Letting the lion roar

England Fencing are the home nation governing body for England. The governing body for Great Britain is British Fencing. England Fencing exist to help promote, develop and encourage the sport of fencing in all its forms. They came to us during lockdown with a project to develop the look of England Fencing to primarily be seen over digital channels. Part of this was to develop a new website, but first to look at a revitalised identity.

A digital focus

The brief

England Fencing has for years been rudderless in terms of its identity. Every new initiative having its own steer on the look and feel for fencing’s home nation governing body for England.

It has a website that is jam packed full of information, but difficult to navigate through. With the constraints on the time of the organisation it was decided to streamline down the website. To deliver the less information better. Making it simple to find and easy to digest.

With the Commonwealth Games for fencing coming shortly, the project was to develop the identity and then deliver a revitalised website.

What we did

Firstly we asked the board of England Fencing a range of open questions; what they saw the job of England Fencing, What they’d like to see on the website, What the new identity should encompass and where did they see the new identity living?

We also asked what they saw as visually ‘English’

After a peer review stage of the English sporting governing bodies we settled on the route taken by England Judo, Bowls, Cricket and Football – using the lion. It is a symbol from the coat of arms of England, a link made synonymous by England Football (three lions).

Our solution was to create a lion who’s mane is made from an abstract rendering of the three fencing weapons (Foil, Epee and Sabre). We formalised the colour palette, to just England Fencing Red, Grey and a white. Add to this a supergraphic texture and strong, bold typography and the final identity works across all touch points.

Then creating a set of elements that can help differentiate the separate weapon teams finishes off this contemporary identity. The final website is designed around a simple existing WordPress template so that it would be easily updated by anyone.

Implementing this across apparel, print and digital expressions to create a modern and recognisable identity for the fencers, referees and coaches of England.