To create a bespoke design marking the club’s 150th anniversary, Wolves turned to lifelong fan Archie Hicklin, and he produced the goods with an eye-catching piece of work fitting of the occasion.
As preparations began for the club’s significant milestone, the designer was approached to design a lock up and pair of fonts, which encapsulated Wolves and its rich history, and would be used throughout the 2026/27 season and beyond.
Archie has been a Wolves season ticket holder since the age of nine, having first been taken to Molineux by his dad, and has seats from the old Waterloo Road Stand in his family home, which also features an extensive Wolves programme and memorabilia collection, built by the whole family.
So, Archie had the knowledge and passion for the project, but also, naturally, the skillset and commitment, which allowed him to link up with the in-house design team at Molineux, and SUDU for the 2026/27 home kit, which features the lock up on the back of the neck.
The design and fonts – named Goldthorn for larger typography and Molineux for body text – are being rolled out throughout the summer and will be used for all written communication across the celebrations.
For Archie, seeing his lock up on the club’s anniversary kit, which was modelled by new signings Keiran Trippier and the returning Raul Jimenez, provided an emotional moment for a boyhood Old Gold fan who has now played his part in this significant milestone.
“There are two things I've dedicated my life to – design and Wolves, for better or for worse, and I felt like it was an opportunity to use the former for the latter,” he revealed. “Hopefully supporters will feel that there's something that's been unearthed and derived from the city, from the fans and from the club, but not a one-to-one clone of something from the past.
“Looking at it now, it doesn't feel necessarily like something that I've designed, but elements that have been pulled out and assembled together, and something that's appeared before rather than something that's been architected.
“The focal points – the fonts and the lock up – were all essentially reworkings of things that previously existed. Obviously, there’s a creative element and skill, but they were all drawn from stuff that people had been doing within the club maybe 75 years ago which was very nice.”
The humble Archie was keen to stress that his work was inspired by 150 years of Wolves content. Starting work in March 2025, he spent three months researching, three months developing the lock up and one year on the two typefaces, developed through his type studio, Hèso Type.
To his approach, research was always going to be crucial, and time with his dad and his Wolves collection, and with club historian Peter Crump at the Wolves Museum and city archives, proved invaluable.
“For me, nothing would be as important as being able to do something for Wolves, because it's my club. I knew that there was a huge amount of pressure, so it wouldn't have been right to just pull something out of the archive
“I went to my dad and asked if we could get everything out, because in the attic it's all stuff from when he was a kid. There were rosettes and flags, and all different memorabilia.
“I was also really lucky to go and talk to Pete and be taken around the archives, and it was like unearthing a treasure trove, because Pete knows everything about Wolves, so it was an absolutely amazing moment – like a dream to be able to go back and look at everything.”
That extensive look into the past proved Archie’s inspiration. He was determined to ensure his work canvassed multiple eras and resonated with as many fans as possible, aware that Wolves means something different to every single supporter.
For him the 2003 play-off team was ‘his team’, for his dad it was much earlier and for his teenage cousin it’s the 2018/19 group which Jimenez famously starred in. Wolves can’t be defined to one team or one era, and it was with that at the forefront of his mind Archie attacked the project.
“I felt a lot of responsibility to look backwards a lot. The first thing was how do you put 150 years into a single mark? You're looking at the past 150 years and everyone that's connected, of course that's the key part, but you're also in this present. I was looking really closely at the programmes from the ‘50s and early ‘60s because they were made in the city and then I realised they weren’t contemporary to the ‘50s, it was almost like replicating a design from the ‘20s or ‘30s,
“There's a continual loop, so I think it was important not to focus on one specific time. If you're 90 or if you're nine, you're still a Wolves fan, and your memories of Wolves are going to be personal to you, so I tried to hook on to a few different elements that everyone could somehow resonate with, and that was the aim with the lock mark, with the nod to lock making. The Goldthorn font is redrawn from the cover of the ‘50s programme and the body front came from the top of the old Molineux gates.
“I always think what's really interesting about lettering is that you read the font before you read the word, so I always like this idea of that association of memory being really close to typography as well. You get old programmes with writing in them, with the other scores that day, or who was playing, and it’s a personal memory.”
As we edge closer to the 2026/27 and the beginning of the club’s celebrations, supporters will see Archie’s work, whether that be online, around Molineux or in the matchday programme, while his lockup will feature on every kit worn on the pitch or in the stands.
For Archie, he’s excited to mark his club’s 150th year, and he hopes his work can be appreciated not only this season, but for years, and anniversaries, to come.
“What a great time it is to have this anniversary, it feels like that bridge between the next stage of Wolves.
“Hopefully when we get to 175th anniversary, or 200th anniversary, when people look back in another 50 years, they are going to feel the same way, that this design was considered. Can they see the threads that had been pulled through? It’s trying to continue this legacy, so it'll be nice this year, but I'm wondering also how it be like looking back in 50 years and I hope it’s well.”
