The Tampa Bay Buccaneers is a professional football team that plays in the National Football League, South Division of the National Football Conference. It is based in Tampa, Florida.
The first Buccaneers logo – the Bucco Bruce – was a picture of a winking pirate wearing a red plumed hat and an earring, and holding a dagger in his teeth.
Brand Overview
The Buccaneers joined the NFL in 1976 with the Seattle Seahawks and experienced firsthand what it meant to be new. Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost their first 26 games in the league and didn’t bring their fans their first joy until 1979, reaching the conference finals, which they lost safely.
For most of the eighties and nineties, the Buccaneers were typical underdogs, regularly losing too many games in a season. That all changed with the arrival of coach Tony Dungey. He built an outstanding defense in Tampa and led the team to the playoffs four times, but still, it was flying out very quickly.
Before the 2002 season, Dungey was fired and replaced by a young offensive guru, Jon Gruden. With Gruden, the offense became more efficient, and the defense, on the foundation of the previous specialist, reached an all-time high. “The Bucks made it to the Super Bowl, where they faced the Oakland Raiders, Gruden’s previous employers. It turned out that since Gruden’s retirement, Oakland hadn’t bothered to change the signals on offense, so the Bucks’ defense knew in advance how their opponent would act, which helped the team win the 38th Super Bowl.
Then silence again for 17 years, with only two appearances in the wild-card round. For several years, Tampa sat back without much rushing effort. And in 2020, Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, suddenly entered the free-agent market. He chose Tampa and won another Super Bowl with it.
Meaning and history
The colorful and delightful palette of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ visual identity has been there from the very first logo version, introduced in 1976. Though the composition of the emblem was changed at the end of the 1990s, the spirit of freedom and the buccaneer aesthetics were kept in their best.
Who owns Tampa Bay Buccaneers?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a professional football club from Florida, is owned by the Glazer Family, after the death of Malcolm Irving Glazer, a famous American businessman, in 2014.
1976 — 1996
The very first emblem for Tampa Bay Buccaneers, designed in 1976, featured a Ted and yellow portrait of a buccaneer with a dagger in his teeth. The pirate, drawn by a famous artist Lamar Sparkman, was wearing a hat with a large red feather and a hoop earring. The winking face of the man added playfulness to the logo, though still evokes a sense of danger.
1997 — 2013
The redesign of 1997 brought the Buccaneers the first version of the logo we all know today. It was a pirate flag with a Jolly Roger inspired image in white, with the yellow football placed under the white skull. The background of the flag featured a dark red, close to burgundy, color, and had its handle replaced by a saber in gray and red.
2014 — 2019
The color palette of the emblem and its contours were modernized in 2014. The skull changed its shape to a smoother one and the football got its stitches white now. As for the main color of the flag, the burgundy, it was replaced by a lighter shade of red. The outlines of the image became thinner, which made the whole composition look more elegant and professional.
2020 — Today
The redesign of 2020 brought back the burgundy color of the flag, though kept all other elements untouched. The dark flag with a football-inspired Jolly Roger in white and black had a silver-gray saber replacing its handle and a dark orange rugby ball under the intimidating skull image.
Font and color
The visual identity of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers club consists only of a graphical emblem, with no additional lettering, hence there is no official typeface, associated with the team.
As for the color palette of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ visual identity, it is composed of dark red and orange, with white and gray accents, and black outlines of the elements. The palette is intense, evoking a sense of professionalism and confidence, with light elements adding dynamics and motion to the flag.
Helmet
The visual identity of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is something, that is recognized all over the globe. The bright design of the club’s helmets, exquisite color palette, and strict elegant uniform form a perfect image of powerful players on the field. The glossy silver helmets of the players feature black masks and an enlarged red-flag logo on the sides, with the iconic skull in white. Throughout the yearthe silver shade of the helmet has been darkened up but never lost its metallic gloss and style.
Uniform
The official color palette, used for the Buccaneer uniforms, is composed of four shades: the buccaneer red, which is somewhat close to burgundy, pewter, which is in between gray and brown, orange, and black. The color uniform features a red jersey and gray pants with red and black stripes and small white accents. There is also a white uniform with black and red stripes and details, an alternate uniform, in solid pewter, and white and burgundy details all over.
Home ground
Since 1998, Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been playing at Raymond James Stadium, which has a capacity of 69,218 seats, expandable to 75 thousand, and a record attendance of 74,512 people in 2017. Before that, the club has been playing in just one arena, the Tampa Stadium, built in 1967, and demolished in 1999. After two renovations, the Tampa Stadium had a capacity of 74,301 seats.
Colors
RED
PANTONE: PMS 186 C
HEX COLOR: #D50A0A;
RGB: (213, 10, 10)
CMYK: (2, 100, 85, 6)
BAY ORANGE
PANTONE: PMS 151 C
HEX COLOR: #FF7900;
RGB: (255, 121, 0)
CMYK: (0, 60, 100, 0)
BLACK
PANTONE: PMS BLACK 7 C
HEX COLOR: #0A0A08;
RGB: (10, 10, 8)
CMYK: (38, 35, 33, 92)
GREY
PANTONE: PMS 5517 C
HEX COLOR: #B1BABF;
RGB: (177, 186, 191)
CMYK: (31, 20, 20, 0)
PEWTER
PANTONE: PMS 440 C
HEX COLOR: #34302B;
RGB: (52, 48, 43)
CMYK: (65, 62, 67, 62)