ENGLAND RUGBY

To mark the special milestone of 150 years of rugby union in England, we worked with England Rugby to create a heritage rose that would feature on a commemorative shirt to be worn in the opening Calcutta Cup game of the 2021 Guinness Six Nations, as well as featuring in other anniversary celebrations throughout the year.

The rose has been synonymous with English rugby since the game began. We worked with England Rugby and rugby historians to delve through the archives and study the various roses that have featured on the players' shirts since the inception of the game in 1871.

To give the rose a heritage feel, we began to look at drawing it in a wood-cut style, and collaborated with renowned illustrator Chris Wormell to help craft and refine the details of the rose until we landed on a version that felt iconic and beautiful.

The rose is to be used throughout the anniversary year across a wide range of printed and digital applications, so to ensure the rose worked on both light and dark backgrounds we created two versions, with each being drawn at three different sizes. 

We wanted all the anniversary celebrations to feel like a modern interpretation of heritage, and be seen as looking to the future as well as the past. For this reason we developed a serif version of the Tusker typeface currently used in the master England Rugby brand.