What it had to solve
RCD Espanyol, founded in 1900 and long the counterpoint to its more globally famous city rival, wanted a rebrand anchored in local Catalan culture rather than generic athletic codes.
The idea
Turn the club's signature vertical stripes into the inline strokes of a custom typeface, Perico Type, so the letters themselves carry the kit.
How it works
Murri studied early-20th-century Catalan modernist poster art and built the system around Perico Type by Gerard Sierra, whose ligatures, variable widths and tabular numerals run through kits, matchday graphics, the app, motion graphics and a bespoke sound identity by Pere Joan Company.
What it did
Unveiled 30 September 2026 across kits, stadium signage, editorial, digital and broadcast touchpoints; the parakeet emblem, 'Pell de Perico' and 'Rebels D'Arrel' slogans carry through. No commercial results reported yet.
Background
On 30 September 2026, RCD Espanyol de Barcelona unveiled a full brand identity by Barcelona design studio Murri. Instead of generic sports branding, the system draws on Catalan modernism — the regional Art Nouveau of Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol that shaped Barcelona's streets — and welds it to the club's most ownable asset: the blue-and-white stripes of its kit.
The typographic heart is Perico Type, a custom face developed with type designer Gerard Sierra. Its letterforms translate the club's vertical stripes into dynamic multi-line inline strokes, structurally linking every headline, scoreboard and shirt number back to the kit. Tabular numerals keep player numbers and scores legible on stadium signage and broadcast graphics.
The identity extends across matchday kits with striped numerals and a Catalan flag tab, editorial design in electric royal blue and deep navy, the club's app and social channels, kinetic line animations set to sound design by Pere Joan Company, and the refreshed parakeet emblem alongside slogans like 'Pell de Perico' (Skin of the Parakeet) and 'Rebels D'Arrel' (Rebels from the Root).
Why it lands
The core move is typographic: the stripes are not decorated onto the brand, they are the letterforms, giving unusually deep integration between kit and identity.
It answers a real strategic problem — sharing a city with a football giant — by claiming Catalan modernist heritage the rival cannot.
It follows the sports-branding shift from generic athletic aesthetics to rooted cultural narratives, with custom type as the cornerstone.
The launch is a full system, from jersey numerals to sound design, not just a new crest.
What you can take
A heritage nobody else can claim beats generic athletic codes: Espanyol differentiated itself from its global city rival by designing from Catalan modernism instead of sports clichés.
Since then
The identity launched on 30 September 2026 and began rolling out across kits, editorial and digital channels. Murri has published the project as a flagship case study. No fan-reaction data, commercial results or award records were available in the reporting.
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