The very first AHL logo was designed in 1953 and only stayed with the league for several months. It was a red and white badge with a pretty cool image of a hockey player in a solid red jersey, standing behind the stylized enlarged “AHL” lettering in white with a red outline. The inscription was executed in a fancy Sans-serif typeface, with a very recognizable shape of the “A”, which had its left bar arched, and two other letters having their contours more traditional and usual. The lettering was “underlined” by the thin strokes, coming out of the ice, where the player was skating, representing speed and strength.
The following version of the AHL logo was adopted in 1971. It also featured a hockey player in the middle of the game, yet now in a different position and with the help of a different color palette. Interestingly enough, this time, the player’s position again looks somewhat awkward. The white human figure breaks the roundel logo into two parts, red (top) and dark blue (below).
The emblem is encircled by the lettering “American Hockey League” in dark blue block capitals and “AHL” in red block capitals. The text features a plain sans serif type.
In 1984 the AHL logo was changed again, keeping the color palette of the previous version. This time it was a bold crest with a thick white and blue frame, sharp detail on the top part, and widened smooth bottom area. The Jody of the crest was colored solid red and had a wide blue banner placed on it diagonally from the up-left corner to the bottom right. The banner was outlined in white and had a massive and extended white inscription in Sans-serif capitals, written over it.
The previous badge looked powerful, but in 1987 the League decides to come back to the version, created in 1971. The circular medallion in red and blue, divided by the white silhouette of a hockey player, is outlined in thin blue and white frame and surrounded by a bold uppercase inscription in a clean and modern Sans-serif typeface, with “American Hockey League” in blue, separated from the red “AHL” by two small five-pointed stars, also in red.