The identity of the Kansas football players reflects their relationship to the region’s history and the indigenous people’s culture, symbolizing the courage and determination to achieve victory. Modern minimalism makes the Kansas City Chiefs logo recognizable without losing touch with the basics of previous emblems.
Kansas City Chiefs: Brand overview
Founded: | August 14, 1959 |
Founder: | Hunt family |
Headquarters: |
Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
Website: | chiefs.com |
Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The group was founded in 1960. Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league’s American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is a charter member of the American Football League (AFL).
This franchise embarked upon a competitive career named Dallas Texans, just like the worst club in American football history. However, in time, its founder, businessman Lamar Hunt moved the players to another place. This milestone event happened on May 22, 1963, courtesy of Roe Bartle.
He was a mayor of Kansas City and had been persuading Lamar to do it for a while. Bartle promised to triple the franchise’s season ticket sales and expand the Municipal Stadium seating capacity to accommodate the team. He suggested it because he wanted to get a member club of the NFL and enhance his prestige.
Four days after relocation, the team was renamed even though Hunt and head coach Hank Stram initially planned to retain the Texans name. They thought it was necessary because Native Americans initially lived in this area. Nevertheless, the majority chose differently. There were several options – Mules, Royals, Stars, Chief. And they chose the last one. The club was named in honor of Kansas Mayor Roe Bartle’s nickname Chief.
The founder and first owner of Kansas City Chiefs is a businessman Lamar Hunt. He owned the franchise until he died (from 1960 to 2006). Upon Hunt’s death, his son Clark was named the chairman of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Meaning and History
The Kansas City Chiefs are a conservative team. She sticks to old traditions, still using the 1972 emblem. Before that, she had two club signs. The first is a cowboy with a pistol raised above his head and a soccer ball under his arm. The original character was depicted on the background of a Texas state map because the franchise was called Dallas Texans. After the move, a second logo appeared – an Indian holding an ax and a ball. The background was occupied by a diagram of the six US states. This version was used until 1973 when the designers developed the current version.
What is Kansas City Chiefs?
This is a professional-grade American football team. She is a member of the NFL and participates in the AFC, representing the West Division. The franchise originated in 1960 and bore the name Dallas Texans, which was given to it by the founder of Lamar Hunt for the first few years. After moving to Kansas City, she got her current name in 1963. The club joined the NFL in 1970.
1960 – 1962
The logo of that time featured a football toting gunslinger set over the state of Texas in red. The gunslinger is wearing cowboy boots, waistcoat, hat, and sweater with the red word “Texans.” He’s carrying a football and a gun. He has a cartridge belt and gun holster. There’s a lone star on his bootlegs, and the cowboy is smiling.
Dallas Texans logo uses four colors – coral red, black, yellow, and white, which stand for charm, strength, and determination. The logo was designed by a cartoonist Bob Taylor. But due to the relocation of the franchise, his design wasn’t relevant anymore because there were other historical traditions in North America.
1963 – 1971
When the franchise moved to Kansas City in 1963, Bob Taylor was commissioned to produce a new logo that remained strikingly similar to his original incarnation. Taylor’s new rendition featured a running Native American. The cartoonist used such elements as moccasins, pigskin, ethnical circlet made of feathers, tomahawk, and so-called waistcloth made of two pieces of leather.
The redesigned Kansas City Chiefs logo features the figure with six states of the USA as a backdrop. The colors remained the same: red, black, white, and yellow. Initial letters of the team nickname are drawn on the waistcloth. Kansas City Chiefs kept this logo until 1971. It stood for speed, strength, agility, desire to win, and football players’ resolute striving for new heights.
1972 – today
The current logo of the Kansas City Chiefs is almost fifty years old. It was invented by Lamar Hunt himself when he was heading from Dallas to Kansas City. The founder of the team constantly thought about its visual identity, even on the plane. It was there that a great idea came to him. So the businessman sketched it right on the napkin and then just refined it, experimenting with circles and ovals. The kc chiefs logo
design is minimalistic: there are no figures and small details on it. It depicts an arrowhead with interlocking “KC” inside. White arrowhead has a thick black border.
As Lamar Hunt admitted, the design was not created from scratch. It was inspired by the San Francisco football club logo: the monogram “SF” inside an oval. Using it as a reference, the Kansas City Chief owner came up with his version with different letters and a new frame shape.
Font and Colors
The modern sign of a football club is simple in style and content. It lacks the elements that were used before 1972: no cowboys, no Indians, no sketchy maps. The main focus is on the red “KC” monogram located inside the geometric figure in an arrowhead’s shape. There is a reference to the culture of the indigenous people of America. The letters are outlined in irregular black outlines that give them a three-dimensional appearance. The white arrow also has a dark and wavy border.
While designing the logo, Lamar Hunt kept a minimalist design, but not in everything – he relied on a complex typeface with large rectangular serifs. The letters are slightly elongated horizontally.
Color matching, on the other hand, is very simple. The author of the logo decided not to experiment. He used only the shades that go into the official Kansas City Chiefs palette: coral red for the monogram, white for the arrowhead, and black for wide outlines.
Kansas City Chiefs color codes
Red | Hex color: | #e31837 |
---|---|---|
RGB: | 227 24 55 | |
CMYK: | 0 100 81 4 | |
Pantone: | PMS 186 C |
Gold | Hex color: | #ffb612 |
---|---|---|
RGB: | 238 173 30 | |
CMYK: | 0 25 100 0 | |
Pantone: | PMS 1235 C |
What does the Kansas City Chiefs logo mean?
Although the logos of the Kansas City Chiefs team are very diverse, they are made in the same style – a caricature. At first, the centerpiece was a Texas cowboy with a wide-brimmed hat and a revolver in his hand. Then a half-naked indigenous man appeared with an ax and a loincloth. A simplified emblem is now used: with an arrowhead and the abbreviation KC. It is executed with a wavy line.
What is the font of the Kansas City Chiefs logo?
The letters in the center arrow of the Kansas City Chiefs logo are in classic serif print. The glyphs are large, massive, and wide. The black shading stripe makes the characters appear three-dimensional.