Devotion to American basketball and focus on the game are these athletes’ main ideas. Therefore, the Brooklyn Nets club chose a heraldic logo, although today, the triangle bears little resemblance to the classic shield it used to be. However, the spirit of competition and the will to win were imprinted in him forever.
Brooklyn Nets: Brand overview
Founded: | 1967 |
Founder: | Joseph Tsai |
Headquarters: |
Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
Website: | nba.com |
Brooklyn Nets are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. In 1976, The Nets started to compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. The team was founded in 1967.
The club was established in 1967 as a charter franchise of the NBA’s rival league, the American Basketball Association (ABA). They played in New Jersey as the New Jersey Americans during their first season, before moving to Long Island in 1968 and changing their name to the New York Nets. They used this name until 1977. Then they returned to New Jersey and played as the New Jersey Nets from 1977 to 2012. In 2012, the team moved to Brooklyn and was renamed the Brooklyn Nets.
The name “Nets” was chosen because it rhymes with “Mets” and “Jets” – the other two New York teams. The first one is from Major League Baseball, and the second one is from the American Football League. Besides, the word “nets” directly refers to basketball.
The first franchise owner was Arthur Brown. After debut season, he sold it to Roy Boe, who was the club owner for almost ten years, until he made a deal with Secaucus Seven in 1978. The new owner conducted a rebranding and chose another logo. In 10 years, the team moved to Raymond Chambers and Lewis Katz, and then it moved to Yankee Nets in 1999.
The next owner was Bruce Ratner. On September 23, 2009, Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov reached a deal with Ratner to purchase an 80% stake of the Nets for $200 million, subject to Ratner acquiring financing for the arena project.
Meaning and History
In September 2011, in connection with moving to a new arena in Brooklyn, it was announced that at the end of the 2011/12 season, New Jersey Nets would be renamed to Brooklyn Nets. The team changed the emblem, as well as the basic colors, which became white and black. It is known that one of the owners of “Brooklyn” is rapper Sean Carter, better known as Jay-Z. It’s also no secret that he participated in creating a new Brooklyn Nets logo.
Jay-Z admitted that the old symbols of the New York Metro inspired him to create a similar logo. He used a black and white color scheme of the old system of the New York metro signposts, paying tribute to the city heritage. The graphic elements for the Brooklyn Nets logo were taken from the pointers system that existed until 1957 when Brooklyn had its professional team for the last time.
The Brooklyn Nets logo was presented in the year of its debut and directly reflected the basketball theme. Its main components are the ball, and the name played in different spellings. In total, during the club’s existence, he had eight different types of versions of his symbolism. The earliest emblem is dated 1968, the latest – 2012th.
What is Brooklyn Nets?
Brooklyn Nets is the first major sports franchise in Brooklyn since the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. It has been a member of the Atlantic Division (NBA) since 1976. Before that, the team formed the core of the American Basketball Association. Within two years of its inception, the basketball club was known as the New Jersey Americans. After moving to New York, he received the nickname Nets.
1968
The New Jersey Americans logo of this period is designed as a blue shield with white and red stripes of the American flag at the bottom. There is a basketball in the center and three stars on either side of it. Wordmark “N. J. AMERICAN” in white is on top of them.
1968 – 1972
After moving to Long Island, NY, the team first became known as the “New York Nets.” Dropping the shield, but keeping the colors – red, blue, and white – after the redesign, the logo is known to feature a wordmark “nets” against a block-lettered red “NY” backdrop, and featuring a generic player alongside it in color black.
1972 – 1977
In 1972, the Nets opted to continue the previous logo with a red, white, and blue basketball, and they removed the sportsman. They did retain the previous main logo, blue wordmark “nets” against a red block “NY”. The upper part of the basketball is red, and the lower part is blue. These two colors on the logo are colors of the state flag of the USA.
1977 – 1978
This version dates from the time when the team renamed New Jersey Nets because of relocation to New Jersey. Designers redesigned the previous New York Nets logo, they kept the previous basketball scale and added the dark outline. They put “NEW JERSEY” in the top margin and “BASKETBALL” in the tail margin. The central element had another font and color. Wordmark “nets” are black, handcrafted, with a cut-down squiggle in the letter “s.”
1978 – 1990
Logo of this period moved away from standard inscriptions, the size of the basketball, and partially the color scheme changed (the shades became lighter). New Jersey Nets logo lost a sense refers to the sport: designers added a map of a state of New Jersey in white and the wordmark “New Jersey” to the left. Word “Nets” is bigger and lower.
1990 – 1997
The New Jersey Nets logo features a gradient blend of primary colors: first comes blue, then white, then – red and white, and in the end, it’s blue again. “NETS” is in capital letters on the cut off basketball. The basketball is divided into fragments with white stripes with a black outline. The wordmark also has a dark outline. The front fragment of the letter “N” is oblong.
1997 – 2012
Brooklyn Nets brought back the shield concept from its first logo. The logo features stylized inscription “NETS” and grey basketball with white and blue stripes. The central element was moved inside the circle, which consists of three fine lines of different colors – white, red, and blue. This is a symbol of a basketball hoop and a reference to the separate basketball planet with its orbit. The shield is blue with a dark grey outline and slightly turned to the left. The color scheme in the version of the Brooklyn Nets logo became deeper.
2012 – today
The new Nets logo combines two unrelated cultures – hipster and gangsta rap. According to the subculture, you are supposed to be “into the subject.” A kind of hip-hop is associated with black color, the owner who raps, Brooklyn city, and its unique life.
After the basketball players moved to the Barclays center (to the co-owner of the team), a visual identity redesign was carried out. The author of the logo was rapper Jay-Z. The updated version is presented in the same style as before – a shield with a large “B” placed in the center of the ball. But the type of drawing has changed, so the logo looks much more straightforward: a dark background, a white inscription, a light ball, and a black letter. “B” indicates the club’s location – Brooklyn.
Despite the significant changes in the Nets style, there is one thing that migrated from the past – a shield on the emblem. However, unlike the last version of the New Jersey logo, the Brooklyn shield is depicted on a flatness, but not in a three-dimensional image, as it was popular to do in the 90s. When creating a new Brooklyn Nets emblem, designers abandoned the blue, red, and silver colors that were used earlier. At the moment, no one NBA club operates with black and white monochrome, and this is Brooklyn Nets’ uniqueness and difference from others.
Font and Colors
The basic components of the logo are two elements: a basketball (separately, in the athlete’s hands or as a background) and the word “Nets” (the second part of the team’s name). All versions are built on their unique combination.
In earlier versions of the logo, handwritten text prevailed. It was the main one and was located on the background of classic serif letters: in the foreground were “nets” with curves, in the second – an elongated “NY” from the word “New York.” After the change of location to New Jersey, the name of the new city replaced the former. Then the text part of the logo changed: instead of long characters with serifs, squat chopped signs appeared. After a recent redesign, the club chose the RollSign font.
The palette exactly echoes the US national flag: the emblem contains red, blue, and white in different proportions. The exception is the current version, made in monochrome – black and white.
Brooklyn Nets color codes
Black | Hex color: | #000000 |
---|---|---|
RGB: | 6 25 34 | |
CMYK: | 30 0 0 100 | |
Pantone: | PMS Black C |
Did the Brooklyn Nets change their logo?
Yes, this basketball team changed its logo in 2012 when they moved to Brooklyn from New Jersey. She retained the shape of the shield, although she made it two-dimensional. The ball at the bottom was retained, but the letter B appeared on it. The font for the lettering NETS has become more traditional, and the word BROOKLYN has been added under the shield. Instead of a colorful palette, the classic black and white color scheme began to be used.
Who designed the Brooklyn Nets logo?
The logo, adopted by Brooklyn Nets in 2012, was designed by Timothy Morris. This is one of the designers who are responsible for the visual identity of American rapper Jay-Z. The thing is, Jay-Z bought the rights to the Brooklyn sports franchise.
What does the Brooklyn Nets logo mean?
The shield is a traditional element of any logo, including sports ones, so its appearance can be explained by an attempt to create a symbol close to the canons of heraldry. Basketball has a special meaning, as it is the main attribute of the Brooklyn Nets: it is found in almost all team emblems, except one. And the letter “B” on the ball represents the name of the city.
What does Bed Stuy mean on Brooklyn Nets uniform?
The ‘Bed-Stuy’ lettering on the athletes’ jerseys is a tribute to the Bedford-Stuyvesant area and the people born there. First of all, it is dedicated to the rapper Christopher George Latore, aka Wallace Notorious B.I.G.