Brand of the Day: JKR Cleans Up Foot Locker’s Ref Logo

The world’s sports are currently on hold due to COVID-19, and in his free time Foot Locker’s signature “striper” seems to have gone in for a makeover.

Foot Locker emerged as an offshoot of a Woolworth-owned company back in 1974, and today maintains a portfolio of brands across 3,129 retails stores in 27 counties.

If you’ve ever gone into a Foot Locker, you’re familiar with the gaggle of referees inside—the employees. The theme extends to the Foot Locker logo, which the ref seems to have formally stepped into in 1988, with the launch of the Woolworth Athletic Group.

Thanks to a refresh by Jones Knowles Ritchie, the ref is looking quite dapper these days, with an overall refined sense of shape; fewer stripes; a tightened haircut; a shirt that dropped a complicating pocket; and more.

Still authoritative, it’s the best the ref has ever looked. (With the exception, of course, of the time the

brand switched to a female referee for the Women’s World Cup.)