Los Angeles Chargers Logo

Los Angeles Chargers LogoLos Angeles Chargers Logo PNG

The Los Angeles Chargers logo is rich in information and visually concise and represents American football from Los Angeles. His symbol is a winning motivator, representing the speed, agility, and energy.

Los Angeles Chargers: Brand overview

Founded: August 14, 1959
Founder: Dean Spanos
Headquarters:
Costa Mesa, California, U.S.
Website: chargers.com

Los Angeles Chargers are a professional American football team based in Los Angeles, California. The Chargers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league’s American Football Conference (AFC) West division.

On August 14, 1959, the team was founded and began to play on September 10, 1960, as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). The club spent its first season in Los Angeles before moving to San Diego in 1961, with all the sportsmen and intellectual property becoming San Diego Chargers. The team was based there for a long time – until 2016. The return of the Chargers to Los Angeles was announced for the 2017 season, and now its home stadium is located in this city.

The Chargers’ original owner was hotel heir Barron Hilton, son of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton. Lamar Hunt, who was instrumental in organizing the AFL, said that he had asked Gene Mako to suggest somebody start a team in Los Angeles, and he recommended Hilton. Hunt said that he visited Hilton for less than an hour, and Hilton immediately agreed to start a team.

In 1966, the first owner sold the Chargers to a 21-member group for $10 million. The leading investors were Gene Klein and Sam Schulman. Alex Spanos purchased a majority interest (60%) of San Diego Chargers from Klein on August 1, 1984. Over the next ten years, he bought out several small co-owners’ shares, bringing his control of the team to 97%. George Pernicano, San Diego restaurateur, owns the other 3%. Since 1993, Dean Spanos has handled the daily operations of the franchise.

Barron Hilton held a contest to find a name for his team. The prize was a trip to Mexico. A man from Hollywood named Gerald Courtney submitted the name “Chargers” and won. Conrad Hilton said, “I liked the name because they were yelling “charge” at the stadium during the games. Hunt said he thought Hilton picked the team name from the first batch of letters as publicity for his new charge account business Carte Blanche.

Meaning and History

Los Angeles Chargers Logo History

Horseheads, shields, football helmets, and zippers are the most famous elements of the Los Angeles Chargers logos. The team always paid attention to their identity and changed it often because they had to move, including a new city in the name, and experiment with the image. The only symbol that was necessarily on every emblem is lightning. Artists portrayed her in different ways: either on a heraldic shield, or on a helmet, or in the form of the letter “L.” But the most famous option is a zigzag strip of an arched shape.

What are Los Angeles Chargers?

The Los Angeles Chargers are one of four AFC West teams. She appeared in 1959 and made her debut with the American Football League. Its headquarters are in Costa Mesa, California, and its home stadium is located in Inglewood, the same state.

1960

Los Angeles Chargers Logo 1960

The original Chargers logo has a reference to heraldry – to so-called roundel. Los Angeles Chargers logo is designed as a circle with an element inside. There is a shield with a dark blue horse head in the center of the logo. The logo features “LA” in blue and “CHARGERS” in white on either side of the horse head. The wordmark “CHARGERS” is white like the lightning bolt. This is done to make it stand out. A wide blue stripe with the gold nickname of the team encircles the logo.

1961 – 1973

San Diego Chargers Logo 1961-1973

In 1961, the franchise moved to San Diego, which automatically required the logo’s change because it mentioned “Los Angeles” twice. Designers redesigned the logo and removed the blue circle with a wordmark. On the shield, the “LA” is also removed. They kept only the shield (it was enlarged), horse head, lightning bolt, and the word “CHARGERS” below it. The color was changed: the navy blue became powder blue.

1974 – 1987

San Diego Chargers Logo 1974-1987

The team’s logo moved away from the previous standard in this period: San Diego Chargers’ logo was comprised of a helmet side view. The design is minimalistic without small details. The main element is blue, and its components are yellow. The helmet features a gold lightning bolt with a white and blue border and a gold facemask. The team owner decidedly didn’t want to give up on the lightning bolt’s image: he considered it a very important element, motivating the players to win. The outline of the helmet and metallic rods is black.

1988 – 2001

San Diego Chargers Logo 1988-2001

A new helmet logo was introduced in 1988. The idea is the same as in the previous emblem. The only changes were the color scheme, which darkened, more modern facemask, and the lightning bolt’s location, which was moved closer to the nape. It was made for the elements of the facemask not to obscure the lightning bolt.

3/4 view of the navy blue helmet looked more realistic due to the small details. The lightning rod’s colors and shapes are unaltered – it looks like a zigzag with a two-colored outline.

2002 – 2006

San Diego Chargers Logo 2002-2006

The San Diego Chargers logo was fundamentally changed due to frequent relocations of the team. The Chargers changed from the helmet logo to the arc-shaped bolt logo. The bolt is white with a navy blue and gold outline. This key element looked like the image of 1974 when it was on the helmet.

2007 – 2016

San Diego Chargers Logo 2007-2016

The use of the new logo marked the next decade. It was the adaptation of the previous Chargers’ logo. It featured the arc-shaped gold lightning bolt with a powder blue and navy blue outline. The designers used yellow on purpose: it referred to the remarkable speed, agility, and energy of the team.

2017

Los Angeles Chargers Logo 2017

In 2017, there was a new design logo. They were trying to replace the primary logo with it because the club moved to Los Angeles. But fans, mass media, and franchises-competitors didn’t like this version. They criticized it for being similar to the Los Angeles Dodgers logo. As a result – this emblem was used for only two days.

This version depicted the letters “LA” with a lightning bolt coming out of the lettering. The letters are interlocking, resembling a lightning bolt: the zigzag-shaped lower part of “L” is extended forward and up. The background is dark blue like a stormy sky; central elements are white like a brilliant flash in the dark.

2017 – 2020

Los Angeles Chargers Logo 2017-2020

The current logo, like the previous one, features a curved zipper. Its first version was created back in 2002 – white, surrounded by two blue and yellow lines. Since then, the design has changed several times. The transformations were not very noticeable because the developers paid attention only to the color scheme, and the original arched shape was left unchanged.

The lightning is semicircular – possibly because it first appeared on the emblem with a blue helmet and was curved to not go beyond its limits.

2020 – today

Los Angeles Chargers Logo 2020-present

The current Los Angeles Chargers logo dates from 2020 and looks very different, featuring a yellow zigzag stripe with blue outlining. This happened in 1974 when the team was still called the San Diego Chargers. The emblem has lost one of its outer contours. The edging of the logo has become thicker.

Font and Colors

Los Angeles Chargers emblem

For a football club, lightning is a sign of energy, speed, and determination. He has been using his favorite symbol in principle since 1960, not abandoning it even with large-scale image changes. This is especially noticeable in the latest emblems, which have nothing but lightning.

To compensate for the lack of other elements, the designers depicted her in an unusual style. Firstly, it is not narrow but wide and consists of two zigzag lines connected at the ends. Secondly, the artists gave it an unusual arched shape.

Los Angeles Chargers symbol

The inscriptions were only in the first team logos, but now all the attention is focused on the lightning. Its color scheme has been painstakingly worked out: from 2017 to 2020, the palette included white, blue, blue, and yellow; after 2020, yellow became the main one, blue became an additional one, and blue was out of use. White, as before, serves as a neutral background for the bright graphic sign. The team has always used these colors in different combinations to make their logos recognizable.

Los Angeles Chargers color codes

Navy Blue Hex color: #002244
RGB: 0 21 50
CMYK: 100 65 0 60
Pantone: PMS 289 C
Powder Blue Hex color: #0073cf
RGB: 0 128 197
CMYK: 90 40 0 0
Pantone: PMS 285 C
Gold Hex color: #ffb612
RGB: 238 173 30
CMYK: 0 25 100 0
Pantone: PMS 1235 C

Why is the LA Chargers called Chargers?

Barron Hilton, the first owner of the franchise, organized a naming contest for the team’s fans and promised the title a prize – a trip to Mexico City. Won the version submitted by Gerald Courtney. Barron Hilton liked the word Chargers so much that he didn’t even open the rest of the letters. Rumor has it that the team owner liked the name of his Carte Blanche card.

Why did the Chargers change their logo?

The Los Angeles Chargers had a good reason for the logo update – the move to the SoFi Stadium football field. A new era has begun in the team’s history, as it finally has a home stadium for the National Football League.

What is the Chargers logo supposed to be?

The football club logo should look like a wide and short arched zipper. The inside of the picture is yellow, and a light blue line is drawn along the outside.

Did La Chargers change their logo?

Yes, the Los Angeles Chargers changed their logo in 2020 to mark the move to the new stadium. This is the first update to the team’s core symbol since 2017.