What Sheffield Wednesday's next club badge could look like - according to AI | OneFootball

FLW asked ChatGPT to come up with a new badge for Sheffield Wednesday, a club that could do with a little reinvention and rebranding at the moment.

Sheffield Wednesday have changed their club badge more than once throughout their history, and the likelihood is that they will do so again in the future.

Sheffield Wednesday didn't even have the name of their city in their name until 1929. Prior to that, they were just The Wednesday Football Club. The earliest evidence of any sort of badge on their shirts is believed to have been for the 1935 FA Cup Final, but that was the coat of arms for the city rather than anything bespoke.

The club's current badge is a recreation of their first, which was first used from 1956 to 1970. The club had a new one designed in 1973 - the owl itself became known as Ozzie - with the designer, 19-year-old art advertising design student Robert Walker, saying at the time: "I think Ozzie has both an aggressive and defensive look about him. But he's also a pretty wise looking bird. I hope he brings Wednesday lots of luck."

The new design was used with minor tweaks until 1995, when a more traditional-looking badge was introduced. Ozzie, however, returned just four years later and stayed in place until the current design was brought back by club owner Dejphon Chansiri in 2016.

What AI thinks the new Sheffield Wednesday Badge could look like

All football clubs have one eye on their branding these days, so we've asked ChatGPT to come up with a replacement for Wednesday.

And the result it gave us is... far from implausible. a more stylised, cleaner owl is back, this time inside a shield, with gold inflections added as per their current badge and the club's motto, "Consilio et Animis" - "by wisdom and courage" - added below it. The badge also incorporates the blue and white stripes that make up the club colours.

Wednesday's AI badge is a mixture of old and new

Branding is increasingly important to clubs, as they seek to market themselves to fans, both old and new. And with Dejphon Chansiri having been the driving force behind the club going back their new badge and takeover talk in the air, any new owners of the club might want to apply a similar change themselves.

Fashions have changed over time, and the designs picked by clubs have often reflected the artistic stylings of the eras in which they were first produced.

In recent years, there has been a move away from the more intricate designs of the past towards simpler - and in many cases retro - looks. Simpler designs with clear lines are easier to scale up and down in terms of size, and are more easily recognisable than more ornate designs.

ChatGPT seems to have recognised this with its Sheffield Wednesday design. The original owl that marks its centrepiece has lost its eyelashes, while its furrowed brow gives it a moderately threatening air. It's a combination of old and new which would provide a new, cleaner look for the 21st century. It's a rebirth that the club could do with, and in more than one way at the moment.