Premier League logo: New 'naked' badge revealed as Barclays name replaced by Twitter-friendly branding

First there was Carling and Barclaycard, and then just plain old Barclays. But now the Premier League has decided to drop a sponsor's name altogether from its logos after revealing new icons for the 2016/17 season.

The branding uses bright colours – pink, blue, green and yellow – and keeps its Premier League lion. Some of the new branding uses just "PL" – making it more suitable for football fans who post their opinions about the league and its matches on Twitter. It marks the end of an era for Barclays, whose involvement with the league dates back to 2004.

Premier League bosses decided to go for a sponsor-bare approach – and revert back to the sponsor-less approach originally used for the league's inception in 1992 – after completing a huge £8bn TV deal that will run between 2016 and 2019.

Premier League managing director Richard Masters said: "From next season, we will move away from title sponsorship and the competition will be known simply as the Premier League, a decision which provided the opportunity to consider how we wanted to present ourselves as an organisation and competition.

"We are very pleased with the outcome: a visual identity which is relevant, modern and flexible that will help us celebrate everyone that makes the Premier League. We look forward to sharing more details of our new positioning in the coming months."