The designer behind football’s coolest rebrands: Mirko Borsche

Mirko Borsche founded Bureau Borsche in 2007 in Munich intending to bring a refreshing ‘’international Bavarian’’ vibe to design. The company gained recognition and won several international design awards for its work with Balenciaga, BMW, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Moncler and Supreme. But it took a long time for Borsche to get involved in football. ‘’Bureau Borsche’s work in football really came out of nothing,’’ Borsche said in an interview with Soccerbible. ‘’I mean, I’m a big football fan, but I never really thought there’s a way of getting into the industry – it just happened.’’

Inter Milan’s rebrand

Borsche’s first involvement in football came during the Covid pandemic when he became responsible for Inter Milan’s rebrand and new logo. However, his first work as a designer in football wasn’t particularly liked by everybody. ‘’Italian football, as you’ll know, it’s quite conservative and very traditional. It’s the most democratic sport you can have because it’s through all ages, from two years to 102 years, right? All different kind of incomes, all different kind of jobs – everybody could be a football fan. So that was the most challenging thing – accepting that you’re going to do something that a lot of people are going to hate, even if you’re doing the best job you can.’’

Inter Milan have revealed their new logo. 🔵⚫

What do you think compared to the old one? pic.twitter.com/ub6dP2k5Di

— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) March 30, 2021

‘’The second most challenging part was that Inter released that logo in the middle of the Corona pandemic. So they’re asking us if we could be part of a press conference, which is quite unusual for a design company because normally you’re always in the background, which is good.’’

 ‘’I got back into my office and my Instagram was completely full with Italians reposting my name and calling me all different kinds of names – everything you can imagine’’

Borsche thought the press conference was a more private ordeal, but it turned out that it was broadcast live on the Italian TV channel Rai Uno. As a consequence, the German designer received a lot of hate on social media. ‘’I got back into my office and my Instagram was completely full with Italians reposting my name and calling me all different kinds of names – everything you can imagine.’’

It went so far that Borsche had to shut down his Instagram. ‘’It was actually a bit panicky for a while because that went on for about a week or two,’’ said Borsche. ‘’I had to shut down my Insta because it was just relentless. I mean, it’s not really nice hearing one bad thing in there, you know, but hearing thousands like it, that didn’t stop…’’

Receiving threats

Borsche was worried he might never be able to go to Milan anymore as he and his family and friends even received threats. ‘’There was a bar in Munich that I liked going to, and one of the bartenders was Italian, but I didn’t know he was an Inter fan, right?,’’ Borsche recalls. ‘’So this guy was coming up to me and was like, ‘’what the fuck did you do to my club?’’ And there’s lots of Italians in Munich…’’

‘’So it was extremely challenging for me, and for our whole team because they were threatening me, my family, everything. And because I’m not a politician, it’s really easy to find out where I live.’’ 

However, two weeks after the new crest was released, all hate disappeared when Inter won Serie A and reached the final of the UEFA Champions League the following season. This season, Inter Milan won another league title and could add a second star to their crest, which helped the fans accept the new design. ‘’If you want to be a part of the full success now you have to embrace the new crest, and that definitely helped us, I think; the new design went hand in hand with the success of the club.’’

Venezia FC

His first experience with Inter Milan didn’t stop Borsche from working with more football clubs as he started to work with Venezia FC. ‘’Ted Philipakos came in at Venezia and had an instant impact, switching from Nike to Kappa, having a lot of success with that 21/22 season. Then they brought us into the game. At first, we just did the website and the social media graphics for the club. Then Ted asked us if we could do the kits and the rebranding of Venezia with a new crest. My main concern was just the amount of kit drops there are each season, and how do you stand out and do something special? So Ted and I decided to do something extremely classy.’’ 

‘’The 21/22 season, which everybody liked, there was a lot going on in the kit designs: you had a marble structure, small golden triangles, you had the big Venezia sponsor on top of it, you had the crest in full colour. It was the same for the away too. So yeah, I just steered back and I was like: ‘Ok, let’s do almost nothing’. And that worked out.’’ 

It was the first time Borsche created football kits after having already designed clothing collections for the likes of Supreme in the past. However, designing a football kit comes with a very different challenge. ‘’If you do something crazy for Supreme, you know, it almost can’t be crazy enough. If you do something for Balenciaga, or all these other brands it was always very much into fashion and very much for fashion-interested people. I think that’s way easier than doing something for football, where you don’t know whom you’re addressing it to, because Venezia has quite a small fan base, right? But still, we knew that the club could do a lot of money in selling the jersey as a souvenir to tourists and in other markets, because the city of Venice has that myth around it.’’

Trailblazers

When Ted Philipakos left Venezia FC and started to work with Athens Kallithea, Bureau Borsche also started working with the Greek football club. Together with Venezia FC, Athens Kallithea has become a trailblazer and trendsetter within football. However, Borsche was not always fully aware of the influence he was having in football. ‘’I think it’s starting to work on me, but in the beginning, certainly, it just felt like a coincidence. But now looking back? I somehow get the feeling that it’s not and that it could be a bit our fault!’’ 

This season’s away kit of Athens Kallithea is the most beautiful one Bureau Borsche has designed in Borsche’s opinion. ‘’You could wear it with a suit, it’s so clean.’’ The 23/24 Venezia third kit inspired by the gondoliers of Venice, also remains very special to Borsche as he was scared people would dislike it. ‘’It has that Ralph Lauren touch, right? But it’s also very touristic, you know, like we did something extremely touristic for Venezia. I was a German designer doing something which is so traditional in Italy and it was still accepted, nobody killed us for that. I think there was maybe a good story behind it, because the client really loved it and the moment we started producing it, I was like, oh, hang on, maybe it’s really a stupid idea and maybe the gondoliers will really hate it. But in the end, they were quite happy with it and they said it’s the first time there’s some appreciation for their job, so that was nice.’’

‘’It’s seeing a football club as more than a football club – it’s a brand, opening it up to all markets’’ 

The key to Bureau Borsche’s success in football all links back to Borsche’s vision and continuing on the same path even after the hate and threats he received for the company’s rebrand of Inter Milan. ‘’I would always go the same way because I think what we did, I think it’s an intelligent way, like a lot of English clubs are doing in the Premier League now. It’s seeing a football club as more than a football club – it’s a brand, opening it up to all markets.’’ 

La Liga and Premier League

Bureau Borsche has more exciting projects in football lined up soon. ‘’We’re working on Young Boys. We did their warm-up jersey and third jersey this season, and next season we’ll do a jersey and a fan collection. And Athens Kallithea will carry on for another year at least. We’re going to do something with a La Liga club. Then we’re talking to several other clubs right now, which I can’t really talk about yet, but it’s going to be quite exciting!’’ 

Mirko Borsche also hopes to work with a Premier League club and a North American club. ‘’That would be just so good. I lived in London for four years and somehow I totally missed out on going to a game – I’ve never been to an English stadium in my whole life. That’s such a pity. So yeah, obviously a Premier League club, and second on my list is a North American club. One of these crazy North American clubs.’’