NBA Logo: The NBA logo is a unique institution. Most fans’ initial thought when considering the National Basketball League is the eye-catching white silhouette of “Logoman” dribbling the ball.
Similar to many of the best sports logos, the NBA logo has only achieved its proper iconic status through tenacity. Although the NBA was founded in 1946, the American Basketball Association (ABA) fought the NBA for the first several years. The NBA eventually triumphed following a merger in 1976, and the ABA essentially vanished.
One may argue, and many have, that the NBA’s strong brand identification established with the introduction of its famous emblem in 1969 helped the league achieve the supremacy it still enjoys today.
This emblem’s fascinating origin story and the way it has changed over time to reflect the League’s changing personality serve as a powerful case for the long-lasting power of good design. Take a closer look at how the iconic NBA logo came to be:
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A legend is born in 1969.
In 1968, a designer by the name of Jerry Dior came up with a classic style after spending the afternoon with some marker pens. However, it was Dior, not the NBA, who changed the Major League Baseball logo.
It’s a devilishly straightforward yet successful design. Dior’s MLB emblem, which is made completely of patriotic red, white, and blue, employs negative space to sculpt a silhouette of a batter just before his swing. Alan Siegel, the branding expert who oversaw Dior at the time, remembered in an interview with NPR that they submitted the design for the baseball committee’s leaders’ approval, and they got it rather quickly.
J. Walter Kennedy, the NBA’s commissioner at the time, decided he wanted his league to adopt this eye-catching revamp after taking one glance at it. He turned to the expert and solicited the aid of Alan Siegel, who had really been a successful basketball player in high school but had chosen to pursue academics at Cornell instead of continuing his playing career.
Kennedy thought linking the NBA with the well-known, all-American MLB may help give it a little boost since, according to Siegel, the league “was having a lot of trouble with their reputation at that time.”
A white silhouette on a red and blue backdrop would do just well, Siegel decided, and there was no need to change what was already effective. Finding the silhouette was going to be difficult. So, Siegel requested Sport Magazine’s editor Dick Schaap for permission to search through his picture archives. Schaap is a close friend of Siegel’s. Photographer Wen Roberts’ shot of shooting guard Jerry West playing for the Lakers caught Siegel’s attention after sifting through innumerable photos of different NBA players striking various positions.
In retrospect, Siegel reflected, “I was drawn to it because it was lovely and vertical, and it had him bending and dribbling… had a little motion to it.”
I saw a few brands with hands raised around the goal and the ball. I focused on the hook shot of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I took a look at a few people I remembered, like Wilt Chamberlain, Tom Havlicek, Tom Gola, and others. The West one simply seemed to work so well.
Siegel made a design using a player reference image and submitted it to the NBA without mentioning that it was influenced by the West. “When I presented Kennedy, he agreed, and the project was finished. Siegel remembered that it may have taken 30 minutes (anyone currently working on logo design would have felt a real sting of envy there).
This dramatic rebranding gave the NBA the edge over the American Basketball Association (ABA) and made it the undisputed home of American basketball. It became instantly famous. The ball’s positioning and the beautiful flow of the figure combine to produce an absolutely sublime mark that has now been used for more than 50 years, almost exactly the same.
Even decades later, Siegel claims, even after creating hundreds of other designs, many of them winning awards, he is still introduced to rooms as the creator of the NBA logo. His answer? “I can live with it,”
Though, not everybody is. Jerry West, the athlete shown in the silhouette, has been open about his dislike of the logo and has stated a desire for the NBA to remove it. He stated in an interview, “I wish that the fact that I am the logo had never leaked. I don’t like to do anything that draws attention to myself, I swear.”
Although nearly every basketball fan and their mother knows who he is, the NBA has long agreed and has actually been quite reticent to recognise that the logo is West. In official literature, he was and still is frequently referred to as “Logoman.” David Stern, the NBA’s commissioner from 1984 to 2014, was once encountered by Siegel when he was on vacation. Stern made it obvious that he did not believe West should be recognised as the inspiration for the design.
There has never been a clear explanation for the NBA’s lack of candour. Maybe they were worried about possible copyright problems. Or, as Siegel hypothesised, they were concerned that Jerry West may demand payment, despite the fact that his actions over the years have shown that he very probably wouldn’t.
However, despite some of the odd moments in its past, the NBA logo is without a doubt a classic. It assisted in propelling the league to the dominant position it holds today, and the fact that it has undergone so little modification in the more than 50 years since its creation serves as a prime illustration of why you shouldn’t tamper with perfection.
2017: The most minor refresh possible
It took the NBA 48 years to feel the need to make even the slightest modification to Siegel’s logo. The League said in 2017 that it would be implementing a minor—and we do mean minor—refresh of the logo across all of its media.
The central element of the logo, which features West’s silhouette in the foreground, remains unchanged. A “modified version of Action font, customised for the league” was used as the new typeface for the letters “NBA.”
In comparison to earlier, this typeface was a little higher and thinner. The league also used the chance to update the colours a little, adding somewhat deeper blue and red tones. Although it’s unlikely that you would notice a difference unless you compared the two side by side, the modification was made to increase the logo’s visibility across digital brand materials.
2020: The unaffected logo change
One of the most important occasions in the recent history of the NBA logo involves no actual alteration, but a much-discussed proposal for one. Kobe Bryant, a former NBA player, and eight other people sadly perished in a helicopter crash in January 2020.
Following the incident, a push among supporters to make Bryant the new NBA logo gained steam. A Tyson Beck design sketch (shown below) garnered a lot of attention, more than 3.2 million people signed a change.org petition, and NBA stars like Kyrie Irving lent their support to the cause.
Ultimately, though, it became clear that the plan was unlikely to ever gain support because of the NBA’s traditional reluctance to publicly associate its insignia with a particular player (recall how reserved the League has always been about Jerry West’s involvement). NBA decision-makers may also take into account the awful aftermath of Bryant’s 2003 sexual assault case, which was ultimately settled out of court.
75 years of the NBA in 2021
To commemorate its 75th anniversary in 2021, the NBA temporarily changed its emblem. Even though a diamond is now more usually associated with a 60th than a 75th anniversary, it didn’t matter because it inspired the stunning reimagining of the well-known Siegel design. However, the NBA persisted in naming Jerry West “Logoman” in its formal statement for whatever reason.
This diamond version was an intriguing addition for the 2021–22 season with its brilliant white lines that evoke the lines of a basketball floor and the ’75’ sitting next to West (sorry, ‘Logoman’) in that fashionable Action typeface.
As the NBA commemorates other landmarks, we could see more of these little updates, but it’s clear that Siegel’s iconic logo won’t be disappearing any time soon.
This is the History of the NBA Logo. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
