Over a year of listening shaped [Alkemy]+’s identity for Palermo FC

Palermo FC was founded in 1900, refounded in 2019 after a financial collapse, and has been majority-owned by City Football Group since 2022. The badge that it adopted at that refoundation is an eagle’s head with three pink and black feathers, the symbol of the city, sitting in Palermo’s coat of arms. The club wanted a stronger position internationally, and for its bond with the city to come through in its brand. Milan-based [Alkemy]+, the creative practice of Alkemy Group, came on board to develop the brand strategy and visual identity system. “The brief was not to redesign Palermo FC, but to give shape, language and consistency to what Palermo FC already is,” explains Chief Marketing & Communication Officer Gaetano Lombardo. The badge, the pink and black, and the emotional bond with the city were left where they were. The club needed a deeper strategic platform and a system that would work across digital, retail, matchday and institutional communication. Nothing was considered for the project unless it came directly from Palermo, be it from the club’s history, the city, the supporters or the listening process. Lombardo adds that the work challenged “our own habit of thinking about Palermo mainly through emotion” and forced the club to “turn that intensity into a system.” The listening process lasted for more than a year, hosting conversations with supporters, players, technical staff, management, club legends, employees and partners. It distilled the club’s values into four pillars. They are Mosaic, Pink and Black, Rise and Fly, and Global Family, with every output of the project, in typography, colour, layout or photography, having to answer to all four. “The early interviews opened our eyes to a genuinely special club, one where the fan culture has a centrality and an intensity that’s rare anywhere in the world,” details [Alkemy]+’s Chief Creative Officer Marco Tironi. “Every stakeholder we spoke to made it clear that Palermo’s story, the club’s and the city’s, has always carried a pull towards rising again, the same instinct as the eagle that symbolises it. That capacity to lift its head back up is where Rise and Fly came from.”