Oliver Bacon

Project roles

Brand positioning and creative concept
Icon development and art direction
Wordmark design
Colour palette design
Graphic language development
Guidelines design
Artworking and asset delivery
Client liaison

Positioned at the very heart of ice hockey, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) is the governing body of the fastest team sport on earth. It delivers championships, sets the rules and supports the sport from the grassroots to elite levels. The IIHF approached TwelfthMan to reimagine its brand for the future and create an identity that connects with its diverse audience including players, coaches, national governing bodies and above all, fans.

Through a series of workshops with the IIHF team, we explored the IIHF’s position within the global game. These insights informed the creation of brand values, a brand narrative, and an overarching essence, Home Ice. Serving both as an internal rallying cry and an outward-facing message, Home Ice captures the idea that the rink is a place for every player, official, coach, and fan around the world.

Brand narrative: Written by Michael Harrold, Head of Editorial at TwelfthMan

The IIHF logo required various updates to simplify, clarify and modernise. We broke the evolution down into a series of schematics that helped to explain and rationalise the changes, before beginning development on the player icon and the wordmark.

I worked on a range of development player poses that helped define the final direction. I worked sketches up into more developed vector options that helped bring stakeholders on board with the idea of updating their logo.

After a pose and direction was agreed, we reached out to renowned icon illustrator Chris Mitchell at Epic Icons to help us develop and refine the mark. The journey took us through multiple iterations, working with Chris and the client team to refine everything from the player helmet down to the skates. The result was a clean, timeless icon that represents male, female and junior hockey players worldwide.

Final IIHF icon design: Chris Mitchell

The IIHF team wanted a wordmark that could stand alone, allowing them to extract it from the logo and use it to identify their competitions and initiatives. A key objective was to ensure an immediate visual connection to the sport, so that seeing IIHF would instantly evoke the game.

I worked up multiple concepts for the wordmark, exploring different ways of incorporating ice hockey iconography. The chosen concept features a hockey puck striking through the letterforms and becoming the crossbar of the letter F. The puck integration feels playful and energetic without the hockey reference being forced. I then refined the wordmark, testing multiple iterations before crafting the final version.

Wordmark concepts

Wordmark refinements

Final IIHF wordmark

The IIHF graphic language was built around the creative concept, that I helped to define at the beginning of the process, 'The Power of the Rink'. Utilising the distinctive visual forms from the world of ice hockey, and remixing and reimagining them to create a flexible toolkit, became the basis for exploration.

When all the new brand elements came together, the IIHF brand felt refreshed and re-energised, equipped to inspire future generations of hockey players and fans.