What was the NBA logo before the Jerry West silhouette? Closer look at league history
The NBA logo, which features a faceless player dribbling a ball against a red and blue background, is well known to be the silhouette of one of the league's first icons: Jerry West—who died aged 86 on Wednesday.
The logo was created by Alan Siegel in 1969 after producing a similar design for Major League Baseball a year prior. Since then, the iconic logo has become attached to the league's brand and history, and it is unlikely that the NBA would make any drastic change to it. In fact, it remained virtually untouched for the last 55 years, except for a subtle font change in 2017.
What was the NBA logo before the Jerry West silhouette?
Since the league's formation in 1946, it has seen three different logos—each resembling a basketball—before it settled on the silhouette that we are familiar with today.
First logo: 1950-1953
The first logo of the NBA was represented by a white basketball with the text "National Basketball Association" written on it with a red uppercase font. It also had two green arcs on the top and bottom with the words "National" and "Association" curved against each of them. Meanwhile, the word "Basketball" was printed straight in the middle.
Second logo: 1953-1962
After three years with the first logo, the organization changed it into a red ball with white text that showcased an acronym of the league. "NBA" was placed slightly diagonally toward the bottom of the design.
Third logo: 1962-1969
After serving the organization for over eight years, the logo's color was changed to gray with black stitches running along the ball as arcs. Moreover, the text followed a serif font design with a stepping-down element applied to it.
See a visual evolution of the NBA logo here:
The introduction of the Siegel-designed logo in 1969 marked a step toward the league's revamped brand identity amid growing competition in the form of the American Basketball Association. They moved away from the ball element and shifted to a rectangular image with curved edges that Jerry West's silhouette divided into two, with its left part colored blue and the right part red. The selection of these colors, along with white, depicted then NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy's request to "position basketball as an All-American game" and "to have a family relationship with baseball" therefore explaining its similarity to the logo of the Major League Baseball (MLB).