Venezia FC’s Athenian cousin, Athens Kallithea FC is presented with visual identity and kit collection by Bureau Borsche.

Ted Philipakos has been the visionary behind the disruptive rise of Venezia FC in recent years, but over the last 18 months the New York-born Greek-American creative director has been quietly working on a parallel project in another European cultural capital that’s closer to his roots.

 

 

This time leading the takeover and transformation of a football club in Athens, which has now presented a new name — Athens Kallithea FC — along with a new visual identity designed by Bureau Borsche and 22/23 home and away shirts designed by Borsche and produced by Kappa that exhibit the high aesthetic standard of Venezia but in a unique style of its own, as the team prepare for a promotion push to join the likes of Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, and AEK Athens.

 

 

Founded in 1966, the club are based in the Athenian district of Kallithea (meaning “beautiful view” in Greek), playing 1 km south of the Acropolis at the small but distinct Grigoris Lambrakis Stadium, commonly referred to as “El Paso” in reference to Clint Eastwood’s 1965 Spaghetti Western film For a Few Dollars More, due to the stadium having been built on the site of a quarry and featuring tall rock that runs along the north side of the pitch.

 

Athens Kallithea Home

 

While renaming the club as Athens Kallithea FC from Kallithea FC, Munich-based design studio Bureau Borsche were engaged to develop a new visual identity, which features a stylised “AK” crest as the centrepiece. The club’s traditional blue and white have also been updated, while gold was introduced as a fresh complementary colour.

“At the core of the mission of Athens Kallithea FC is to contribute in our own small way to a repositioning of football in Greece.”

 

 

And as an encore to Venezia’s acclaimed kit collection this season, the 22/23 AKFC home and away shirts could be late entries on many best-of-the-year lists, as both shirts express a modern minimalist take on classic Greek aesthetics.

 

Athens Kallithea Away

 

The dual campaign, shot by Chris Kontos and styled by Daphne Iliaki, finds beauty in the quirky and modest nature of the urban environment in the centre of Athens, consciously turning away from its more celebrated aspects despite a period of record tourism and continual international features on the city from The New York Times to Mr. Porter.

 

 

AKFC begin their league campaign in October. Last season — the new group’s first full season since taking over — the club finished in second place in Greece’s second division, their best season in 16 years since they last played in the top flight. Philipakos is directing the club alongside his brother Peter, who played professionally in Greece.

“The game has a beautiful heritage in Greece, but that’s been tortured over the last 15 years, which was set in motion by UEFA systematically marginalising football outside of the top five leagues, and made worse by the country’s most important stakeholders not working together and generally falling out of touch.”

- Philipakos.

 

The 22/23 AKFC home and away shirts are available now on akfc66.gr.