor Logos?
English football club badges fall into a few broad categories. Circular crests with animal mascots, shield-based designs with heraldic elements, and modern simplified marks. Leicester sits firmly in the first camp.
Fan-made redesign concepts like the one above, with sans-serif font lettering and “1884” added, circulate online. The club has not adopted any of them; the 2010 crest is still the official badge.
Compared to other badges, Leicester’s stands out for its warmth. The gold tones give it a friendlier feel than the cool blue of the Chelsea logo or the red and white of Arsenal’s crest.
The Wolverhampton Wanderers logo is probably the closest comparison. Both build the badge around an animal’s head, and both lean on gold. But Wolves uses a much more geometric, stylized wolf, while Leicester keeps its fox relatively detailed.
Crystal Palace’s badge uses an eagle, Newcastle United’s crest features seahorses, and Sunderland are known as the Black Cats. Animal mascots are common in English football, but Leicester’s fox remains one of the most distinctive because of the cinquefoil backdrop. It’s a floral layer you won’t find on badges like Everton’s or Burnley’s.
The Manchester City logo moved to a simpler roundel in 2016. Leicester hasn’t felt the same pressure to modernize, largely because the 2010 design already works well across digital and print.
Leicester City Logo Files and Formats
The badge is a circle, so it sits comfortably in square spaces like app icons and social avatars. The club does not publish public brand guidelines for the crest, so any size or spacing “rules” you see online are not official.
For design work, vector graphics formats (SVG, EPS) scale cleanly. For web design and digital contexts, PNG versions with transparent backgrounds are common, and for print you’d want a vector or a high-DPI raster file.
At very small sizes, such as a favicon a few dozen pixels wide, the fox and cinquefoil details blur a bit, but the blue, gold and white scheme stays identifiable.
What Cultural Impact Has the Leicester City Logo Had?
Before the 2015-16 season, Leicester City’s badge was just another English football crest. Then the team won the Premier League at 5000-1 odds, and suddenly that fox was everywhere.
The badge became a global symbol of the underdog story. People who had never watched a football match recognized it.
The death of owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a helicopter crash outside the King Power Stadium in October 2018 added another layer of emotional weight. Fans laid flowers and scarves bearing the crest outside the stadium in their thousands.
In 2021, the same badge was on the shirts when Leicester won their first FA Cup, beating Chelsea 1-0. Two major pieces of history. Same logo. The years since have been harder, with relegation from the Premier League in 2025, a points deduction and a second relegation in 2026. But the crest hasn’t changed, and that continuity is part of what fans hold onto.
How Does the Leicester City Logo Fit Into the Overall Brand Identity?
The badge sits at the center of everything Leicester City does. Kit design, stadium branding, digital presence, community programs, commercial partnerships. All of it ties back to the fox and the cinquefoil.
The King Power Stadium uses the badge’s blue across its interior and exterior. Match-day graphics follow the same color theory as the badge. The club’s social media profiles, website and app all use the crest as their primary visual anchor.
The relationship between the badge and the Filbert Fox mascot (the costumed character seen at matches) is also worth mentioning. They’re different interpretations of the same symbol. The badge is formal and heraldic. Filbert is playful and approachable.
The club also mines its archive. The running fox returned on the 2026-27 away kit, and a consistent internal brand style guide is what lets retro badges and the main crest sit side by side without the identity drifting.
How Should the Leicester City Logo Be Used?
This is general advice, not a set of rules published by the club. The Leicester City badge is a trademark of the club, so the usual trademark basics apply:
- Editorial use, such as news, reviews or commentary, can normally show the crest to identify the club
- Commercial use, from merchandise to advertising, needs a licence from Leicester City
- Don’t recolour, stretch or crop the crest in a way that suggests an official version
- Don’t build the crest into your own logo, which can imply a link with the club that doesn’t exist
For fan content and social media, clubs are generally relaxed as long as nothing is being sold or misrepresented. But the line between fan art and infringement can get blurry, so it’s always better to check.
FAQ on the Leicester City Logo
What does the fox on the Leicester City badge represent?
The fox represents the county of Leicestershire and its long fox-hunting tradition, which also gave the club its nickname, “The Foxes”. The first fox crest, approved in 1948, was based on a fox mask from a 1922 Atherstone Hunt kill.
What is the flower behind the fox in the Leicester City logo?
It’s a cinquefoil, a five-petalled heraldic flower from the City of Leicester’s coat of arms. It was added to the badge in 1992 to represent the city, while the fox represents the county.
When was the current Leicester City logo introduced?
The current crest was introduced in 2010, replacing the one-season 125th anniversary badge. The fox gained white cheeks and the club name got new lettering. This is the badge worn during the 2015-16 Premier League title win.
Who designed the Leicester City logo?
No designer has been publicly credited for the current crest or the 1992 cinquefoil version. Even the artist behind the first fox’s head in 1948 is unknown, according to the club.
What are the Leicester City logo colors?
Blue, gold and white. The club has no public colour guide. The gold is usually given as #FDBE11, and the blue as approx. #0053A0, though reference sites disagree on the blue.
What font does the Leicester City logo use?
The club has never named it. Font identification sites match the lettering to ITC Newtext, a wedge-serif font by Ray Baker, but that is unconfirmed. The club only says the lettering was changed in 2010.
What did the old Leicester City logo look like?
From 1983 to 1992, the badge was a simple running fox drawn in blue line work across a thin circle, with no text. Before that, from 1949, it was a fox’s head above crossed hunting crops in a shield, with a roundel version in 1973-1979.
How many times has the Leicester City badge changed?
Around eight times since the fox first appeared in 1948: the first fox’s head, the fox and crops shield, the 1970s roundel, the running fox, the 1992 cinquefoil crest, the 2002 update, the 2009 anniversary badge and the 2010 crest.
Does Leicester City have public brand guidelines?
No. Leicester City has not published brand guidelines or official colour codes for its crest. Any official-looking size, spacing or Pantone rules you find online come from third parties.
Is the Leicester City logo trademarked?
Yes. The badge is a trademark of Leicester City Football Club, and commercial use needs a licence. Editorial use to identify the club is normally fine.
Conclusion
The Leicester City logo is more than a football club badge. It’s a piece of Leicestershire’s identity, built from a fox, a cinquefoil and a blue-and-gold color psychology that has held up across decades and redesigns.
From the first fox’s head approved in 1948 to the circular emblem worn during the 2015-16 Premier League miracle, every version told the same story differently.
The current crest gets the balance right. Heritage and clarity, tradition and function. It works on a kit, on a screen, on a scarf held up at the King Power Stadium, whether the opponent is Chelsea or Stevenage.
Few club badges carry this much emotional weight. Fewer still have earned it the way this one has.
Sources
- Leicester City FC, Crests – https://www.lcfc.com/history-crests
- Wikipedia, Leicester City F.C. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_City_F.C.
- Footy Headlines, Leicester City 26-27 Away Kit Revealed With Classic Crest (July 2026) – https://www.footyheadlines.com/3212905077/leicester-city-26-27-away-kit-revealed-classic-crest.html
- Team Color Codes, Leicester City Football Club Colors – https://teamcolorcodes.com/leicester-city-football-club-colors/
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.
- How to Replace an Image in Canva Without Breaking the Layout - 12 November 2026
- What’s the Best Bot-Free AI Note Taker for Client Calls in 2026 - 12 November 2026
- When Shared Hosting Is the Right Choice for Your Website - 11 November 2026
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.
You Might Also Like
