Proud to be
AlHilal
Office: Madrid
With a history spanning more than 60 years, AlHilal remains Asia’s most successful football club, boasting more than 65 trophies and one of the strongest, widest and most highly engaged fan bases of the region.
As other brands within the Play arena, AlHilal is now evolving to broaden its audiences and reach new territories to make its businesses grow by building emotional narratives that boost loyalty beyond pure results, offering new and enriched experiences to fans on and off the court.
To ignite engagement, attract new targets and expand the brand beyond football and sport in general, AlHilal has partnered with Interbrand to reinvent its strategy, inject a stronger sense of purpose into its DNA and develop a more relevant and responsive brand. The result: progressing from being a mere soccer club into a lifestyle icon reflecting the unique cultural values of the region.
As a national icon with global visibility and an agent of change in the rapidly evolving KSA culture, AlHilal has the opportunity to become a window to the Arab spirit for the rest of the world, championing its evolution, embodying its hospitality, honoring its artistic roots, and showcasing the potential of a booming culture. With this in mind, the brand leveraged the relevance of fair play, competitiveness and an overcoming spirit to reveal Saudi’s ambition to the world.
“Proud to be” sums up the new brand ambition and becomes a rallying cry for fans around the world, allowing the brand to resonate with a much wider audience as it reflects the spirit of not just a club, but an entire nation. Through this versatile and evocative phrase, AlHilal shows pride in its origins, its success, and its ways, becoming a living story of evolution, reinvention and perseverance.
The new expression is a reflection of the strategic DNA of the brand and propels it towards the future. The club’s strong visual heritage is reinvented while integrated in the expression with the use of its most iconic element: the crescent moon shape. Taking Al Hilal’s name, which translates literally to English as “crescent moon”, Interbrand used this element as a visual metaphor of perpetual evolution and change, a cycle of constant improvement, not far from the transformation process KSA is undergoing. This allowed us to link the entire brand narrative together.
The moon element relates to the Arabic name AlHilal, while its shape and different phases represent growing cycles and the enduring nature of athletes. This element fuels dynamism into compositions, providing a flexible device that can be arranged in many ways, resulting in surprising perspectives of the brand.
The wordmark details and negative space, both in Latin and Arabic, are inspired by this moon shape. The symbol merges the Latin ‘H’ and the Arabic ‘ھ’, written as two crescent arcs, to result in an iconic and contemporary shield that pays homage to the existing symbol, but fit for a modern sports club with an ambitious spirit.
A bespoke calligraphy was developed by Wael Morcos leveraging AlHilal’s Arabic history and roots while providing a modern touch, dynamism and distinctiveness across all touchpoints. Its free and organic gesture builds upon the most human side of AlHilal, enhancing the brand’s personality and expressiveness. Its different variations (inspired by different crescent moon phases) allow the calligraphy to coexist with the geometric Bukra typeface.
The reinvented dark-blue color palette bridges the brand’s legacy with the new narrative while highlighting the emblematic aspect of the new expression. The Bukra font family underlines the progressive character of the brand. Its features and shapes deliver energy, favoring brand recognition and personality. A diverse moon-inspired range of graphic resources completes the new narrative.
The enlightenment of our fans and players is reflected through the use of curated imagery, conveying energy, a winning attitude, dynamism and, of course, a blue atmosphere that pulls it all together.
AlHilal is now ready to boast its pride, sense of belonging, and emotional connection with its fans, while also aiming to explore the potential of growing an international customer base.