Seattle Seahawks Logo PNG
Among American football teams, the only team from Seattle is the Seattle Seahawks, whose emblem vividly and accurately reflects the name’s meaning. The mascot on the Seattle Seahawks logo reveals the meaning of the name, highlighting the team’s primary feature: a pursuit of victory.
Seattle Seahawks: Brand overview
The Seattle Seahawks, the only National Football League team based in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, debuted in 1976 as part of the NFC West. However, a year later, they swapped conferences with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and moved to the AFC West. The team emerged as a result of the NFL expansion during the merger with the American Football League.
On June 15, 1972, the company Seattle Professional Football Inc., led by Ned Skinner and Herman Sarkowsky, announced its intention to acquire a franchise for Seattle. To expedite the process, the company’s executives began building the Kingdome stadium. The NFL made concessions two years later, on June 3, 1974. The official agreement to join the professional league was signed on December 5, 1974.
The group of owners was led by Lloyd W. Nordstrom, who represented the Nordstrom family as owners of the controlling share package. Membership in the NFL cost them $16 million. Lloyd died of a heart attack on January 20, 1976, a few days before the Seattle Seahawks’ debut.
In 1975, Seattle’s professional football team organized a contest among fans to choose a name for the club. Fans sent in more than 20,000 options, of which about 1,700 were unique. The name Seahawks (“Sea Hawk”) was proposed 151 times. It is associated with the osprey – a fast and agile predatory bird that fiercely defends its territory. According to General Manager John Thompson, this word is associated with aggression and is not used by any other major league team.
In 1988, Ken Hofmann and Ken Behring bought the franchise, paying $178 million. In January 1996, Behring decided to move it to Los Angeles – supposedly due to the high risk of earthquakes in Seattle. He had already moved the office when it turned out that the “Seattle Seahawks” had to play at the Kingdome stadium until 2005. The move fell through, and the co-owners sold the team. In 1997, it was acquired by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. After his death in October 2018, the club became the property of Paul Allen’s estate.
Meaning and History
All emblems of the “Seattle Seahawks” are dedicated to the sea hawk. It is an illustration of a ceremonial transformer mask in the form of a bird’s head among Native Americans. Initially, this style resembled the aesthetics of Native American tribes on the Northwest Coast, including the Tlingit, Chinook, coastal Salish, Haida, and Kwakwaka’wakw. Later, designers modernized the graphic sign, giving it aggression and dynamics.
What is Seattle Seahawks?
The Seattle Seahawks are the only NFL franchise that has changed conferences twice since the merger of the two leagues. It was formed in 1964 when a group of activists from Seattle Professional Football Inc. decided that the city needed its professional football team.
1976 – 2001
When the team debuted in the NFL, its logo featured a Kwakwaka’wakw native mask. The drawing, like the ritual object, is characterized by symbolic abstraction. The osprey’s head is turned to the right. It consists of several elements in white, green (“forest green”), and blue (“royal blue”) colors. The bird’s eye is a filled circle; the eyelids are open semi-circular stripes, and the beak is an arc pointing downwards.
2002 – 2011
On March 1, 2002, NFL Properties artists modernized the primitive logo. They simplified the design, removed the eyelid lines, and gave the sea hawk an aggressive look. The pupil is now shifted forward, the eyebrow is curved, and the shape of the beak is smoother than in the original version. The left side of the head is cut at an angle to create an illusion of movement. The palette also changed: the blue color approached a light tone (“Seahawks blue”), and the forest green was replaced with dark blue (“Seahawks navy”) and lime green.
2012 – today
Ten years after the redesign, the team updated the logo again. The lower left corner became dark gray (“wolf gray”). This shade was used instead of “seahawks navy,” which completely disappeared from the picture. The emblem, as before, depicts an osprey’s head in profile. It symbolizes the football club’s aspiration for glory and success. The stern look is taken from Egyptian mythology, where hieroglyphs in the form of a falcon are often found.
Font and Colors
On all emblems of the Seattle Seahawks team, a sea hawk is depicted – and not just any, but in the form of a ceremonial mask of the Native Americans of the Northwest coast. According to historical records, it once belonged to the local inhabitants of the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe, who used similar items during their rituals. The logo reflects the cultural heritage of the region and the aesthetics of Native American tribes.
The prototype for the current emblem was the 1976 version. It, in turn, was copied from a real object. In the new millennium, NFL Properties artists changed the design to move away from the mask image. The modern interpretation of the osprey’s head seems caricatured. At the same time, the redesign gave the logo a lack of dynamism and aggressiveness.
The bird’s eye is a reference to Egyptian mythology. In Egyptian writing, there were hieroglyphs in the form of a falcon, on which the emblem creators focused their attention. The image of the sea hawk itself symbolizes the aspiration for success.
The Seattle Seahawks’ brand isn’t highlighted. The absence of original fonts is not very noticeable because the graphic part itself looks unusual. In the first version of the logo, two colors were used: royal blue and forest green. On March 1, 2002, new shades came to replace them: lime green, Seahawks navy, and Seahawks blue. In 2012, wolf gray was added to the palette, replacing the sea.