EA Sports announced that their biggest franchise - FIFA would be breaking up with its namesake. The world’s largest sports game would be renaming itself EA Sports FC. We were tasked with building the new brand.

Few brands get noticed. Even fewer make their way into language. FIFA, though, had become a noun. “Do you wanna play FIFA?” was a catchphrase of millions of football fans from Tokyo to Toronto, Sydney to Singapore, London to Los Angeles. To secure the future of the world’s biggest sports game franchise, we’d need to do more than design an identity - we’d need to claim the brand a place in fan culture.

FC would become EA SPORTS platform to create, innovate and grow new football experiences, connecting hundreds of millions of fans through console, mobile, online and esports products.

We wanted to celebrate football fans. The symbol of fan power (and the inspiration for our identity) had been hiding in plain sight. FIFA had always had a symbol for fan power: the iconic triangular player control indicator that appears above every athlete when a player controls them.

Triangles had further significance. It’s a shape that has transformed the game over and over again. From Cruyff to Guardiola. From passing patterns to set plays. The triangle has revolutionised the game as we know it. And we used it to do it again. The triangle metaphor for fan power guided the system - from our logo, to our bespoke typography, to the grid system that guides all composition.

EA Sports’ break-up had nothing to do with the reported nine-figure annual licence fee and had everything to do with fans.

Football fandom is a powerful force. It’s louder than a stadium. It reverberates through culture. But football fans are treated as consumers of football culture - rather than the creators of it.

Wedded to FIFA, EA Sports was never free to truly serve fans. The dream for EA Sports FC was to become a club for fans. Because EA Sports offered the only expression of football literally controlled by fans. They choose the stadium. They manage the teams. They direct the players.

FC could be more than a game - it could be a symbol of fan power.

This was more than a rebrand - this was a moment to return football to the fans.

The new brand took design inspiration directly from a dominant shape in football culture - the triangle. Celebrating fans, we used this metaphor for fan power to guide our new brand. From the new logo, bespoke typography, colour palette, grid & motion system that guides all composition.

We launched the new brand with guerilla tactics in the homes of fans; at the biggest home games of the season. As fans took to the streets and terraces, they were greeted with 20ft ‘tifo’ flags emblazoned with the new branding in their team’s colours. Traditional merch sellers outside stadiums gave away custom merch. At the same time partner clubs posted their bespoke logo colourways on their socials, proudly announcing that they were ‘in the club’.

Triangles were showing up everywhere in the lives of football fans, and when excitement peaked, we launched a film, fronted by Rapper Dave deconstructing the logo.

The new global brand identity was embraced across matches, clubs, fans, players and gamers. Labelled by the BBC as the biggest rebrand in entertainment history.

EA Sports FC outperformed expectations delivering 7% year-over-year net bookings growth as momentum continued through the FC brand transition.

According to the Financial Times, 6.8m people took part in EA Sports FC 24’s early access-period - 25% more than FIFA 23’s early access period had attracted. It’s their biggest early-access audience to date.

Since the launch the game has consistently featured in the most played titles on Xbox & PlayStation gathering 11.3m users within its first week of release. EA Sports FC 24 had the brand’s strongest game launch ever - with statistics topping any of its previous launches with FIFA.