Campbell Fighting Camels is the name of an athletic program of the Campbell University, a private educational institution in North Carolina, which was established in 1887. The program is composed of 19 teams, with men’s clubs competing in nine sports disciplines, and women’s — in ten.
Campbell Fighting Camels is the common name for all men’s teams of the athletic program of Campbell a university, while the women’s teams are called Campbell Lady Camels. The whole program is composed of 9 men’s teams, and 10 women’s, which is not very common for the NCAA participants.
Apart from being a member of Division I of the NCAA, Campbell Fighting Camels is also a part of the Big South Conference, and its swimming and diving subdivisions compete within the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association. The Campbell Fighting Camels wrestling club is a member of the Wrestling Southern Conference.
What is Campbell Fighting Camels?
Campbell Fighting Camels is the name of the athletic clubs of Campbell University. The men’s and women’s sports teams compete in the first division of the NCAA in various sports disciplines, including Basketball, Baseball, Football, and Tennis.
As for the visual identity, the athletic program of Campbell University has always been loyal to the original color palette and the mascot of the program — the camel. The club’s logo has undergone two major redesigns, but the orange and black combination, with the image of the animal, has always been the most important part of each badge.
The original Campbell Fighting Camels logo, created in 1979, depicted a fierce running animal drawn in solid orange and outlined in black. The camel was placed against a transparent background and had no additional elements, but the small black square with a bold white “C” in a geometric sans-serif typeface, was set on the animal’s back.
The original Campbell Fighting Camels logo was introduced in 1993, and featured a bold black letter “C” in a geometric sans-serif, with an angular contour, a very common choice for Collegiate logos. The letter was accompanied by an image of an orange camel, running behind it to the right. It was a bright and contrasting emblem, which looked good on the jerseys of the players, and made the club stand out in the list of its competitors.
In 2005 the logo of the athletic program was significantly changed. The camel was redrawn in a more modern cartoonish manner, with a mean evil grin on its face. The orange and black composition was accompanied by a two-leveled inscription in two styles: the elegant orange “Campbell”, written in a bold serif font and outlined in white and black, and a clean and neat sans-serif additional lettering at the bottom.
In 2008 the logo of the athletic program gets redesigned again, the “C” is back to black, but not to the square shape. The letter is executed in a bold elegant serif typeface with a rounded shape and a delicate serif with rounded angles, placed on the upper part of the line. Drawn in black, it featured a bold orange outline, balanced by a solid orange camel, which is drawn behind the “C”, walking to the right, just like on the very first badge. The drawing of the animal features the same style as the one from the previous logo, but now the animal is depicted in its full size and has a white blanket on its hump. Two intertwined “CU” letters in orange are set on the white background of the blanket.
The redesign of 2023 has strengthened and intensified the camel image, used on the previous version, and simplified the composition. The large black “C” was completely removed, and now the mascot animal became the only element of the logo. It was redrawn with cleaned and bolder black contours and a brighter shade of orange. The white banner on the camel’s back was also refined, and the lettering was minimized to just “C”.