Zenith Logo PNG
The “Zenit” logo says, “Club members are masters of the ball. Opponents can only watch as the team leads the game and makes passes toward the goal. The players’ passes are accurate, and goals in the opponent’s goal are inevitable.
On May 25, 1925, football competitions began at the Leningrad Metal Plant, marking Zenit’s origin. The factory produced turbines, and its workers formed the first team. In the 1930s, it played as “Stalinets.” In 1936, another factory team, Bolshevik, joined the Zenit sports society, and by 1939, all structures were unified under the Zenit name.
In 1944, during World War II, Zenit won the USSR Cup, defeating CSKA Moscow in the final. After the war, the club stayed in the top division but remained mid-table, with its best finish coming in 1958 (fourth place). In 1967, despite finishing last, the team avoided relegation due to political factors.
Pavel Sadyrin led a breakthrough in 1984. Zenit won the Soviet championship with a 4:1 victory over Metalist, reached the USSR Cup final, and added the Super Cup in 1985. The club made its European debut in 1981 against Dynamo Dresden.
After the USSR collapsed, the club faced financial instability, was relegated in 1994, and returned to the top flight in 1996. In 1999, with Gazprom’s support, Zenit beat Dynamo Moscow to win the Russian Cup.
Under Dick Advocaat, Zenit won the Russian Premier League in 2007. In the 2007–08 UEFA Cup, the team defeated Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich, then beat Rangers 2:0 in the final. In 2008, Zenit won the UEFA Super Cup, beating Manchester United.
Under Luciano Spalletti and André Villas-Boas, the club won later titles, including league titles in 2010, 2012, and 2015, and a run of six consecutive titles starting in 2018.
Meaning and History
All the club’s logos, except the first one, bear its modern name. It sits inside a makeshift triangle popularly known as the Zenit Arrow. In 2015, the “arrow” was involved in a minor scandal: the Daily Mail included it among the 10 ugliest football emblems. Zenit did not stand for it and said the Daily Mail has the ugliest newspaper logo.
What is Zenit?
Zenit is a Russian soccer club, founded in 1925 or, according to Russian sources, in 1914. It holds a leading position in its country and plays in the Premier League. In 2022, FIFA and UEFA expelled it and suspended its membership in the European Clubs Association.
1925 – 1936
The first logo features a banner with the Russian-language inscription “Stalinets,” referencing the club’s steelmaking past. Although the flag is folded in two places, the letters don’t get lost in the folds. As a result, the word reads as if written on a perfectly flat canvas.
The banner is divided into three parts, painted in white (in the center) and blue (at the edges). Archival materials show that the blue shades on the Zenit symbols could be any shade; an electrician often used sky blue.
1940 – 1977
During the Second World War, the famous Zenit Arrow appeared. This happened after the voluntary sports society Stalinets officially changed its name to Zenit. The text sign from that period looks unusual: two long lines extend from the first letter to the right and connect at the end of the word. All other letters are inside the resulting non-standard quadrangle. The logo’s main color is blue, but two more versions were used on the T-shirts: red and white.
1978 – 1989
In 1978, the club redesigned the Zenit arrow by changing the font and arranging the long lines. The first letter also fits into an impromptu triangle, and the last one merges with the edge because its upper horizontal stroke coincides with the end of the upper strip. The second and third letters connect according to the canons of calligraphy, though the inscription is hardly calligraphic.
1988 – 1991
As the Soviet Union changed, the club adopted a new logo featuring a yellow ship and a black-and-white soccer ball. The three-masted ship was taken from the St. Petersburg Admiralty building.
The Zenit Arrow remained centered, but the font changed slightly. The top line breaks before the last letter, then restarts. Around the emblem, on an invisible ring, the sports organization’s status (football club) and the city it represents (Leningrad) are written.
1992 – 1995
In 1992, all elements of the logo disappeared except for the famous “arrow.”
1996 – 1997
When the club earned promotion to the top flight in 1996, the ball-and-ship emblem returned. However, the emblem does not mention Leningrad; it only mentions Saint Petersburg because the city had already been renamed.
1998 – 2013
At the end of the 20th century, the designers made the graphic sign dark blue, shaved the boat, and placed a long inscription in a broken ring divided into three fragments.
2013 – 2014
The new Zenit logo was presented in one of the LMZ workshops on July 11, 2013. Specialists from London-based branding agency Wolff Olins worked with Russian typography expert Ilya Ruderman on the design. They created their version of the “arrow”: the top line goes straight out of the last letter and down, forming an acute angle. To the club’s right, the name “1925” appears, the official year of Zenit’s foundation.
2015 – today
On May 17, 2015, a version of the logo appeared with a gold five-pointed star. The team received this distinction for five national championship wins.
Font and Colors
A series of logo updates did not change the fact that the so-called “Zenit arrow” remains the centerpiece. It has an arrowhead shape, though its design has changed a lot lately. Earlier, the word sat between two lines that began with the first letter and met at a common point; now only one strip starts at the last letter and bends sharply downward.
Font designer Ilya Ruderman left the club’s name handwritten because this is its main distinguishing feature. The palette’s main shade is FC Zenit blue (#26acf5), used for the inscription and complemented by two other colors: white (for the background) and gold (for the star).